The first measurable snow of this winter gently and persistently covered the landscape in a soft blanket of white for two days. Trees were flocked and decorated. Grasses were smoothed; hardly any drifts marked the surfaces. It was a peaceful scene, especially when the sun returned to enliven the snow with sparkles of light. Peace abounded.

But around the globe, changes stir. In various places including Russian Siberia, giant sink holes are opening up, the result of melting permafrost allowing vast amounts of climate damaging methane to escape. While Russia tries to blow Ukraine to smithereens, wasting huge amounts of energy in rockets, exploding armaments, military vehicles, drones and other weapons, the Earth is swallowing parts of Russia down into the belly of the planet.

Volcanoes have been erupting in Iceland, Indonesia, Guatemala, Sicily, Russia, Hawaii, among other places. Northern California just experienced a 6.4 earthquake, strong enough to dump people out of bed. It does not come close to the top 10 recent earthquakes elsewhere — Peru, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Japan, Alaska, for instance.

The upheavals are not happening just in the landscape. The Ukrainians continue to surprise the world with their resilience, persistence and bravery. And they are not the only ones.

In Iran, both women and men have risen up to protest the death of a young woman detained for not following strict rules about head coverings. To much astonishment these protests continue even with deaths and executions being perpetrated by the repressive regime. In China, people have resisted the harsh COVID restrictions that have led to some unnecessary deaths when people could not leave their homes during fires or health emergencies and were left to die. After a surprising number of days of protests that began to spread to other regions, China’s leadership abruptly changed policies and loosened constraints. Unimaginable a year ago.

In the U.S. the January 6 Committee released its final report, more than 800 pages of detailed documentation of the intentional efforts to overthrow our democracy backed up by thousands of pages of depositions, interviews, and texts. The various committee hearings offered only early rumblings of the findings. Now the report has cracked open the political landscape like a seismic event that lays bare the treacherous actions and intentions of our former president and countless others, including many elected representatives expecting to take their seats in Congress and work their wills on the country.

I don’t think so. The perpetrators will try to cover up their intent and actions with blankets of lies; they will continue to try to hold on to their power with deception. They will rationalize their egregious actions with hollow rhetoric about fraud or socialism or debt ceilings or immigrant arrivals or other cover stories that will not stand up to the intensifying heat of the justice system. As with the unrest in Iran or China, the fissures reveal the heart of the situation — oppression and exploitation versus the need for people to live to their full, humane and conscientious potential.

Though we are just seeing the smallest increments of extra light each day now that we have passed the solstice, the change is inexorable. It is hard to believe it right now, but spring will arrive. What about justice?

Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.

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