Missing the dark

Our light grows daily. In a weeks time, if I took the trouble to drive to the airport at noon I'd see the sun. I'll see it in a couple of weeks here in Arctic Bay regardless. The last couple of days most of the automatic street lights went out, there is that much light now.

Yesterday morning I looked out at a sky, that I knew I'd not be able to capture adequately on film. Not and have it convey it's true beauty. Mostly cloudless, the hint of the sun's light on the horizon it gradually deepened to the most wondrous deep blue. Venus had not yet risen, so the sky was unsullied with any bright points of light.

It was then that I realized that I was missing the dark. Not missing in the sense of longing for, I was squandering our dark. There are few skies as inky black as ours in winter, and fewer still where the stars seem to bend down closer to us. I've spent very little time under those stars this season. And soon they'll be gone. I must change that.

The other day, walking back from Leah's mom's under that cold dark sky, Orion was settling down on the hills above town. It looked for all the world that he was striding over them. As I craned my head higher I was once again in the thrall of those stars. So many, so deep into that black, black sky. How could you not feel both small but at the same time so unique and special against the vastness of that universe.

I know many people, looking up at that same sky, wonder whether someone, somewhere is looking out at a very different night sky, looking towards the Earth perhaps. Perhaps surprisingly, I rarely wonder that. Instead I think about the incredible circumstances that led to life on this earth, the wonder of all that. And the incredible circumstances that led to me standing here, on a cold dark road, looking up at thousands of points of bright lights, suns bejeweling a black sky.