The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of Night . . . (and brings with it) . . . A feeling of sadness and longing, that is not akin to pain . . . (Longfellow)
Autumn is deepening, and the sun is sinking lower in the southern sky. Nightfall comes earlier; instead of a long twilight, the shadows creep in as soon as the sun sinks below the horizon. There is a certain melancholy that seems to accompany this time of year that doesn’t really seem to have much to do with what we in the “mood” business have called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. To me, it always seems to hearken back to a time when the darkness, unrelieved by artificial light, was dangerous — somewhere in our genetic makeup, I imagine we might “remember,” and maybe that recalled wariness makes us uneasy.
Or maybe not. In any case the stars are brilliant on these crisp clear nights, and as holiday decorations begin to appear, twinkling white lights vie with the stars in sparkle appeal. Just today at a yard sale I bought a 55 foot strand of evergreen garland, complete with twinkling lights. So the deer and possums, the skunks and coons, and the occasional bear will have quite a show here at the farm this year.
But I still wonder. Do we do ourselves an injustice in filling our darkness with light? At what price do we buy safety — and does each one of those little twinkling lights that I love cut me off a little more from something I once knew about the earth and the sky and rootedness and my place in the scheme of things . . .