"(...) This world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one."
- Buddha, Kaccayanagotta Sutta (link)
On a recent trip to Geneva, I walked by, and barely noticed, a shelf of snow globes featuring the iconic Jet d'Eau, materialized and preserved in water-like substance. The actual Jet d'Eau which I had just visited was reflected in their glass domes, offering a spectacular mise en abyme.
I barely noticed because I have mostly lived in cities and imported kitsch souvenirs fading in the sun have usually lined the streets where I walk. But there was something about the snow globes that bothered me and begged me not to dismiss them without wondering what psychological need was being met by this cultural practice.
Anthropological investigation requires patience and the courage to call your mind on its politically-correct haughtiness. So thoughts like the irony is that making and importing all this artificial matter in toxic water-like substance is killing the environment, is killing the water, is killing us need to be transitioned to something softer, more open-ended with space for potentiality. To begin, the anthropological mind might ask: what work does a snow globe do? what is it good for?
Very basically, snow globes allow someone to hold on to, and to accumulate, something to which they feel connected - often places, but also characters, scenes, or brands. One fashion blogger wrote that "getting one won't help because you will then want more."
Yet, snow globes are not doing the same work as statues or images, both which they often contain. Many feature a miniature statue, or a background image without anything else. This suggests that it is especially the water mixed with antifreeze, the artificial snow, and the dome which have the ability, through our intentional movement, to transport us back to a certain mood. Some, such as Maison Martin Margiela's empty globe pictured here, contain no statue or image at all, suggesting that mood is actually pre-matter, or spiritual, in nature.
The crystalline, uterine, lemurian worlds, however material and impermanent themselves, invite us to sense ourselves into the essence of something we thought only material.
They invite us to hold this mood, itself imparted through the fragility of matter, through the fragility of the planet, through the fragility of our own perception. There is the question of impending planetary catastrophe, of aging snow globes whose atmosphere has turned yellow and viscous and before which we ask how necessary this all is anyway, and if our urge to have and to hold on to is what got us to this point of no return.
Artist and snow globe creator Walter Martin, interviewed by Murphy, tried to explain their allure through this lens of control: "It's the relationship with a miniature world with yourself as voyeur and omnipotent being looking down at this scene and you can make it snow."
Beholding them in their fragility is a mise en abyme of our very own predicament: through them, we recognize the futility and impermanence of all things material, the petitesse of our own grasping mind - indeed, how absolutely doomed it is - and yet, in the ultimate truth, in the objective analysis, in the pure awareness, everything is always okay, even when our water yellows and the sky cracks.
The snow globe may be a completely unnecessary use of finite resources, and yet it is not nothing: the mood it makes accessible is very real and important to us. It is both material - reflecting our belief that it is possible and desirable to hold on to certain moods through things - and spiritual - indulging our need to be closer to and contemplate moods and meanings, conjured by but not reducible to things. It draws us into the tension between relative and ultimate truth and invites us to embrace the potential of the resulting emptiness, which Mingyur Rinpoche, interviewed by Hasenkamp, described:
"When you really look, in the end [a thing] loses its meaning. (...) That is the meaning of what we call empty. So what we call empty and ness, (...) 'empty' meaning, it doesn't inherently exist. And 'ness' meaning, not nothing. Everything can appear. So, possibility. These two are one. Though it does not exist, (...) potential can manifest. (...) What we perceive mostly is in our mind, (...) created by mind. It does not really exist out there, but at the same time, it's not nothing: you're experiencing that. You can still perceive that. So, 'emptiness' meaning, these two are a union, like (...) fire and heat, or water and moisture."
Works Cited
Hasenkamp, W (Host). 2021 April 21. Mingyur Rinpoche - Awareness, Compassion, and Wisdom [audio podcast]. Mind & Life Institute. (link)
Murphy, K. 2012, December 20. The World Through a Flurry of Snow. New York Times. p. E8 (link)