Winter Gorgany – we are in a fairy tale again!

I often ask myself: What makes us leave our cozy city nests, stuffed with the electronic-digital pathos of a civilization that persistently dictates its rules of the game, and rush off into unseen distances, forgetting everything: positions, age, rights and duties, templates and stereotypes? The Ukrainian Carpathians, winter Gorgany – we are in a fairy tale again! The heavens opened and everything was swept with white! Playful snowflake-bees whirled around us, drawing us into a light airy dance of winter… The soul soared, freezing in delight! Not feeling the cold in our wet feet or the weight of our loaded backpacks, we flew like birds across the endless snowy expanses, absorbing something that cannot be put into words or conveyed through the whole palette of positive emotions! The brilliant purity of the virgin forest, the composed, strict impeccability of Her Majesty Winter, delighted and thrilled us. In the endless milky-white haze, the slender curves of the mountains, rising into the sky, were barely outlined… And the wind's delightful descant merged with our thoughts and feelings. And in the evening, by the warm flicker of a candle, inhaling the gray-blue puffs (now seeming like a sweet aroma) of smoke from the leaky stove, which, puffing, tried to warm our temporary shelter, we listened to the captivating stories of our wonderful guide Ivan…. But time is fleeting and relentless… On the way back we met a hermit living in these places, who had renounced the great in order to comprehend the GREAT… A deep gaze, filled with some hidden sadness, intently peering into the depths of his own heart, to discern there and attain that longed-for freedom and the chance to be HIMSELF! So what drives us, carrying us away from the vanity of this mad age? Perhaps, like that hermit, we subconsciously strive for the embrace of nature, to immerse ourselves in its ringing silence, to know ourselves, to become more whole, harmonious and happy! We returned, only to return again, said goodbye, only to meet again with the snow, with winter, with this unreal reality! We left, and the snow kept falling, falling, falling…, covering our tracks..