From Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram:
“The stars glimmer in the solstice dark, their faint light mirrored in glints off the crusted snow. Far below these blanketed fields, deep beneath the bedrock, a lustrous power slumbers, fitfully, like a bear in its cave. The resplendence it carries by day is now subdued and smoldering — a slow burn, crackling within its hearth at the heart of the Earth. As this power sleeps, it dreams. The dreams roil and flicker and seethe, curling back upon themselves and sometimes flaring, scorching the walls and scattering sparks. A few sparks embed themselves like seeds in the enfolding dark, others wink out and vanish….”
From “Forever’s Start” in Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings by Madeleine L’Engle:
“The days are growing noticeably shorter; the nights are longer, deeper, colder. Today the sun did not rise as high in the sky as it did yesterday. Tomorrow it will be still lower. At the winter solstice the sun will go below the horizon, below the dark. The sun does die. And then, to our amazement, the Son will rise again.”
