A conversation on the value of darkness, Gary Zukav concludes...

The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.
Gary Zukav

Image by Mark Strand, Winter Solctice