“Beyond them was a wide level space, as though the floor of a great hall had been cut in the side of the hill…, and along each wall stood an aisle of trees.… At the far end the rock-wall was sheer, but at the bottom it had been hollowed back into a shallow bay with an arched roof: the only roof of the wall, save the branches of the trees…. A little stream … fell tinkling down the sheer face of the wall, pouring in silver drops, like a fine curtain in front of the arched bay.

“Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water, but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich green light;… Looking back, the hobbit saw that the trees in the court had also begun to glow … until every leaf was edged with light: some green, some gold, some red as copper.”
— The Lord of the Rings, Book III, Chapter 4: Treebeard

I created a version of this picture several years ago, but I never posted it because I wasn't quite satisfied. So I decided to take another look and polish it a bit. I ended up changing more than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with it now. Here's the earlier version.

I love sitting outside around dusk and watching the fireflies!

This is a night version of one of my favorite scenes—Glittering Caves of Aglarond

“Immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools. Gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hand of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, fluted and twisted into dreamlike form, they spring up from many-colored floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof; wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them; a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass.”
—The Lord of the Rings, Book III, Chapter 8

This is the Christmas version of my seasonal “snow globe” idea.

“‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.’
And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
December 13, 2016

Even the longest day of the year eventually turns to dusk, and the fireflies come out.