Being with the dark and the arrival of a new season
and a practice from emergence magazine
photo©Claire Ragozzino some things only will open at night
September 14, 2025
Ripened.
Swollen from summer’s light.
The new moon in August brought with it subtleties to the light and land. Another season has arrived while the former slowly recedes. And with it I’ve noticed the shadows lengthen, longer evenings, the sun slower to creep up over the mountains. There’s a stretching, hardening, and slowing down of the sun and heat like when you cook down sugar, recasting it into caramel. Thankful for the arrival of darkness, I’ll either stay up late or get up early in order to immerse myself in the moonlight and stars—to tap on a soft lamp or light a candle so that I may feel my way. I’ve come to befriend the darkness and not just as night’s companion, but as a sister of the predawn hours, deep and translucent.
This transition is met with quieter cicadas, bigger cobwebs, the migratory call of geese, dried seed heads and tree-like stalks of amaranth, corn, and sunflower. The garden has donned a new mask. Taking queues from the changing temperatures, it seamlessly adjusts its character. The earth, thoroughly baked by the relentless heat of the last two and a half months, feeds the last of the flowers and vegetables. And while many have reached their peak and are beginning to decay, some reemerge, a second wind with the softening sun.
Yet soon all of it will pass. And there will be more darkness.
Today I watched the finches decimate the sunflowers, a spider, the gigantic striped psychedelic ones I only seem to see in the late summer and autumn, weave its magnificent web, a mantis feed on the last bits of an insect, the peaches drop, and my one and only quince swell. May I match these rhythms.
Plucked.
To feed one’s innards.
What I love most about being with the dark is perhaps not the most obvious—everything is there, before me and around me. I just can’t make out all the details, all the lines of distinction. I have to trust in a different kind of sight. Nothing yet everything has changed.
As a kid I lived in a split level house and downstairs was the play room/TV/den. For most of my childhood it was sparsely furnished, but cozy and carpeted. Probably the most important feature was that it was spacious. At night, with all the lights turned off, it became very dark. If the lamp was on upstairs, the slightest glow would pour down from the stairwell. After family dinner parties all the cousins would go down and play the dark game. This was pretty much a glorified version of hide-and-seek yet in complete darkness. It was a little spooky but more exhilarating than anything else. The dark offered a different kind of intensity. It cloaked each one of us with a super power: visible invisibility. We’d creep along the walls, crawl on the floor, hide behind doors, make a run for it, scream—it was exhilarating!
Today, when I'm being with the dark, either hyper-aware or in stealth-mode, I’ll sometimes think back on this game and how the darkness created a whole new environment in which to play. Tell me, what do you enjoy about the dark and the arrival of longer cooler nights? Emergence magazine has a cool practice to explore this relationship. I’ll link it below, in case you’re interested. Here are a few of mine:
The dark calls for an altered sense of sight where I lean into my other senses.
The dark invites me into a space that is hidden and in shadow. And though there’s an association with it being scary, perhaps crippling, (I am someone who had chronic nightmares growing up and still very much am easily spooked—jumpy) I have to remind myself it’s also a way in and through. Kind of like the dark game. My breath, senses and attention guide me through my most rational and irrational of fears.
I associate the dark with quiet and calm, like a cave unto my thoughts where I can think.
There is energy and spirit in the dark that is vibrant only during those hours. I’m keen on listening and therefore put myself in its way. It reminds me that I’m undivided, inseparable from the spirit in dark and in light.
The dark is a great time for baking, campfires, mending or other such craft.
I welcome the dark, for with it comes slumber, rest, and regeneration (which is just a fancy way of saying growth).
Yours, Erin
We’re living in a world that is perpetually bathed in artificial light. We repel the dark. And yet, we live in the midst of what is often referred to as “dark times.” How can we be present and engaged in these dark times? What are we forgoing as we trade the ancient curiosity evoked by the night sky for the ceaseless illumination of artificial light?