It takes a while for him to notice her as he believes it is his party and he must entertain all the guests. But the witness is born to witness, and witnessing her, he became curious. He calls in the guards and approaches. Suddenly silent, he is afraid, but stepping through the revelers and the trays of champagne, he politely asks her to dance.

The observer, she is already gliding: through, with and between it all. Soft and almost ephemeral, her eyes drink him in so deeply he wonders if he was even seen or indeed, if he was ever here at all.

So he takes her by the waist, and begins to waltz, in the way that the best instructors of the land had taught him.

She sways to his structure and moves with perfect flow, unbothered by his clumsy remembering. And the more he holds her form, the more he loses status and direction.

It seems she is melting into him – this beautiful, silent observer – and he into her. His pulse is her pulse, and his peace is her peace and the happening between them, it happens together and as one, until all his witnessing diminishes to a pin-point star in an eternal sky.

And soon, existence itself is dancing naked there, held with a rhythmic pulse of love and the intelligence of the rock. And here, within all that, a full peacefulness emanates from a rising moon .

And far outside, in the falling snow, the trees are breathing in the light of the hall, the warmth, the celebration and the ice-glinting reflections of all they have always been holding between heaven and earth and the space between.

Two snowdrops fall to earth, near the roots of the old oak. Silently, sweetly, they melt one into the other, becoming whole in the space where the roots of the tree are majestically drinking in the winter.