The character and beauty of a single snowflake is often lost in the shuffle, when it's short , unpredictable life is spent amidst the crowd;  one of so many of its kind, descending from the sky in the midst of a winter's snowfall.  The intricate pattern, the exquisite shape, the unbearable lightness of its being will forever go unappreciated. The solitary snowflake is often summarily shoveled and plowed into a snowhill; crushed, compacted, cruelly losing its identity as it merges with the collective in a mass of closely packed water molecules. Why did Nature design such beauty, only to see its creation treated so disrespectfully?  Often there is no one to witness the distinctiveness of Her art, the unique byproduct of wind and temperature working on the template of an ice crystal that becomes a simple snowflake. I guess Nature sometimes sends unsubtle blizzards our way as a gentle reminder, that we should show her more understated creations, such as snowflakes, more honor and devotion. Then we might see, in the implicit design of a single snowflake, all of the possibilities,the infinite potential inherent in the evolving process of creation. Here in the Midwest, we must not have been paying sufficient homage to Mother Nature in recent days, as she just dumped a "gentle reminder" on us.  Twenty four inches worth to be exact. It's often hard to discern Nature's intentions, sometimes I think that it's all unplanned,there's no order to it, it's random!  Then there are other times when it looks like there are patterns in Nature that repeat themselves, that there is order in the disorder.  Could there be order in the chaos?  Those who study snowflakes say yes!

Dogs appreciate the snow, we love to play in it , to shake it off when we come into the house; to spray the floor, the walls and our owners with an indoor snow shower.  We race in the white stuff, pull sleds and often slip and slide as our four legs go flailing out from under us. I must admit, that even sensitive, caring creatures such as dogs, don't commonly take time out to contemplate the fate of a single snowflake. We look at the aggregate, we're pack animals at heart. Studying solitary snow particles would come more naturally to the lone wolves among us.

There's beauty in the virginity of freshly fallen snow.  Descending gently in the silence of a towering forest it invokes a radiant purity, as if a message from Nature that ideals do exist, that there are certain absolute truths available for inspection if you are perceptive enough to appreciate their subtlety. A clue to the nature of these inherent laws might be revealed, perhaps, in serious study of the solitary snowflake.

Snowflakes are formed from the merger of two snow crystals, which then begin a journey from the clouds to the earth, floating in the wind for an hour or more.  They attract additional water molecules from their micro-environment. They send out exploratory tips, which become arrays of branches, and morph into complex structures.  Look at single snowflakes under a microscope and you'll find that they look similar at many different levels of magnification. Each falling fractal flake will be subject to a different microenvironment; temperature, humidity, wind, impurities.  As a result no two flakes turn out alike, even if they start off from the same place. You could never predict the end product from the initial conditions.  Nature in its wisdom, has given us a messenger in the form of a snowflake. Simple systems and algorithms often give rise to complex behavior. Small variations in starting conditions can cause dramatic differences in the end result.  The solitary snowflake has a story to tell; of survival, of balancing the many forces of stability and instability acting upon it, of the relative contributions of atomic scales and everyday scales to its evolution.

Dogs, and humans for that matter, are complex creatures.  We live in a universe that tosses us in the wind as we attempt to make our way to a gentle landing. We grow in a micro-environment, each iteration subject to unique forces that demand balancing. Along the way, we hope that some observer will appreciate the fine details of our structure, the unique history that formed us, the fine line we've attempted to walk between stability and instability, the story behind our survival and success. The solitary snowflake has much to teach us about this arc of life. If we remain very quiet and observe, we might hear its gentle lesson.