Midweek Enchantments #4: Spending time in the dark, spending time in the desert, and keeping memories alive
+ Invitation to Winter Solstice Grief Studio next week!
Midweek Enchantments is a weekly series/practice where I’ll share some writing about enchantment and one-several things I’m feeling enchanted by, with invitations for joining me in this practice!
Dear Shapeshifters,
I tried to just write this post about the dark, but the desert crept in, and I realized that I can’t separate the two.
The last two weeks, I’ve been homesick for the desert in a way that feels pretty deeply shattering. But still, sinking into stories and memories about this place I miss and lived in for almost 10 years, has brought glimmers of joy.
So that’s one enchanting thing:
The way someone’s face can light up when you say Tell me about them
and they do.
The way someone, in the throes of deep grief, can deeply enjoying telling a story about their beloved dead, or a place they miss.
The joy of keeping our most cherished memories alive- the way keeping our most cherished memories alive, keeps us alive to.
And here’s another enchantment:
The desert I love, who I’ll tell you about.
And one more:
The dark.
The dark, and what it makes space for.
Spending time in the Desert
As the dark makes space for the desert in me, the desert makes space for the dark. In the wide skied desert of the South West and it’s dark sky cities, the darkness feels both bigger and far more luminous.
I often say that when I lived in the South West, I was in a constant state of awe. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I returned after having moved away, I realized how the desert altared me on a regular basis and how psychedelic my life was there.
I remember the first time I drove back to the South West after moving away.
It was a new moon and dark when I pulled off the road, looking for a spot to camp outside Albuquerque. Once I had found it, I stepped outside and gasped. I had forgotten what it was like to experience the stars like this, the wide open sky. I fell to my knees and cried.
I pulled the sleeping bag out of my car and onto the roof, where I bundled up with my dog, drank wine, and gazed into the glittering darkness, alternatingly quiet, singing, and crying, for what felt like hours, before crawling into bed in the back of my Subaru.
If you also love the desert, than you might find yourself a lover of the dark.
It’s not hard to understand why deserts are associated with mystical traditions.
As I’ve been spending time with The Hermit card this season, I was pleased to learn that the desert is a part of the etymology of hermit:
from Greek eremites, literally "person of the desert," from eremia "a solitude, an uninhabited region, a waste," from erēmos "uninhabited, empty, desolate, bereft," from PIE *erem- "to rest, be quiet"
It is a myth of course that the desert is uninhabited, a wasteland.
Both the desert and the dark have roles to play.
Spending time in the Dark
It was always dark, when my sister would tell me (albeit sometimes terrifying) fairy tales, the two of us often under her covers or perched on her bed.
It is always dark, when I wake in the middle of the night, my subconscious mind trying to work it all out, finding a way to solve some problem from the day before.
It is always dark when I wake, practically frantic with love for my loved ones, aware of mortality and the preciousness of our lives in a way that daylight doesn’t permit.
It is usually dark, when I dream some vivid dream, dream of ancestors, or things to come.
And it was dark, when Hurricane Helene took out or power for weeks, and I felt deeply aware of the smooth, wood floor beneath my feet for the first time, in the house I had lived in for years.
And yet while the darkness invites us into our other senses, it also invites us, like the world around us, to lose form, our bodies themselves appearing to merge with the darkness.
And there is both a discomfort and a comfort to the dark.
The darkness is both a cocoon and a return to the mysterious.
Pat Allen shares of the importance of losing form as shapeshifters:
"you must be sure to know how to keep changing back into nothing… We must also remember to dwell in long time, remembering our heritage as atoms in the creation of the universe, not merely the particular form we happen to take in our present life.”
From the dark soil of this earth, life sprouts and returns.
Plants grow towards and depend upon the sun, but their roots grow towards darkness. They need both, and so do we.
Naima Penniman shares in A Darker Wilderness:
“Soils are the most biologically diverse places on earth. Three quarters of our planet is covered with a layer of sea water, 2 miles in depth, providing a deep, dark habitat to the greatest number of organisms on earth, and the blackness of night is one of the most important influences on the biological world.
Artificial light at night disrupts the livelihoods of nocturnal species, confuses our circadian rhythms, plays havoc with sea turtle navigation, altars how insects pollinate and animals reproduce, interrupts our sleep patterns, and is downright bad for our health--just like white supremacy.
So love your Blackness, respect your shadow, tend to your womb and gut and blood and bones. Even more than your skin and what we can see. Let your eyes adjust to the dark. Therein lies the miracle of starlight, of fireflies, or bioluminescent firefly on a moon-dappled night in the moist oak woods.”
As we approach the longest night of the Winter Solstice, how can we celebrate not only the return of light that comes after the longest night has passed, but the darkness itself? How can we come to see the long night of winter, like our grief, like the desert, as a source of life? What nourishment and warmth can we bring into this long night, and what nourishment and warmth can only be found within it?
With love,
Mara June
If there’s one enchanting thing right now in your day or week, what is it? Or, what’s one of your enchanting experiences in the dark? Sink in, and tell us in the comments below, or tell us at our next Grief Studio, December 16th. Details below!🦋✨
Winter Solstice Grief Studio- Monday, December 16th 🌌❄️
Our Winter Solstice Grief Studio is next Monday, December 16th, from 6-8pm eastern time. We’ll be exploring the themes of dreaming and resting in the luminous dark, and making art about it. ❤️🔥
These studios are for paid subscribers and are spaces to dialogue with, make, and share your own art and writing alongside other grievers. For $16-20 per month, you both support this publication and your creative practice too!
I can’t tell you how divinely time this piece is in my life 🤍 thank you, thank you for the gift of your words. The reminder of shapeshifting through light and dark, through time and space, is an anchor I will hang on to.