I went for a drive today, I needed to clear my mind. I read something strange and dazzling. Fortune favors the bold, but I'm not in a bold state of mind. And thus, I went for a drive. Catharsis magnificus.
Having finished the series I was reading by Tad Williams, I began to read one of my favorite series The Winter of the World. It is tied for first place with the Dragon Prince series by Melanie Rawn in my list of favorite readings. It a story involving supernatural forces battling for and against control of a world, and humanity is caught in the middle. Fantastic read, I'm totally engrossed, again. I have read it at least 10 times, maybe more, I've lost track.
In the books, the dark forces trying to destroy humanity and rule the world are the masters of The Ice. The Ice, like glaciers of our pre-historic world, moves from the north covering the land and pushing back humanity as it covers the land. Which brings me back to my drive today.
The southeastern part of our province was at the end of one glacier formation in some age long ago. Where I drove today, you can see the actual rock carved out along the landscape and boulders all over the small hills dropped by the glaciers as they retreated. The rocks are all over the place, scattered as if some giant had dropped his basket of rocks and forgot to pick them up. The hills themselves, low and almost at sea level, are half scrub and half open bedrock, gouged and scraped long ago and worn by time and weather.
And so, between reading the books and driving through here, I'm brought again to the realization of how small we really are. Ice owned this world long ago and may own it again. One million years is a long time for us, but for our world, it is just around the corner. And we are only one little world among many. Small indeed.
*A few small pictures showing an area close by where I was are found here.
