The Autumnal Equinox past, we move into shorter days, the residue of the calendar and solar years. The light draws down, no more basking in the brilliant summer sunlight one can bear unmediated for only so long; we, and our animal companions, are drawn to what subdued light shines into our lives, falling on scuffed floorboards, narrow windowsills, worn couch cushions.

And another darkness is descending, met by, calling out, a surfacing from the deep of fears and frustrations that have lain semi-dormant in unfathomed recesses. Our rhetoric grows harsh and cruel, divisions and misunderstandings erupt in usually civil interactions, we find ourselves defensive, tense, apprehensive, at odds with ourselves and our world.

Yet even, perhaps especially, in these less tangible, more heart-burdening areas of our lives, public and private, we can and must allow ourselves to be drawn toward what light shines into our lives, amplifying it, calling it out in ourselves and in others, holding our hopeful candles up against the seeming dying of the light.

I see it all around me, in the patient, positive gathering of circles in our Schoolhouse to write and to share insights, in the peaceful massing of individual voices and bodies in demonstrations proclaiming that Black Lives Matter and that education, rather than violence, is the answer, in knitting circles and meditation groups, in the feeding and sheltering of the homeless, in interfaith affirmations of solidarity and resettlement of refugees that proceeds in spite of bigoted laws that would prevent the very effort.

Bring the light you want to see in the world.

Mary Peckham for The Poplar Grove Muse