December

Abstract

How many humans in history have hurried—as I did tonight— trying to defeat the impending darkness. I arrived on the mountain at four o’clock this afternoon, and when I opened the cabin door, the inside temperature was thirty-six degrees. Before I started a fire, however, I realized that I had work to do, in a hurry. The sky was darkly overcast, the western horizon a deep purple red, and the light that remained to me was less than an hour’s worth, at best. I had to move one pile of damp split-wood under the house in order to start it drying, and I had to get another pile from beneath the porch, under the eaves by the front door, to keep it dry and close at hand for at least the next twelve hours. The forecast is for snow. I did not want to have to transport armloads of wood in the snowy dark with only a flashlight, especially since I was alone on the mountain. I set to work immediately.

Then only will you see it, when you cannot speak of it; for the knowledge of it is deep silence, and suppression ofall the senses.

—Hermes Trismegistus (Lib. 10.5-6)