by Benjamin Swett
Nature, Light, and the Shaker Divine
QUITE EARLY THE OTHER MORNING, before it was light I had been awake for some time already, thinking about an essay I was working on about Shaker architecture one of the motion lights in the driveway came on, probably from a branch tossing in the wind. You will remember how your mother installed those lights at the behest of the insurance company some years ago, as a deterrent against any burglars who might happen up the long driveway at night when nobody is here or, for that matter, when they are. (It seemed funny at the time, and still does, that a burglar would have any interest in an upstate New York farmhouse whose only contents are ladybugs and books from the 1940s. There is nothing here to steal; even the copper pipes have been replaced with plastic.) I didn’t remember seeing the lights come on, but rather just opening my eyes to notice they were on, and also noticing quite close to the window the branch hanging over th