The celestial pendulum swings back now, back toward more sunlight, longer days and shorter nights. More sunlight slowly creeps into the sky again.

Next summer seems possible.

I finished Christmas shopping today; and along the way, in the car, I heard more reports about the massacre of the young kids in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a week ago. There is darkness, and light. And recently, in this nation, there has been much darkness and soul-searching.

Today is a swinging point, when things we can not control — gravity, the tilt of the earth, the sun — conspire to drift us back toward more sunlight and green leaves and growth: toward life evidently bursting forth again, with force.

On this Winter Solstice, next Spring seems to begin.