Light and Dark

image copyright Fred First
Somehow, this yin and yang play of light on shadow seems fitting this morning.

In reading back over SRH for final edits these past weeks toward a second printing, I realize I used some terms or phrases more often than I would have thought. One such phrase when trying to express my feelings from this very time of year is “changing of gears” or something to do with the term “transmission”, this in the sense of the altered rhythms so palpable as days shorten past a unknowable magic number of hours into the pace of winter.

For the most part, on most chill mornings as I fire up the woodstove, I think it’s a beneficial change in focus that comes along starting about now, a healthy introspection leading slowly in the coldest days to a more accurate accounting of what’s been stored up, and of what remains.

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Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. I agree, this time of year we ‘gear down’, and get ready for the ‘long haul’ of winter. After the activities and long days of summer, the cold and dark force us inside – inside the house, inside ourselves, hibernation.