for those of us in the northern hemisphere …

All Hallows, All Saints – heading into a deeper dark before the sun begins to creep back, lighting candles to remember the light and carry it with us.

And Persephone ate those three pomegranate seeds.

On some level – knowing/unknowing – she chose to eat the seeds that kept her with Hades in the dark. It was a choice.

The darkness is, anyway.
How we live with it is a choice.

It is choice that only has one option, but choosing that one option has a degree of freedom that feeling the option enforced does not.

Embracing it is less painful – and far less exhausting – than fighting it.

This too will pass and wishing away the darkness is wishing away time and life.

Choosing to live this time and this life, dark or not, offers a freedom.
A limited freedom to be sure, but every freedom is limited – by time, by place, by mortality – that is the magic of the paradox of possibility.

Winter darkness is.
Light candles within it.

with love and thanks to my dear Mary O’Connor for the prompt.