Entry 2: A Note on Darkness (as the fall nights are growing longer)
October 27, 2025
As each day of this fall season passes, we are welcomed by a lengthening darkness. The mornings take longer to wake and nights turn in so much earlier. It’s nearly November as I type these words. I’ve sent my children off to school with my partner and I sit in the warmth of my living room for a tiny bit of time before I too must head off to my current job.
As I sit in this darkness, I think about how often the dark is connected with evil, sin, or an experience of suffering in so many religious experiences. I look back at the poetry I’ve written since I was old enough to read poems, and I find this repetition of experiencing the dark, trying to befriend the dark, fearing the dark, and so on. This fear penetrated years of my life’s experience with the dark. For goodness sake, I’m 34 and I still sleep with our bedroom door open and a small kitchen light on so a little light can seep in.
Yet, in my deconstruction, I’ve found this beautiful intimacy with the dark. Lyanda Lynn Haupt, one of my favorite authors and naturalists, writes in her lovely book Rooted that all life begins in the dark: seeds only grow when they are held in the dark of the soil and even our early formation happens in the dark of the womb.
Sitting here in the dark of this early morning, I can also think of moments when the darkness was the most comforting thing around me. I think of a time spent backpacking as a child laying under the stars and seeing galaxies and constellations I had never seen before. I think of a time in the deep weight of untreated mental illness and trauma when I drove for the sake of driving and found myself at an unknown body of water. I got out and put my feet in the waves and stared at the most lovely moonrise I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I felt the darkness hold me. And I think of the many long nights spent writing and painting by candlelight to usher in healing. When I think of darkness, I think of quiet. I think of stillness. I think of birth and growth. I think of healing.
If I dare to look back at the Christian creation story, the creation of light was not to rid the world of darkness, but to give balance. Trees grow stronger and healthier when they are exposed to periods of darkness. We sleep more restfully when we sleep the dark (something I’m still trying to work towards as I heal from trauma). We need the dark as much as we need the light. The dark has never been less than, it has always been in contrast to light. Most creation stories, like those of indigenous roots, also describe the balance and contrast of dark and light, land and water, wakefulness and sleep… it’s a dance rather, not a battle.
Friend, if you are reading this in real time, our dark nights are lengthening so I wish for you the opportunity to find some magic in the dark. It may require an honest look at all that the dark has represented, but remember, we have the opportunity to recreate our own narratives. May you find friendship in the dark.
With love and light,
