22 February

Later than the darkest hour is a time when fear is known, and all is lost to sea and reasoning is beyond all sense and understanding, and naught remains below.

But from a different angle, a viewpoint wide and free, this darkest hour is the last cry before a brighter day, and slowly as the dawn approaches all is found anew, refreshed and living, vital, and beauty is resumed.

Fear, itself, is nothing. It breeds on endless time devoted to such wild imaginings held without a rhyme or reason, too close to bosom well, and nothing does itself grow beastly, enormous as a swell.

But when one gives no earthly thought to such imaginings there, anxiety dissipates as thinly as a slice of air, and whispers silent murmurings which, if dumb to ear, fall bedraggled down to die and vanish all at once, begone.

And if instead one concentrates on all the love abound one can muster up from depths below, and outward sound a note of hope to share with others who have more of desperate need, then love will blossom amply and grow a beanstalk tall from seed.

So do not dread the darkened night, but know that time profound will bring an end to suffering and lift you upward bound. And this pure longing for the light will rapidly do its work to end forever the need to wait, and instead invoke an active participation of which you can be proud, to do so little yet achieve so much, and rise above the madding crowd.