So the other night I was headed to bed and as I turned out the living room lights I happened to glance out our window – if you were actually reading this on my blog website rather than taking the lazy way out and having it conveniently emailed to your inbox, you would see the daytime view I’m talking about – and saw a most startling sight.
There, hanging right above the distant ridge line, was this bright shining … well, orb, is the best description I can give, and I don’t use the word orb very often unless I’d doing a crossword puzzle. I must admit, I probably spend more time than the average person gazing skyward, what with living in the country – not technically in the boonies but close enough for your basic government demographic description, but of course you would know all this if you are a regular reader and have been paying attention – but I had never seen such a celestial sight.
After much binocular perusal and Google goggling, I determined the celestial object to be Venus, the much revered and famed evening star. It apparently is at the brightest it has been in several years and, I must say, breathtaking in its, well, orbicity. I mean, other than the moon, there are not many objects in the sky that are round to the naked eye.
Anyway, my point here is that there are things out there that are best seen with the lights out. I was brought up in a waste-not, want-not household – with the emphasis on, well, you can want that all you want but the odds are pretty slim you’ll ever get it (I’m looking at you, Daisy pump-action BB gun) – and one of the things we did not waste was electricity.
I don’t know, maybe electricity wasn’t as plentiful back in the day as it is now, but we kids knew not to waste it. We didn’t have to be told twice to turn out the light when we left a room – “What, you think electricity grows on trees?” – and we were lucky to have so much as a nightlight in the bathroom much less in our bedroom – “There aren’t any monsters under your bed and anyway, if you don’t have a light on in here you won’t be able to see them” (this is what passed for parental logic, or possibly humor, in the ‘60s).
Despite all of this, I as an adult am not particularly afraid of the dark. Unlike, apparently, the rest of my neighborhood and most of America. I mean, people, why do you leave your porch lights on all night? Are you expecting visitors at 3 am? Other than the moths that are congregating around your back porch?
I get it. I live in the relative safety of the backwoods. I don’t live in a high-crime area, where I would take all necessary precautions including external lighting and razor wire fences. But I don’t live in a city, and when I drive around at night I see countless houses with every room lit up so brightly you can probably see them from, well, Venus. I know there isn’t someone in every single room, so why are all those lights on? And don’t get me started on those security lights on telephone poles blinding everything with a quarter mile of their yard.
So I say turn off your lights if you are not using them. Embrace your dark side. You’re missing half of each day, half of life. You’re missing moonbeams and starlight and fireflies and shooting stars and other enchanting manifestations of magic. But you have to turn your lights off to see them.
When the moon is full it’s like the lights are on outside anyway. Many people today take the moon for granted, but like Venus it has an ancient and beguiling relationship with us terrestrial life forms. For instance, some people look out at a full moon and think of love, whereas others think of werewolves. It depends on your perspective, I suppose. Kind of a glass half-empty, half-full thing.
I say fill up your glass to the brim and live life, even if it’s dark outside. Trust me, you’ll be amazed at the wonders that await.