The Longest Nights 1/24/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Please don’t think that I have not noticed.  I have seen the trend weaving its way through this blog that some forms of subject matter tend to reappear.  I suppose it is appropriate that I wrote last week about the cyclical nature of things because my topics certainly seem to be traveling that circular road.  While I suppose that there is a very good chance that such a thing is the case because I simply write about what interests me at any given time and my interests, though varied and numerous, are rather consistent.  Though I am certain that is a large reason, I do like to think that there is more to it than that.  While I am most assuredly no sage or oracle, I do like to think that perhaps I am at times inspired to write on topics that will mean something to the reader.  I am hopeful that something comes to mind because of its value to someone; someone other than myself of course.  This week proves no different with yet another vein of familiarity to blogs past running through it.  Perhaps someone will stumble upon some semblance of meaning and I am not just a repetitive writer with stunted creativity.

One aspect of my thoughts had already been following me around before I was even searching for things to write.  I had seen this image everywhere in all sorts of contexts. If I am honest, I am looking at it right now as I type.  The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, have met my eyes at every turn these days. Be it in a movie my daughter is obsessed with, or a random screensaver, those same images keep wandering into my life.  While I would have to say that those streaks of emerald and ruby festooning a star filled sky over an untouched blanket of snow is probably the epitome of winter beauty it was in hearing someone talk of their own personal winter experiences including such things that really gave me revelation on how to incorporate a majestic light phenomenon into something worth saying.

A woman who lives in the north of Sweden spoke eloquently of her experience with winter. She lives in a location that is far enough north that for the better part of the deepest winter, there is no sun.  For weeks, the great blazing star is barely a part of her existence This all while it is coldest and the night seems infinite and deep.  She readily admitted that it was at times a challenge to live in the polar nights. But she went on to tell of the way in which she thought in these more arduous times.  Perhaps because I am a lover of symbolism and metaphor I listened to her wisdom as she spoke of the Nordic winter and it felt to me, and maybe she meant for it to, that she was saying far more about seasons that all of us face.  Her words came to me heavy with implications that reached far beyond coping with cold and dark.

She spoke of how energy was often depleted when the dark monopolized the environment. I appreciated very much how she felt compelled to say that the seasonal slowing of things was very natural and not something to be seen as bad, only different.  How true is this in our lives! We often are faced with our own “dark nights of the soul” to borrow an appropriate phrase and they often make us feel weary and hindered.  With the dark we often feel uninspired and there is nothing at all wrong with that. To be tired is simply our body reacting to the natural ebb and flow of things and it is how we were created. For some reason though we have believed the outright lie that to be anything but full of vim and vigor at all times is wrong.  This is utter falsehood.  And speaking of vim and vigor I call it falsehood with copious amounts of such!

In the winter things slow down.  The energy of all living things changes.  It doesn’t go wrong or become something unseemly it is simply different. Trees take respite from nourishing their leaves and let them go.  Creatures great and small eek out quiet and minimalist existences and some change their way of being altogether, stealing away for dormancy and stillness.  The flowers do not push forth and blossom through the ice and snow.  If creation allows itself rest and calm during the more bitter seasons then there is no reason to think that we were created to do any differently.

Maybe you’re experiencing your own winter of sorts beyond what you see out the window.  It could very well be something surpassing your average season, something more akin to the polar night where the light is minimal at best and energy is waning.  It is entirely possible at that deepest, darkest point that we look out and there is that faint gnaw of hopelessness. We crave that light.  We long for some uplifting sign that the shadows will not loom forever.

Here my friend, is where the Northern Lights come in. In the reverse of what one would normally think, the darkness allows us to see things that the light actually keeps hidden.  It is the night that gives us, when our own star is withheld, the view of a million other suns.  We are not privy to them in the bright cheery day.  It is the dark of night that lets us see so far beyond ourselves to the radiance of other realms we can scarcely imagine.  And on those excessively deep and bleakest of nights, those that go on longer than what we could have expected, we’re given streams of light across the sky.

My Swedish friend insisted she could handle the darkness, which she admitted was at times burdensome, but she could take it as long as she had the stars and the Aurora Borealis.  I can believe it.  That makes sense.  But you see, we all have it.  No matter your dark of night, there are stars.  It is simply that sometimes in those wee hours that seem to tick on for years, we look so much to the blackness we completely overlook the million points of light within it.  It is almost a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.  There are always those true and good things we can hold on to that will illuminate if we just put in the effort.  Oh, it will be a challenge at times to find the bright spots I assure you of that, but they will always be there should we choose to see them.

I suppose I have said all this to say that the gloom does not in fact have to be such.  It is simply a different time. By all means, we should slow our pace and embrace the rest that nature so efficiently exemplifies.  But in our lull as we take time to breathe, let us put in the truly meaningful effort to see the light in the vast expanse. It is perfectly fine to be weary but it is never alright to give up. It may demand we alter our thinking in ways we didn’t expect but we certainly don’t want to be people who cannot see the stars for the sky.