This is the season of scant light, the day’s heart sooty at best.

Oh, the darkness, keeper of so many secrets. My garden’s soil where rough-edged chard and calendula seeds germinate, where tree roots clench and foxes den. In the summer, the night sounds sing of lust and procreation, hunger and scavenging. The night is the realm of star and moonlight, of the mysteries of creation and romance. And more—in all those hospital nights I endured this past winter, I often woke drenched in nightmares, disoriented. Gasping, I whispered that I was still here, still part of this world. A hospital at night is a ship full of humans, listing its way through uncharted territory.

This morning, crossing over gradually into the days of longer light, into this winter that has barely begun to breathe its life, I carry my glowing ash bucket outside and stand in the cold. Below me, the village lights sprinkle through the valley. My neighbors, early risers, too, have not yet snapped on their kitchen lamp. The wind stirs, and I shiver, barefoot in my Danskos, my hearth divided between stove and bucket, inside and outside, a small thing to consider. I keep standing, keep shivering, my blood running hot.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. ~ Wendell Berry (of course)