We're having a cold spell here in Georgia before the temps return to the mid-eighties for Christmas, and the sun sets each night on a clear horizon. I make a cup of tea and sit on my front steps. Dead leaves carpet the ground, but I know that underneath the fragile crispness there is solid slumbering earth. The tea is warm on my lips and tongue, its steam rising and hanging briefly before my eyes, like a veil between me and the fire of the sunset. It feels newly kindled, this sun, clean and reborn, even as it sinks into indigo night.
I feel the turnings, circles within circles. The sun will go down, and then one day it will rise sooner and stronger. The moon wanes, the sun waxes, and the stars move across the sky, silent and true, each constellation a celestial migration. These illusions of human perspective mark me as a part of the cycle. For the moon does not grow or shrink, the sun blazes as steadily now as it did at the height of summer, and the stars are still and constant. It is Earth that tilts and whirls, the same earth that feels so steady beneath me. Another illusion, this steadiness, for the Earth and I are plummeting through space at 66,000 miles an hour. I hold my breath, dancer and dance, the Earth my partner. The stars are at the tumbling edge of the expanding universe, and I ride that wave as well. And I offer thanksgiving, a wordless circle of gratitude that extends in rings around me.
And so here is my wish for you during this moment of turning: May your long nights be rejuvenating, and may the Sun rise on a life of love and laughter, peace and joy, for you. May its warmth be on your shoulder, and in your heart. May it inspire and sustain you as you do the good work.
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