Little Lights and Dark Days

Little Lights and Dark Days

From Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree by Ryan B. Anderson

October 15, 2025 · 10 min

About this episode

The episode explores the transition into darker days as Halloween approaches, reflecting on the changes in nature and family dynamics during this time.

The dark creeps in now. It does that this time of year, right before Halloween. You’re in the garden until well past eight o’clock one day and the next you’re huddled by the woodstove fighting back the marrow-deep raw of a late October fog. You sit down for dinner with your family and note there is something off about the dining room; all those daily imperceptible shifts in the way the sun sets over the nearest ridge have caught up to you and are taking a small toll. All around you now, a bit more gloom sets in. Halloween is of course more than just ghouls and goblins, it is the halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice: the downhill of the downhill toward the darkest point of the year. The gloom before the true dark of the turn of the year. The leaves have finished their brief reverie. The fields, once humming with life and green, stand quiet under mist and crows. The garden gate swings in the wind, and even the morning coffee seems darker, heavier, its steam adding to the wisps at the woodline. You feel the tilt of the earth not in your bones but in your habits, the way you reach for the light switch earlier each day, the way conversation around the…

People in this episode

Host: Ryan B. Anderson

Topics covered

  • Halloween
  • autumn
  • darkness
  • family
  • gardening
  • seasonal change

Keywords

  • Halloween
  • autumn equinox
  • winter solstice
  • darkness
  • family dinner
  • gardening
  • seasonal shifts

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