In the early hours of Sunday, the clocks changed. Time- the ability for someone to make a decision about it, the ability to fiddle with it- is a fascination to me. That I can be sleeping, my horses are grazing, the moths flying around, navigating by the moon. None of us notice a difference in that moment. None of us stop, look at each other and say, did you feel that? Did you feel the clocks go back?
We still sleep, we still graze, we still fly.
In the past, I have resented, pushed up hard against this artificial changing of the light.
‘I would much prefer it,’ I said, chopping tomatoes in the kitchen, talking to my husband ‘if they just let it be. I’d rather have it be dark in the morning and light late into the night’.
But I know, at the end of it, my opinion doesn’t really matter. Whoever it is that makes the final decision about the clocks, who presses the button to decide the time we run our lives by doesn’t really matter either. The days will still have the same number of hours, the seasons will still become darker and then lighter and the darker again, regardless of our schedules or our will.
This year, however, I’ve noticed myself feeling different. The dark, instead of something to resist, feels welcome, like being wrapped up in a warm, familiar blanket. I am grateful for the ability to retreat. To be less visible. To compost in contemplation of my thoughts.
I crave rest. To be allowed to have slightly shabby edges in a way that’s not available for all to see.
There is a dignity to darkness that cannot, is not, shared by the experience of light. It gives us time and space to exist within ourselves without the glare of a harsh spotlight.
Conversations at night around the campfire foster an intimacy not experienced in the middle of the day. Walks shared in darkness allow for spaces absent of the fierceness of visual attention. Overnight stays rather than day trips lead to comradery and deeper knowing of each other often for the simple fact that we, together, shared an experience of the night.
Darkness is often seen as something to avoid. Dark emotions. Dark experiences. But we have all had experiences where darkness is exactly what we craved.
The darkness of refuge. Of a warm bed, of by-yourself-ness, hidden out of sight. The darkness of being able to share a truth, where, in the space of being fully seen would remain hidden. The darkness to figure things out where light feels complicating and too bright.
I wonder, in whatever season we are in, we could give ourselves the space just to exist? And to ask what that particular season, that particular moment, asks of us? Regardless of whether we’re heading into summer or into winter?
Whether a shortening, reducing of the light, could expand our view in other ways?
And if you are in the season of the sun, what you could bring forward, that is ready, desiring to be fully seen?
I will contemplate along with you.
Onwards,
❤️ Jane
