Madeleine L’Engle once borrowed this phrase for a story about time, light, and the battle between darkness and hope. I’ve borrowed it again because the title itself feels like a season—something on the move, as if the world were leaning toward winter. We speak that way every fall, saying the planet is “tilting” or “turning away from the sun,” when in truth it isn’t.

Earth’s axis holds firm, steady at twenty-three and a half degrees, like a door slightly ajar.

What changes isn’t the tilt but our relationship to the light.

As we orbit, the sun’s angle shifts across our sky, and everything else—shadow, temperature, mood—follows. It feels as if the world itself is sliding off balance, but the truth is simpler and more beautiful: the constancy of that angle is what gives us the seasons.

We don’t always see, hear, or smell what others once did. Those who named plants, though, must have. They lingered long enough to catch the quiver, the sting, the fragrance. A name becomes a shorthand for attention—a memory pressed into language.

Every fall, it’s hard not to notice quaking aspens as they briefly burst into yellow before dropping their leaves. I recently found myself standing solo in a sacred grove of yellow giants as the wind swept down the canyon. I could hear the gust coming toward me, then surround me, then pass. Eyes closed, I could have still tracked the wind as it moved along.

The word quaking isn’t fanciful. An autumn wind wakes each tree in turn. Leaves shimmer—silver to green to silver again—before settling as the gust slips down the draw. To me, it’s just motion. To someone listening closely, it was quaking. The name carries the sound of the mountain itself.

With the seasons changing, I’m writing this in near-dark early one morning. My screen glows in my face—an otherworldly glow that illuminates my workspace. Out of habit, I unplugged my device right after I woke—we both should be fully charged. I’m awake and rested myself, yet I feel untethered—unsure about my own connection. How do I get there? How do I reach the same level of fully charged for the day ahead?

The Apostle Paul once urged that we be “rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17). He mixed his metaphors with purpose—roots sinking deep into soil, foundations fastened to bedrock. Stability. Nourishment. Strength. In another letter he urged believers to remain “stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel” (Colossians 1:23). To be grounded, Paul insists, is not optional.

Jesus said the same in simpler terms: “Abide in me, and I in you… for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:4–5). Disconnected, we wither. Abiding, we flourish. Made of glass and circuitry, my phone wouldn’t last more than 24 hours on its own. Can I?

I took some family members hiking recently to see if we could locate Native American rock art in the foothills near town. A year earlier I’d dropped a pin in Google Maps after spotting a stray AllTrails post. Sure enough, after a steep ascent, we found it—petroglyphs etched into lichen-covered boulders, quiet evidence of lives that once looked out over the same valley.

But what goes up must come down.

The scree trail we had climbed without much trouble turned tricky on the way back. Loose gravel shifted beneath us. My hiking partners slipped, catching themselves again and again. “Lower your center of gravity,” I urged, crouching slightly, leaning forward over my toes. With that adjustment, our footing changed. We moved with new agility, and made it unscathed to the bottom—hearts racing, minds carrying a fresh lesson.

In June and July, only the earliest risers catch the quietest hour. Pre-dawn. First light. Morning’s earliest names belong to those who trade sleep for stillness. A pink sky rises like a whispered promise—renewal, energy, the courage to start again.

I spent the last week going coastal—waking each morning to the sun rising across the water and otherwise utter silence. No traffic, no phones, no clocks. Just the tide, the horizon, and the slow ignition of color. It reminded me how rare it is to meet the day so unhurried, to see the world before it knows it’s being watched.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” He understood what modern research now confirms: waking early gives the body and mind a head start. Morning light, in particular, is potent medicine. It regulates melatonin, sharpens focus, and even helps us sleep more soundly at night. Just a short walk in that first hour leaves fingerprints across the rest of the day—energy steadier, stress easier to manage.

When my family was younger, we’d load up the boat and head for the lake, repeating the old line that “the early bird gets the worm.” What we were really after was smooth, flat water—glass, we called it. For the first hour, often longer, the lake was ours alone. By noon, the surface would ripple with the wakes of others, but those golden mornings were worth the struggle between sleeping in and rising early. Both had their payoff, but only one gave us glass. Summer rewarded those who traded sleep for first light.

Scientists give morning three names: astronomical, nautical, and civil twilight.