I’ve always felt at ease in darkness. Growing up, I would love standing under the stars and listening to the gentle rustling of leaves. I grew so fond of the silence of darkness that at times, I would sit in my room with all the lights turned off for extended periods of time, simply enjoying my own company. The darkness felt, counter-intuitively, purifying.
To many, this activity would seem incredibly strange. Who would willingly cut themselves off from all the happenings of life, to simply sit and do nothing in a dark room of all things? If the educated reader were to attempt answering this question, a possible answer would be “to escape”. Perhaps the person running so willingly into darkness, is actually running away from life, which might have been simply too much.
However, to me, darkness is simply visual silence. Turning off all the loud sounds of daily life allows oneself to pick up on the quiet but sometimes beautiful things otherwise missed out on. With almost nothing to command one’s attention in the darkness, one is taken down the path of delving deeper into oneself. If one’s darkness is in the midst of nature, it could make for a truly ethereal experience, with one shedding all sense of self and feeling truly one with nature. Imagine spending your entire life as a mere mortal, and suddenly experiencing the being of the forests, stars and sky itself. Magical.
Perhaps, temporarily ‘turning off’ the sounds of life can indeed be considered running away. However, if these spells of ‘running away’ are spent better equipping oneself to navigate life, I would instead call these spells of wisdom instead.