PRIMITIVE URGE

days shorter, colder-
first fall of snow- shivering-
we root and hunker

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For anyone who doesn't want to gain weight, this time from just before Halloween to just after New Year are what I think of as The Danger Days. Our bodies seem pre-programmed to want to pile on last-minute fat to get us through winter into spring. In the northern hemisphere, the seasonal changes alone probably instigate a lot of these urges (less light triggers depression triggers over-eating in many people for instance.) Our culture supports this basic instinct with holiday after holiday that necessitates food and drink and plenty of it. Coincidence? I don't think so.

It is so interesting how humans take the primitive urge and refine it, smelt it into a different yet still recognizable form. I'm not complaining, just pondering. I'd sure rather be a human with a plate of Christmas cookies and a glass of eggnog in my hand than one of these pigs fattening up to be the Easter ham!