I was nearing the end of another cycle, albeit a shorter loop than I had expected. My seething anxiety about everything was quietly bubbling away, but now my conscious mind battled with the deep dark foes within me trying to establish dominion over myself. It made no sense to continually submit to the aches and pains of cowardice and indolence.

The depression that had previously bound me to blackness began to lift. Like a flea ridden blanket, it had constricted my life to the itch and scratch of reaction to circumstance. Free of this self imposed hindrance I felt I could breathe again.

The creature that I had become pawed at the ground in excitement and stretched its limbs, so close to, and so far from humanity. All around me were examples of the fecundity of nature, myriad forms of life playing in the pool of night. I was nearly happy to be one of them and it seemed a small leap of faith to get amongst it.

The circle had nearly closed and my time of darkness was over. I had survived the long night, kept alive by the choruses of frogs and cicadas that reminded me that I was alive. The dawn sat close to my heart, whispering of warmth to come and the promise of summer. If nothing else, I had learned that light will find a way.