When The Nights Draw In, We Are Being Called To Look Within
As nights draw in, open the spirit.
As autumnal darkness wraps around you, it can sometimes feel like a heavy, suffocating blanket that you want to throw off but can’t.
In the light of summer, I can sometimes take for granted the length of daylight we can frolic freely in; and as clocks turn, I start to feel the gaping hole of time that darkness digs for me and a certain dislocation from life itself. It’s as though the curtains of the theatre I call life went down a little too speedily, and I am left bewildered and a bit lost in the audience.
How to face this external darkness that can etch sadness and shadows on your inner world?
Once the bright orange colours of Samhain have faded, and the vibrant colours of early autumn have been squished beneath our feet, the world around us can start to feel a little too serious and introspective.
In Chinese medicine, autumn is linked to metal and the lungs, of which grief and sadness are the emotions. Our spirit can help us express this sadness in healthier ways by opening up within, sitting in stillness and giving ourselves the essential life care or self care we need.
It is also possible to strengthen the lungs through breath exercises; flooding our internal systems with the necessary warmth and light that is lacking in our outside environments. Finding moments of vital light during the day when walking outside is a perfect moment to sip the autumnal air, connect to nature around us whilst revitalising our Qi and refuelling our oxygen levels.
If we breathe with intention and depth, our hearts remain open and our spirit strong. It is this very spirit that can contain within us the very positivity and light that summer fostered and it is its resilience that can connect us back to the beauty of life itself.
Living in harmony is not an easy feat but in some ways, I feel we are being forced to look within again. Our common distractions ripped from us abruptly, we can look more deeply into the essence of ourselves; asking nature who it is she wants us to become in this new world. Opening up the spirit within by falling headfirst and willingly into the darkness that ensues.
Perhaps this internalising, spirit opening time can bring us into more close contact with the true contentment we were always seeking; as we realise that we have and always had everything we needed to keep that spirit open, in darkness and in light.