The Woods at Dusk

New Year

It’s dusk in late December and the woods are quiet. I stand on my backyard deck lost in the mystery of nature. Two squirrels chase each other through the snow and deepening shadows. I listen to the stiff maple trees creak in the breeze, and hear the soft click, click, click of empty sunflower shells landing on each other, dropped by wrens and finches at the feeder. The magenta of the sunset flows across the sky, then shifts to violet.

I let nature’s presence settle into me. Weary from a long year of challenges, I wait for something unknown to come. I want to root myself again into nature’s wonder, and scale back my expectations so that simple things delight me again. I want to be renewed and believe that all good things are possible.

There is something eternal about nature, something that endures no matter what happens to me, something that is unchanging. When I spend time in the woods or along the river, I think again that enough compassion exists in people’s hearts to comfort everyone who is suffering.

The quiet conversations of animals and birds go on in the woods. As the last of the sunset fades, the sky deepens to the radiant night blue. Stars appear and sparkle in the cold as the earth sails among their islands of light and across the dark, majestic ocean of the cosmos. I think Sigurd Olson writing when he paused in his paddling on Lake Superior to listen to nature around him:

The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shore.

My neighbors across the way are hosting a holiday party. I hear the happy music and laughter and see the colorful lights and dancing. Someone comes out on the deck, stands by their railing, and gazes into the woods. Perhaps the party has become too warm or too loud and she needs to take a break. Together we listen to nature celebrating this night in its quiet way. Perhaps we feel the hope of the earth turning back towards spring.

The moments when we pause our busy lives like this, and look into the darkness with more curiosity than fear are eternal, I remember that life is not a race but a dialogue.

The breath of life. The impermanence of time. The eternity of hope.

© 2025 Mark Liebenow