Did you see the full moon last night?  If you live in the northern hemisphere, your skies were clear, and you happened to look out the window, you likely did.  Coming on the heels of the autumnal equinox that came to be over the weekend, this full moon is particularly significant:  it embodies the promise of what is to come.


     Some of us will of course reply, well, that just means snow and cold and darkness.  True enough, but it is in snow and cold and darkness, metaphorically speaking, that we see the essence of promise.  In a perfect world, promise would not exist.  Not that snow and cold and darkness are imperfect; they are not.  But for many of us, they pose significant hardship and challenge.  The point is, however, that the physical gyrations of the world mean more than our response to them.  They talk to us of what is to come next.
     As the psalmist frequently says, joy will come in the morning.  And it will.  But morning cannot come unless night precedes it.  And in the autumnal full moon, in the way it lights up the night, we see our path forward.  A path in the darkness.