The darkness comes early each evening, this time of year, descending on the world like a blanket. The night is long. And yet, there is beauty in it. We need the darkness as much as the light. It’s time to go within, to dream and to ponder and to think about how we’ll choose to be reborn when the light returns.

“There are two, Arren, two that make one: the world and the shadow, the light and the dark. The two poles of the Balance. Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn. And with them all is reborn, the flower of the apple tree, the light of the stars. In life is death. In death is rebirth. What then is life without death? Life unchanging, everlasting, eternal? – what is it but death? – death without rebirth?” – Ursula K. LeGuin