lumen

Everything looks green and golden in this early, private light filtering through the branches. It touches the fingered ice on the burn, the crusted snow among the grass, rests on the snowdrops bent over by the heavy cold, and comes finally to the little wood-and-chain swing hanging quietly over the burn, and then – gently luminous – to myself.

Lumen, from Latin for light:
the space inside a biological structure, an artery or cell;
a measure of the total amount of visible light emitted from a source;
an opening through which light can penetrate, through which day comes.

Lumen: light in this channel of the valley, light in this channel of the glen.

Strathendrick, Stirlingshire, Scotland
11th February 2013