Originally published in The Mountain Connection, March 2005.

Each month, when I sit down to write this column, there is a moment where I have a blank screen staring back at me, waiting for me to fill it with some thoughts or observations. Groping for that literary thread I was suddenly inspired by a creative moment that I experienced last month.

One morning I woke up to a beautiful tableau on my bedroom window. A moist weather system had come in the night before and crystals of ice had formed on everything. Long thin blades extended the pine needles' already prodigious length and coated everything in a coating of rime.

I lay under the warm covers admiring the patterns of ice crystals that had formed on the cold window glass. In places, it had formed sheets that covered the glass in a thin film that acted as a wonderful prism, reflecting and changing the light of the early morning sun. In other places, the ice crystals formed long thin stems that arced across the pane and then branched suddenly, without warning, skating across the glass in unexpected directions, or blossomed into wonderful ice feathers.

I suddenly jumped out of bed and ran to get my camera. I had to capture this magical ephemeral moment before it was gone. As I snapped away, though the pattern of the ice crystals remained fixed, the slowly rising sun constantly changed the colors and lighting of the scene before me.

In a very short time I burned through an entire roll of film. I glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had drifted by unnoticed. In a short while the warmth of the sun melted away my canvas.

It is these brief visions, moments of inspiration, and spurs to creativity that keeps me interested and excited about photography and art in general. Keeping our minds open and senses attuned, to see and appreciate the beauty in the world, help us to not miss those special moments that can inspire us, whether we capture it with a brush, camera, or just the mind's eye.