Right now the earth in our little spot is tilted about as far away from the sun as it ever is. Sunlight reaches us from lower in the sky, from a sharp angle rather than high overhead. Thursday, December 21st is our winter solstice, after which the days slowly begin to lengthen again. But in these shortest days the light is different; not only does midday seem like late afternoon, the light spectrum has shifted and is a bit more golden.

Not long after noon, the light looks like it is the end of the day, and I get a sense of things coming to a close. Daylight will soon end, and so will the year. What needs to be put in order before this season and this year is done? What has slipped away while we weren’t looking? It is only a vague emotional tone, nothing more, but it can bring an elegiac feeling to the day.

The light is beautiful, perhaps in part because it contains more of the warmer part of the color spectrum, and because its slanting angle produces more shadows and clearly defines what it touches.

On a recent walk I was particularly struck by all this. There was a large oak whose leaves were becoming quite yellow, and underneath it a small sumac with crimson leaves. The ground beneath was carpeted with leaves in shades of brown and yellow. I thought, “What is this trick of the light that makes everything so much more clear, deepens the colors and highlights things so that I see each one clearly? What is this, that makes it feel like the end of the day, things coming to a close, deepening the emotion along with the color?”

I would be interested in knowing the extent to which others experience these things. If you notice any of these qualities of autumn light, I encourage you to write a comment about it. If you haven’t thought much about it, then find a sunny day while the days remain very short and take a walk somewhere in nature. See what your perception tells you.