Last night I went for a walk in the dark. I kept to the road so as not to disturb sleeping creatures; it took me through the woods around my home, past other homes, and down to the pond, which was my goal.
I dislike using outdoor lights unless we need them for practical purposes, so the darkest part of the path began right outside my door in the deep velvet shadows of the redwoods.
I could see almost nothing at first, save the black lacy shapes of treetops against the misty sky. My eyes tried frantically to adjust, straining to catch any ray of light they could, but the darkness required me to rely more on my other senses.
I felt my way and listened, noticing that as I took each step memory seemed to return to my sensory nerves. I did not hear my own steps on the road when I began, but as I went further and stepped on a dry twig, the sound was like a gunshot announcing my presence to the whole forest. I began to hear in layers; my own steps on top, then the rustling of nocturnal animals nearby, the songs of crickets, the faraway drone of motors from the main road.
Hearing was not the only sense that sharpened as I went; my olfactory nerves came alive as well, and I noticed new scents mingling with the more familiar smells of the trees and earth. The smell of the air changed subtly with each step, and began to make me feel I could almost see the swirling of the air currents I disturbed as I passed.
My eyes, too, adjusted to the darkness, and the road began to have a faint glow of its own.
Soon after I noted these sensory changes, I came near a home whose porch light was on. It was not bright; yet to my night-adjusted eyes it was like a tiny sun searing my retinas. I turned my head to avoid looking at it, amazed at how a few minutes’ walk in deep darkness had changed my senses.
The pond is lovely during the day; yellow water lilies in full bloom, ducks, coots, geese, blue herons, snowy egrets, huge red and blue dragonflies, water-loving trees with boughs like green hair along the banks, dead wood resembling carved driftwood. All these are daylight glories of the pond, but I had not seen it in detail at night before, and it called to me quite distinctly as the fog rolled in from the West last night.
There was a half-moon high in the sky; her light was diffused by the fog, creating a silvery ambient illumination unparalleled in its capacity to create gentle, otherworldly mystery in a place that is in daylight so familiar.
The first indication of the pond was the bass song of the bullfrogs, ringing clearly across the water. The voices of smaller, quieter creatures as well as the soft liquid voice of the water itself joined them as I drew nearer, playing a complex night symphony I had not heard before.
Once I came from beneath the redwoods into the more open space around the water, I could see very well. I stood marveling at how utterly different the familiar pond appeared in the mist and moonlight; colors are muted, but shapes are clearer, dimensions somehow subtly different.
One of my favorite bay laurel trees brushed my face with her leaves, and I noticed her scent was a little different at night, as all scents are. The trees seemed awake in a way they are not during the day; imbued with ethereal vitality.
I’ve always loved to be outdoors at night, but every time I take a walk beyond the familiar borders of my own property I discover again that the world is a different, equally beautiful place by night. And every time I take a new nighttime path, I wonder why I have not done this before, why I don’t do it every night, in fact.
I wondered also last night why no one else was out walking in so much beauty; it seemed suddenly a deep loss that all this is there every night, yet goes mostly unknown to humans who live in its midst.
My opinion of my own species is notoriously low in many ways, but I remain optimistic that we are all capable of much growth if we choose it. In some ways, I don’t want most other people to discover the same things I treasure in nature – I guard the secrets of the forest jealously from all but those I love and trust, knowing most people care nothing for nature but what use or profit they can gain from her.
In that regard, I know I would have resented coming across other people walking near the pond, and I’m glad I was alone. Yet in another way, I can’t but wonder if people would begin to change for the better if they remembered how to love the night instead of fearing the darkness; if they realized how fantastically beautiful muted colors and lacy shadows are against the reflection of moonlight in the water, and how in the darkness you begin not only to hear sounds, but to feel their vibrations. How your senses begin to operate together, so it becomes difficult to tell where feeling or hearing ends and sight or smell begins.
I mused on this as I returned home, again averting my eyes and wincing at the stabbing shards of the porch light, which seemed even more invasive on the way back.
It’s natural to fear danger, of course; we still have an instinct for survival that coaches us to be cautious of anything unknown. The darkness embodies – or at least it symbolizes – everything we don’t know or can’t understand; we depend so much on our sense of sight largely because it makes danger much easier to avoid. Since we have technology now that allows us to create our own bright light artificially, we find it easier to avoid darkness altogether than adapt to it and learn to know it.
Still, we do ourselves a great disservice if we never embrace the darkness, but spend our lives avoiding the unknown. Death and darkness are linked in many of our minds, yet we forget that life begins in utter darkness. The still deep blackness of the womb is the first home any of us know in this life; yet we forget its warmth, safety, nurturance and protection, seeing only the threat of what we do not know.
I don’t want to share the beauties of the night, the forest, the sea, or anything else I love passionately in nature with humanity in general, because I’m a bitch like that. Also because I worry over the rampant destruction our species tends to cause wherever it goes. Nonetheless, part of me regrets that more of us do not embrace it, learn to love the darkness and delight in the expansion of our senses, the unique freedoms it grants when we allow it to envelope us.
So I’ll say it – a bit grudgingly – to whoever reads this: go for a walk at night. Not with a flashlight or a torch or a lantern, just walk in the darkness and let it surround you. I won’t tell you it isn’t scary or potentially dangerous, but everything we do in life is. Our conceit that we have complete control of any kind over anything is false; a mere illusion. Darkness can dispel that gently, reminding us of so much we have forgotten.
Learn to enjoy the other world that comes alive at night; get to know it, marvel at it, and finally, become part of it. We, too, are part of nature, though we have largely forgotten it.
zylah 