A nyctophilia is someone who loves darkness or night. They find relaxation or comfort in the darkness. The silence that comes with being the only one awake in the middle of the night can be the most comforting feeling in the world. I waited to publish my noetic nomad until it was nighttime for me. I imagine that my hosts at Positive Psychology Learning, and Buckinghamshire University in Great Britain are fast asleep right now.
The world is an ever increasingly small place. I can travel from a conversation with a child who has never left the small rural area I live in to having a conversation with someone from Portugal, someone from Australia, someone from the UK and yet another someone from Hawaii all at the same time. Time and hour are irrelevant to those of us on social media.
There’s a peace in knowing that day and night are all a part of our never ending quest for healing our world, nurturing our souls, and awakening to a better place to live.
Shakespeare wrote of the peace of nighttime.
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night”
There’s a beauty in the sounds and sights of the night. We know that the human eye can see the light of a single burning candle at 30 miles away if there is no obstacle in our way while also in the darkness.
Meditation
This is also true of our sense of peace. The quiet calm is an ultimate goal for those of us seeking thoughtful calmness in our soul. When we meditate with our eyes closed, we see the dark as a place of solace. A place of peace. We go inward for that thing that can not be seen in the busy overstimulating light. We see our authentic truth.
When night comes about, so does a shift in nature’s turn to wake up.
Shakespeare gave us another concept to grasp that too often, these days, we tend to overestimate our ability to understand meaning without a great deal of the back story of that concept.
“Secret Moon, I thank thee for they sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shinning now so bright” ~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Night is a different perspective on a same view. It represents the dichotomy of our alter ego, our different selves, our other side. We live in an ever evolving yin and yang. We can use this metaphor as a way to look at our choices. There are always two sides to our day itself. For people who work all night long, sleep comes in the light. For those who love the darkness, see the stars for what they are. A miracle of our universe.
To be truly alive, we have the opportunity to know that both stars and the moon are the other side of the sunshine. Not all happiness, or thriving happens in the sunny representation of a positive psychology.
Night can offer us the meaning in our world we can not feel in the brightness. It is the path less taken, yet just as bright in our love of the comfort.
Peace and darkness.
Karen
About the Author: Karen Henry [Daly], MA CRM owns Henry Healing as a holistic well-being practitioner and writer. She’s a former university professor and current scholar practicing the infusion of positive, existential and community psychology.