Have you ever tried to tie sunlight up in a ball of barbed wire and kept it close to you always, cradling it like your own precious child; never letting it free?

My guess is, probably not. Not only would the experience be painful for you – and probably unfavorable to the sunlight – but it is something that would be very very wrong if you actually accomplished it. Good thing it’s impossible, isn’t it?

Have you ever tried to force love? Forced it to come to you, from you, around you or to stay in a place it just doesn’t belong? Again, something very painful – not simply to yourself but a detrimental sin on the cosmic scale. Love is so much like sunlight. Warm. Giving. Forgiving. Natural. Beautiful. An eventual source of all life.

But too, does it have it’s more painful side… Sunlight can burn, it can dry, it can purge and parch and hurt. It becomes malevolent in the proper conditions and can utterly destroy you if you try to embrace it in a hopeless environment. Love and sunlight: Two very beautiful and dangerous things, both spilling preciously and without monetary cost all over our planet in varying degrees. Love and sunlight, the eternal metaphorical simile.

In the last few months, the sunlight dimmed in my world. Things grew cold and weak and in the end, there was small death all around me. Things started to hurt. Waking up has been harder to do. And I was always cold. My sunlight was fading because I held clutched in my hand a ball of barbed wire, ready to strike. Restrained only by the keen sense in my heart that trying to do that would be a terrible crime and in the end, utterly futile.

One cannot bind the sun, anymore than one can change the true feelings of a heart. One can only wait for winter to pass, spring to come and the sun to grace again the expansive tundras. Looking about, you can only do your best not to be in the shadow of a mountain when the sun finally does return. You may only hope that it’s blessing won’t come too late, if at all.

The sun can be a fickle thing. But as unpredictable as sunlight may be, one cannot simply choose to cease to exist simply based on the cold. Whether the sun rises or not, life goes on; and it becomes a matter of faith how you choose to deal with it. You can choose to forsake the sun and the warmth it brings, striving to blend into your new, cold waste.

You can be angry with the sun, accuse it, and end up shaking vacantly your fist at the sky, in the vain hope that your threats will somehow cow an unstoppable force of nature into doing your will. You can forget the sun, and be surprised when it shows its face, and take it for granted as it appears – or you can accept the sun, and believe in its strength. Have faith in the will and power of the sun, and know that when it returns, it will be all the brighter, and all the sweeter for your toils in the dark and the cold. This is by far, the most warming path you could take. The sun can be a fickle thing.

When one has felt the sun, seen it’s light and been embraced by its warmth, it is a difficult and bitter thing to try to accept the change of the seasons. You can fight the departure of the sun in only so many ways before you ultimately suffer defeat. You can follow it, as it moves on to grace new lands and new pastures. You can plot it’s path, and intercept it in a different place, moving on from your old place in the sun.

You can try to hold it – strain to keep it from moving – but this gesture is as dangerous as it is impossible, and will only hurt everything in the process. The sun is not an entity to be controlled. The only time you need not track the sun and hunt it is when you have its favor. The sun needs you as you need it, it is not a solitary experience. There is no binding the sun by any means, and it should never be tried.

So here I stand clutching barbed wire, facing the sunlight. It doesn’t move to other pastures, nor light other lands. The sun simply is going away, and left as much warmth as it could manage before moving onwards. The sun may be fickle, but it is not cruel. People love the sun and the sun doesn’t often forsake the people. I toss my barbed wire aside, and give the sun its freedom. I know it will be back someday. The sun loves me. And I love the sun.

Someday, I’ll be warm again. And so will you…