The Dark Lunge

You have heard in a poem or story somewhere that the “dark creeps in” or that “shadows creep” or something about the “creeping gloom.” It is true, the dark does creep in this time of year; suddenly it is no longer dawn when we wake. We look up from the dishes, from playing with the children, from doing some post-dinner chore and suddenly it is blacker than pitch outside. Yes, we are all aware of how the darkness creeps in this time of year, but no one ever speaks of how, when it has crept all it can, it finally lunges like a coiled black cat.

Arthur Rackham

We are in the midst that dark lunge of the year now. Halloween marks the center point between the autumn equinox that has passed and the winter solstice to come. It is, by every tangible measurable metric, the darkest time here in the northern hemisphere. The darkness snuck up on us while we were harvesting the garden, while we were canning tomatoes, while we were getting the children out of the swimming holes and into the schools. We knew the light was fading after the summer solstice, but in those long languid July days and August’s warmth and September’s splendor and all those fine afternoons spent by the lake, it is so easy to forget that we were running out of time. Isn’t that how it always goes, in all things?

There is a way to ward off the gloom, however.