You know how when a star collapses it makes a black hole? You can’t see it, of course, because even the light you might see it by falls into its gravity. But you can see a white hole!

It’s not the gravity that’s swirling around this one, but the surface tension of the … ice! I went down to the lake because the trails up to the mountain are too slippery, and a poor goat like me could throw a hoof. I’m sure glad I went down to the water!

The ice has been forming on the shore and then breaking up again, then reforming, then breaking up, then reforming and breaking up and piling on top of itself, and all of this tension has been making white holes …

… full of light. Check out this double white hole!

Move over, Stephen Hawking, I say. Look at this one caught while facing away from the sun …

(The star pattern comes as the water of the lake meets the sky by breathing through this blow hole.) Here is a school of white holes in various stages of development …

And here is an entire galaxy being drawn in …

Sometimes these ice universes stack up on top of each other …

And that’s beautiful, too. Here’s a glimpse right inside one.

And here’s one absorbing another.

These are like photographs made out of ice, water, air, light and the molecular tension of water. And that’s like breathing, I think. Here’s a video of the lake breathing through one of its white holes. Like a seal! (Forgive the sound of traffic in behind. It’s part of Canadian colonial culture to build roads right beside lakes, especially if they get to pass through an Indian Reserve on the way. This one is on Okanagan Indian Band Land. But perhaps you can screen all that out by turning the sound down on your machine?)

Oh, and might this be a self portrait? An ice troll wearing a monocle?

I’d be honoured if it was.