if you open your eyes in a pitch-black room
the color you’ll see is called
‘eigengrau.’
—
in honor of our upcoming switch back to daylight savings time.
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credits: mental floss, pinterest photo
Mar9
Tag Archives: dark
Oct10
end of the light.
tunnel through nature
light to dark to light again
leads me to beauty.
—
“poetry is the tunnel at the end of the light.”
-j. patrick lewis
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northside, ann arbor, michigan, usa
Nov22
light.
Barrow, Alaska in darkness on Monday
On Friday, the sun set for the final time in Barrow, Alaska, as the city plunges into polar darkness for the next two months and, in December, formally changes its name to Utqiaġvik, according to Alaska Dispatch News.
The next dawn in Utqiaġvik will be January 22, 2017, the first sunlight under its new name, an Inupiaq word that the wider area of Barrow has long gone by. The city of around 4,300 was incorporated in 1958 and originally took its name from nearby Point Barrow, named by a Royal Navy officer in 1825.
The city is the northernmost in the U.S. and each year spends a couple of months in darkness, owing to its position hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, and about 2,000 miles northwest of Seattle.
Residents recently voted to permanently change the town’s name to honor indigenous peoples and the area’s roots. Locals seem relaxed about Barrow’s final sunset. As ADN reports, the sun “was nowhere to be seen” on Friday, and Qaiyaan Harcharek, a Barrow City Council member who led the drive to change the name, said the event didn’t have much of an effect on him. “I didn’t put much thought to it,” Harcharek told ADN.
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“hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
-desmond tutu
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credits: alaska dispatch news, erik shilling, university of alaska- fairbanks, atlas obscura
Sep10
and at long last, the light has returned once more.
“In that distant beginning season, Sun Man’s warm magic flowed over all the land. Whenever he raised his arms, it was day. whenever he lowered them, it was night. The Bee People and the Elephant People and the Tic People loved the rhythm of Sun Man’s light. Their faces crinkled with pleasure in his heat.
But inside the dreamtime, Sun Man grew old. His back grew stiff and his knee joints ached. He rose later and later each morning. He napped soon after breakfast and went to bed in the afternoon.
“What’s going on here?” complained Grandfather Mantis. “I’m not getting heat anymore.” Grandfather Mantis sent the Bird People to find out. The Bird People returned, rumpled and solemn. Darkness was everywhere, even though it was supposed to be daytime. “Sun Man is getting old,” they explained. “This shining all the time is getting too much for him.”
“Well, I’m old,” snapped Grandfather Mantis. “Doesn’t stop me.”
His wife raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
― Carolyn McVickar Edwards, The Return of the Light
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image credit: kyras.com
Sep9
“life itself is the best (and the only) timekeeper.” ― rasheed ogunlaru
as i head into
day 5
still
off the
power grid
the pace of life
has
slowed
days
spent
walking
writing
reading
thinking
bathing by candlelight
catching up with friends
in the coffee shop
on the street
with
neighbors
there is a natural rhythm to it all
waking with the return of the light
sleeping when the dark returns once more
it’s a peaceful and quiet existence
*
until
monday comes
and
i have to
wake up
in the pitch black
to go to school
there’s an art
to applying
makeup
by
flashlight
and
with
only
two hands
luckily
my loyal
carpool partner
has
promised
to alert me
if
my clothes are on backwards
or
anything looks dramatically amiss
and
i find
that
while
i
look
forward to the light
i
am
enjoying the calm
of the dark
—
wisely, and slow. they stumble that run fast.
William Shakespeare
—
image credit: maggielissel.com
I didn't have my glasses on.... 