Today’s sign of Advent light is the hope of a return to health. I saw this light in two ways today.

Yesterday, I felt miserable most of the day. I was freezing, feverish. I spent an hour in the evening curled up in my bed with the heat turned way up, and still I was shivering. I had a headache and I was having lots of trouble concentrating. I felt like I was trying to boil something out of myself, something nasty and demonic. Somehow I was still able to write Biblia Luna and yesterday’s Advent blog post. I was staring like a zombie at the computer while I wrote, but I wrote them. I find that interesting.

By bedtime, I was already feeling a little better, but I was exhausted, so I turned off the light early. I knew I had to get up earlier than usual this morning, because I had a psychiatrist appointment at 8:00. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be going – if I was still feverish and ill, I would just stay home. I fell asleep almost immediately.

My alarm woke me up at 5:30 this morning, and I rolled out of bed. I opened my eyes, and blinked a few times. I felt rested. I felt awake. I didn’t feel too cold or too hot. I went to the bathroom and took my temperature. The fever was gone. I drank some tepid coffee I’d left in my Yeti from last night. I could go to my appointment after all. In fact, I felt better than I had in days. Whatever I tried to boil out of myself last night was gone – I was free. I was healthy.

My psychiatrist and I talked about how I’d been feeling since the last time I was there. I shared how tired I am often, how hard it’s been the past few months to find motivation. (Perhaps you’ve noticed, dear reader, that you haven’t had all that much from me to read lately.) We wondered if it were perhaps a sign of a side effect from my antidepressants, or perhaps some “lingering effects” of depression that were still there. I admitted that I didn’t know – I have always found this kind of thing so hard to determine. I’ve so often wished there was a blood test or a brain scan that could tell where mental illness comes from, and how best to treat it. But there’s not.

She asked about what sorts of things I used to do that brought me happiness that I don’t do right now. That was easy – walking, hiking, writing. I do some of that still, but not as much as I’d like, not as much as I used to, not as much as I wanted to. She shared a phrase I’d never heard before: forest bathing. Apparently it’s a thing – the idea that being out in the woods can be cleansing and healing and invigorating. I mean, that’s not news to me. I’ve always known that – but I guess I’d forgotten. It’s so easy to forget. So that’s something I’m working on, starting today. Getting myself back out in the woods, even just for fifteen minutes. Walking around, smelling and listening, feeling the wind I’ve always loved. Knowing the trees. Encountering the birds.

I walked for just twenty minutes today, in a woods just a mile or so from my house. It was easy to fit it in. And it was good. Two examples seeing a return to health.

That’s where I saw the light of God today, the first Monday of Advent.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay