Moon Lantern

You mustn't think I don't know.

No one will ever watch longingly as I walk into the dark with my moon lantern.

It troubles me that you think I don't know. 

15 Degrees Of Scorpio

Thursday, November 7, the exact midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. 

I was drawn outside in spite of the damp and found the landscape full of secrets. Roaming stags and swirling leaves. The susurration of the wind in the trees. I walked until I was numb with cold, but it hardly mattered. Vast, shadowy birds swooped through the low clouds and vanished. Messengers from the other world, it seemed.

Photos and video are only thin copies of a place, never capturing the spirit itself, though I suppose it's one of the few ways we can take something from nature without stealing. All the same, I'm glad I have this, the memory of the grove on a chill November morning. 

At the threshold of the darkest part of the year. 

Gaslight

Downtown, where the gas company used to be, the lamps are still burning. The ones I mentioned here. The gas company moved out years ago, so the light illuminates little these days but an empty  lot and the occasional passerby. Still, the lamps stay lit. 

Around the corner at the Protestant church, the much fancier gas lamps shine a warm glow on parishioners leaving basement recitals and potluck suppers, but this gas lamp - my gas lamp - soldiers bravely on alone.

There is something inexpressibly beautiful about a single light in the darkness.