Darkness...

I don’t usually spend a lot of time outside at night.  I tend to come in at dusk and remain inside.  Mostly because the raccoons tend to rule my backyard like it is some sort of 1970’s disco.  Every morning I see evidence of their good time.  So I guess, if I am honest, I tend to just give it to them...I do not want to do battle with backyard vermin.

But this morning I awoke early, due to one of my many cats, meowing his brains out.  Which at first, was annoying, but then I started thinking that maybe there was something going on that I wasn’t aware of...and maybe I should get up and look outside.

It was about 4:30 am and still very much night time.  As I surveyed the property, no raccoons.  Nothing other than a star filled sky, and the quiet hum of night life just out of sight.  I realized the night breathes in and out with the breath of everything you cannot see.  Being outside made me feel like I was laying on a lover’s chest, the steady rise and fall of his breath.  I could feel the in and out nature of everything I could not see but absolutely could feel, breathing.  The air was pulsating.

And I realized that there is a whole world around me that I miss nightly.  All the night time creatures are here, every night of my life, but I miss them because I an holed up inside, seeking to avoid confrontation.  And for the first time, I realized what I am missing.

There was an energy this morning in the still darkness that I was absolutely part of...it welcomed me in like I belonged there.  Not like an outsider being invited in as guest, but as an actual member.  So I walked around awhile, noticing the sky, the stars, listening to the crickets sing their song.  And I found myself wondering, exactly when did I begin to fear the darkness?  My own, others, night time?  When exactly did I become averse to night and dark?

I am not sure.  But I can absolutely see that I feel that way about it.  There is an almost desperate desire to stay away from it, like somehow, in the corners I cannot see, danger lurks, lies in wait for me.  I mean, I do not really believe that.  But I also don’t really not believe that either.

I think for me safety is a gift of relationship. Even though some of my most unsafe times have been in relationship with another. And darkness is something enjoyed and relished in the presence of another.  Solitary darkness and night time experience leaves me feeling adrift, lonely and just a little unsettled.  It unnerves me that what I cannot see, could be something that means me harm.  And there is a not so low level of panic that ensues because of that fact.

I did my best to quell the rising panic this morning.  But I still only made it a few minutes.  It was like I was a kid again, having to go downstairs to the kitchen for something and then freaking myself out while down there and sprinting up the stairs back to my bedroom and "safety".  My God, can I remember the feeling of absolute terror that came out of nowhere but, on some level, I knew was not real.  I knew there was not a serial killer, mountain lion, or person who meant me harm lurking nefariously in the hall way just out of sight, or just behind the basement door.  I knew it intellectually, but my nervous system was having some other reality.  And my head was absolutely not in charge.  That lizard brain was activated by thoughts alone.  And even though the threat was never real, the panic absolutely was.

Is this an outgrowth of trauma? Or is this just me being weird?  Does everyone have this aversion to darkness?  Or is it just me?

And why am I the kind of person that now, seeing this for the very first time as a deficiency, do I now feel that I must change it?  Why do I now feel like I must spend the time outside at night to overcome all that I fear?

This morning’s acknowledgment of the throbbing life all around me was not foreboding at all.  Instead, it was comforting and I could match my breath to all I could not see, but could feel, breathing in and out, in and out.  Perhaps darkness is where I must go to find my rightful place in the connective tissue of everything else...

Again, still...