We greeted the winter solstice in Japan on a small island near Tokyo called Enoshima. For me the darkest day of the year signals hope because it is the longest dark it will be all year and every subsequent day brings increasing light.

As we fell away into night, Fuji slowly stepped out of its dressing gown of haze. The clouds eddied like silty water all flowing towards its distinctive cone. The sky a bed of coals in a stove that has been stoked against the long night of darkness with the yolk-orange sun sizzling though the embers. Fuji grew more an more distinct as the light left–not in detail but in relief.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Here’s to the next months of extending daylight and growing love.