It was a dark and stormy year

Winter ends and we were quite innocent and free and filled with joy. We had no inkling. The tide was out and the beach was seemingly endless. No darkness loomed on our horizon; all was as we always knew it would be and we felt blessed, simply to be.

But our being-ness was blind as we ploughed our furrow into the spring with abandon and flew and flew way up high without a care in the world, unknowing that the world, in it's wholeness had developed a fissure or two.

Spring had sprung and something startled even those who were doing and not being. Something odd, Something queer had seized us unawares; in our waking state we watched and quivered. In our sleep we had no peace.

Each day our minds were in turmoil as we watched our world descend. Silver screens shed light and dark but nothing more; we gasped and gasped whilst further fissures erupted in distant lands and places even beyond the boundaries of desert and forest succumbed.

Selflessly we retreated into our shells with most needs met by technology and some unwavering helpers who put themselves there when needed, and without a care. Our lives reshaped by invisible forces, an enemy within and without had made us our own prison guards.

Summer came and summer went, and we sipped our lives from the smaller cups that our collective humanity had condensed itself into and made do. Governments issued warnings and pledges; where to go, what to do? Platitudes were met with gratitude but from a humble few.

Autumnal colourings cheered us as we gathered, distantly, sipping coffee, devouring fish and chips and feeling the winter evenings draw. Past memories fade of times when we could be ourselves, when our family was always there; when we were free just to be free.

The Winter Solstice, a time we celebrate the land, a gentle gathering of souls no more to be. It seems. Cold winds chill but  an Ill Wind that is chillier. A wind that takes with it an agent of destiny, a cruel unseen, sub-microscopic controller of who we truly are.

We are no more the innocent, the joyful spirits of old but a version of ourselves invented by others for all to see as we say (unbelieving) to ourselves and to these others " it will be over soon."