Hard to believe but true: Only two lifetimes ago, the only light your kinfolks had came from candles, lanterns, and fireplaces. From nightfall to sunup, darkness had the upper hand. Then came the electric light, a development realized every time we flip a switch to flood with light what an instant before was in darkness.
A bit of indispensable even remarkable progress? Of course, but at an expense of which most of us are unaware.
You see, with the coming of darkness, we also sense tiredness, the result of a busy day. Its intensity increases to the point that we feel compelled to sleep. For the next several hours, and with a process not yet fully understood by those who study such things, our body fixes itself. Vital organs perform at a much lower yet safe level while allowing cells to be repaired or replaced.
At the same time, the mind, freed of duty to handle conscious activity, relaxes and takes a rest. In the background, however, the subconscious mind, the exact workings of which are also still a mystery, comes forth, sometimes so prominently that it wakes us. Its persistence forces us to either stay where we are while we hope it will go away, or reluctantly get out of bed and write down what it’s telling us. The wisest of us have already learned to do the latter.
Then there are dreams, usually innocent to interesting and sometimes frightening romps that we tell ourselves could never happen in real life. Others, however, are so strikingly lifelike that we make noises or if they make us feel as if we are physically threatened, they become nightmares that cause us to yell or scream. Either way, we take trips we never planned, embark on adventures we never could have predicted.
As daylight changes to darkness, we often feel an urging to gather for a party, a special event, do rash things discouraged during daylight, but encouraged by darkness. In it we talk of the future, whisper sweet nothings, make love. Sense of touch replaces sight, imagination rules over reason. All of what is otherwise seemingly out of reach, becomes enticingly close.
Later, and still behind the curtain of darkness, secrecy often leads to deviltry. As is often jokingly said, “Nothing good ever happens between midnight and six.”.
Over all of this, however, is the rest of the universe, the moon as it revolves around us on a precise and predictable schedule, the distant and twinkling stars. In between are the planets that you want to reach out and touch. Washing through all of it is the Milky Way, a mass of stars staggering in its size and beautiful in its density as it arcs high above from horizon to horizon.
Then it ends, darkness finally surrendering to light. Even as it disappears, however, it affords the magic of awakening with a rested body and a clearer brain, of being conscious of yet another day to be lived, of obstacles to be moved or sidestepped. This awareness is sharpest as the first glow of morning spreads across the sky. What glittered up there deep in the night begins to disappear as the familiar surrounding us begins to reappear.
Admittedly, most all of this sounds poetic. That’s because it is. Darkness blots out instant identity and replaces it with a sense of the exciting unknown. We disappear into it and in time emerge from it. Couple it with human behavior and it becomes a vital part of our earthbound adventure.
We will never return to candles, lanterns, and the flickering light from fireplaces, but because of our insistence on keeping so much unnecessarily lit at night, neither can we easily find true darkness.
Be assured, however, that whatever you must do to find it, the magic of darkness will be there waiting to serve you in ways not possible by any other means.
