“In a year that stripped life to bare fundamentals, the natural world has become our shared story. Seasons have offered the rare reminder that the world moves on even as our sense of time blurs.”

“The undeniable hardship of this winter is a reminder that for much of human history, particularly in colder climates, winter was a season simply to be survived. Winter is a primal time of death and loss, and a time for grief. It reminds us that darkness, not only light, is part of the recurring rhythm of what it means to be human.”

“I’ve stopped trying to handle the darkness. I let the darkness handle me instead. Most of the time all it wants to do is to hold me for a while – slow me down, keep me from running, cover me up long enough to remember that being in the dark doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. It means I’m alive, and this is part of the deal.”

“The great irony of winter is that the moment darkness is greatest is also the moment light is about to return. Each year the solstice comes with the promise that the next day will be brighter.”

“…you have lived through long nights before. It is precisely at the point that the night is longest and darkest that you’ve actually turned a corner. Look for the smallest bit of beauty around you. That very much resonates today, at a time where it seems like the mega-systems are all broken or falling apart, to return your gaze to the small.”

“I have spent some long, scary nights waiting for the sun to come up. There have also been some long, barren seasons when I feared the sap would never rise again. The hardest thing is to keep trusting that the balance will shift again even when I can’t imagine how. So far it has.”

Look for the smallest bit of beauty around you, dear friends. Stay warm, stay rested, stay nourished, stay healthy and trust that the growing season will be here in good time.

(All quotes from “Winter Descends, a Dark, Bitter Echo of Our Past,” by Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times, December 20, 2020.)