The Joy of Shorter Days

We are entering a magical, ethereal time of year as the days grow shorter. When the light show starts and the season of mist, fog, frost and snow is upon us. When the colours of autumn lift our spirits and the stark minimalism of winter shows us the beauty in the bare bones of our landscapes.

I used to dread the cold, the dark, the feeling of having to retreat indoors, but then my health crisis happened and I changed how I saw and experienced the world. I made a choice to find joy in my limited life. I had my own personal artistic renaissance through landscape photography, which opened my mind to the wonder of limited light. It’s not the quantity of sun but the quality of luminosity that matters. And even the darkness brings its own kind of charm.

Come with me on this journey to find happiness as we slide into winter.

The light around sunrise and sunset is dynamic, soft, incredibly varied and taps into our primal emotions. It is also far more accessible as sunrise becomes later in the morning and sunset happens earlier in the evening.

The light show starts with twilight, which creates an otherworldly diffused glow of pinks, purples and oranges along the horizon. This shifts to blue hour when the sky becomes awash with delicious, rich cobalt. This is a bewitching time in towns and cities, where the orange radiance of the street lights creates a cosy ambience while the streets turn purple.

As the sun moves closer to the boundary between earth and sky, we enter golden hour, when the landscape is revealed and becomes luminous in soft, luscious, rich colour. Then the sun peeks over the horizon and the high drama of backlit scenes and reflected light reveals itself.

As the sun sets, this cycle repeats in reverse, and the possibility of witnessing the drama of a colour-soaked sky happens twice in one day.

As temperatures dip, the mist rises, the fog settles, the moisture freezes and the snow falls.

These conditions feel like we are on a boundary between our world and a fictional realm. Our imagination fires up as we link our landscapes to fairytales and fantasy stories. People stop in their tracks and start celebrating the scenes with strangers. These magical moments enable us to escape our worries, connect with our environment and share our joy with other humans.

This time of year sees a wonderful shift from large swathes of lush green to a rainbow of colours amidst the trees as autumn arrives. It’s as if the trees throw a final golden party before they expose their gnarly tendrils to the sky. Even when the landscape stands naked, the colour keeps lighting up our lives as the clouds fire up pink and red at dawn and dusk.

Stormy skies envelop the heavens as the colder weather arrives. The sky sometimes turns into deep blue lava spilling over our heads. Occasionally, light pierces through, diffused, with rays stretching down to earth. Light filtered through rain has a magical quality as microscopic golden droplets hang in the air, distilling a soft glow across the landscape.

While we may have seen spring and summer as the seasons of rebirth and plenty, these harsher times of searing temperatures and drought are inverting my perception of the seasons.

The colder months provide respite from the strain of successive heatwaves and fires on both our landscape and our bodies. The rain refills our waterways and water tables alike. The cold calms our immune systems and provides our organs with a reprieve from the strain placed on them. I hope that our wildlife can also benefit from the rising water levels and the escape from the heat.

What makes you feel peaceful during the colder months? If you can, try focusing on what you’ve gained rather than what you’ve lost. It will turn the dread of winter into a spring of joy.