“It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live.”
― Henry Beston
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.
Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself.
With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.
Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?
Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs?
Be the answer what it will, today's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night.
Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.
You can find this passage in Henry Beston’s book — The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Stunning. Googled the book and ordered it. Seems like a slightly more modern Walden.
On the subject of night, there's a book called Acquainted with the Night by Christopher Dewdney all about the dark hours. I think you'd dig it.
Thanks for giving me something to meditate on while snot and suffering pours out of my face - tested positive for covid last night. Wish I had those dunes and that sea to gaze upon...
Beautiful. A few days ago, when I woke at 4am, I walked outside barefoot, to look at the stars. I do this every day. I stood in awe for some minutes looking at Orion's Belt and the Milky Way.
And then Starlink passed by. Slowly it moved across "my" sky. It felt frightening and un human. It felt like a take over, a pillaging. I walked back inside, head down, feeling rather empty and discombobulated. The next early morning my sky was filled only with nature's own miracle. While "he" travelled across someone else's starry sky. It may have been yours. 🌠