It is the Long Night, the heart of Winter, and the remoteness of the sun allows the shadows to rest more heavily on our minds. The shadows that whisper things like “hope is lost,” or, “life sucks,” or simply blur our sight to show the obvious flaws of our friends and loved ones. For countless centuries our ancestors have honored this Long Night with candles, and song, and the dogged love of green things, to remind us that, even when the Dark seems thick enough to pet, there is Light. There are children to be loved and tousled; there is music to be voiced; there is the memory and the anticipation and the presence of Warmth. In this Long Night it occurs to me that, if we can do nothing else, we can always breathe a Thank You: to Love, to Night, and to the forgiving Earth as She slowly swings around the corner and trudges once more toward Spring.
