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Advent begins tomorrow, and even though the new year is yet to come, Advent, as the start of the liturgical new year, always feels like a truer fresh start. (But I don't make resolutions, if I make them at all, until after Epiphany!)  With the cycle of seasons outside my window, this seems a good place to begin.

Summer is over.  Fall has nearly ended, and the pile of tasks that piggyback on changing seasons are complete.  The gardens sit sad and empty, razed of all that fed us this summer, with only kale and brussels sprouts left to face the wind.  After many weeks of fitful fall shifting to summer every week or so, the sharpness in the air is here to stay.  The wind has a wildness that only belongs to winter, and it rushes around eaves and corners with a locomotive roar.  On windless nights, I wake in the dark to nurse the baby and listen to the howling keen of coyote-song, an unearthly bit of discordant beauty that seeps through the cracks of this old house.

Advent is a road from darkness to Light, and I love that the world outside so perfectly reflects that. Near to our celebration of the coming of Christ, who shook the world and lit it large with His simple birth, the light of our dark northeastern days begins to increase.  Along with the emptied gardens, along with the animals settling into quieter winter rhythms,  in the stillness and encroaching darkness, we wait. I type this waiting for December 25th, for great Hope heaped on hope.