December 21st marks the longest night of the year.  Yet at the exact moment that we are farthest from the sun, our source of light, we begin the journey back from darkness into light.  There are moments in life when it is being in the darkness that helps us believe that the light will return.

I wish you all a warm Winter Solstice full of love and light.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness by Mary Oliver

Every year we have been

witness to it: how the

world descends

into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.

And therefore

who would cry out

to the petals on the ground

to stay,

knowing, as we must,

how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?

I don’t say

it’s easy, but

what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world

be true?

So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,

and the ponds be cold and black,

and the sweets of the year be doomed.