Longing for Light

I lurch awake before sunrise and make tea, then lean against the counter and wait for rays from the rising sun to make their way through the south facing kitchen window, slanting in from the east. Sometimes there is sun to be seen, but often there is not at this time of year, just dark scudding clouds and murk.

Northern days are lengthening as a new calendar year begins, but they do so very slowly, only a few minutes a day. We are on February's middling pages before change can be seen and felt in morning's touch through the windows at dawn.

There is a fine elusive old truth resting out there in the interstices between earth and sky at sunrise, in the flickering dance of light and shadow. On rambles in the woods, I trace shadows in the snow with my fingers and measure the difference in their inclination from day to day. The shadows whisper that springtime is already on its way, but they also say that it will be quite a while until the season actually shows up and stays.

January skies can be breathtaking before dawn, their vivid central blue transitioning gloriously to rose and gold and purple near the horizon, but temperatures down here on the sleeping earth are bitterly cold and windy, and they chill a body to the bone. So mote it be. Until spring appears, I will look for dancing motes of light in the great wide world, and within myself. I will gaze at the great trees and remember that deep within their dreaming roots, my sisters cradle the light. It's always about the light.