Anthropologists, historians, and others have long compared the fierceness of dark experienced by early humans compared to the fortress of light we live in today. Even without the multitude of fluorescent lights shining, there is always the pervasive neon glow of our technology. Early humans had no such light. They had no switches. They waited in fear for the sun to rise and illuminate their world. Shadows created by the moon could be trees or impending doom. Then we discovered and nurtured fire. Though more of the world was visible, still it was a shadow world with partial faces, shapes, and almost translucent visibility. There was warmth. There was softness. There was a dance of light and dark. There was a dance of nature’s elements. The light was natural.

Sitting in light, I turned all lights off and lit a candle. How different the candle’s light to the ceiling or floor lamp. The ceiling and floor lamp shroud the darkness as if it does not exist. The candle’s light feathers distinction. No, the visibility is not expansive but there is light and it is soft.

In our world black hats mean bad guys, darkness means evil, evil deeds occur in dark corners, and shadows are predators or inner demons. We fill the night sky with our man-made lights so that even the stars and moon become invisible. There are no lions or other night time predators about to pounce, yet it would seem we fear the dark. We fear and teach our children that bad things happen in the dark while equally bad things happen during the day.

Could it be, I ponder, that darkness makes intimacy unavoidable? It forces us to actually feel the earth we walk upon. It forces us to listen and be attentive. It forces us to look, actually look at the person in front of us. It draws us closer. We have to remember and trust our instincts instead of blindly running to and fro and relying upon others to tell us good from bad and provide us “light.” It forces us to nurture light. Darkness invites nurturing.

Darkness invites intimacy. The candle’s lesson of merging, suffused contrast of light and dark, yielding yet maintaining identity are, it would seem, scary. We trust neon more than intimacy and folding into our environment and each other. Light is not evil. Darkness is not evil. The true nightmare is not in darkness, but the fear to actually look, see, listen, and feel.