Only a few more days til winter solstice. That means only a few more days of darkness, then we start gaining light. The darkest days of winter are almost over.
Lately the sun rises at 11 am and sets at 3 pm. The sun peaks over the mountains for about an hour of direct sunlight and then hides. At lunch yesterday I sat by the window, enjoying and soaking up the little bit of sunshine that hit my cheek.
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| View from my office |
Prior to the start of winter I was most afraid of the lack of sunlight. I was preparing myself for a difficult time adjusting to the darkness. It's amazing how much your body adapts to change. You start to accept it and enjoy the precious light you receive. There is a slant of light in winter that illuminates the mountains in alpine glow for hours. Some days it is like having a three hour sunset and sunrise. While the light may not shine for long in winter, the little that does warms your soul.
"I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars." -Og Mandino
The daylight opens your eyes to the beauty of the earth, but the darkness opens your eyes to the beauty of the universe. The stars, the moon, the planets, the aurora. Nothing makes you feel smaller than looking at the stars and thinking about the vastness of space. Abraham Lincoln said "I never behold the stars that I do not feel I am looking in the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a person to look down upon the earth and be an athiest, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God." It's a big universe out there, and we are only a small drop in the bucket. Take time to appreciate the light in the world and in each other.
"Never lost an opportunity for seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting- a wayward sacrament. Welcome it- in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light." ~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
