I was just standing out back, blowing plumes of smoke into the falling snow. White lines whirled and leapt away from me, their course changed by an act of will.

Spiritual and religious considerations are inadequate, as some definitions of magick--"high magick" being the closest notion that occurs to me--would apply to this simple act. I cannot see any reason for the excessive metaphor. But a deliberate act of will on my part has left an imperceptible signature in nature.

We humans have neither the natural faculty nor technological capability to identify this act after the fact. No forensic investigation possible today could document the final effect of those several snowflakes out of ... trillions?

If a tree falls in the forest ...?

Does my act of will exist in any form other than a memory and a testament? Is it real? Being inadequately schooled in such ideas as "chaos theory" I cannot even examine that aspect.

But somewhere in there I see ... not necessarily a conflict ... but a strange juxtaposition between essential existence and the practical recognition thereof.

Unfortunately, until I better-identify that relationship, I can't even tell you what the hell I'm going on about.

It's just a mood thing, anyway. There's nothing particularly original about this conundrum. Just ask the trees in the forest.

You see, altering the stone's course provides 'order'...Left alone, all things reach an order; 'tis what you seek, no? It is completely incorrect-- order existed in the alterating.

The falling tree is a consequent of a multitude of factors whose origination is lost in the afterthought of the falling tree. Should you have blown the smoke? I'd say it's completely irrelevant, as is the impact of the 'altered' snowflake.