After a day trapped in the city, its noise and shadow still closing in, I cut through rough country, to where still water hides. On the shore’s soft edge, I cross my legs and lean back into the hammock of my raised arms. So keenly the day distills into this small lake, I can barely contain the light that wells up inside me.
Did you know that our bodies read artificial light as darkness? I learned this as a teacher, watching students drowse beneath the brightest of fluorescents on the ceiling. Natural light is much more subtle, more susceptible to the kind of complex ‘reading’ a human body performs. As soon as I flicked the switches off, and lifted the blinds, the young people opened toward me, like flower-faces at dawn.
Early man did not just use light as a means to prolong work. He interpreted it to understand weather, and the changing seasons. His senses took from it complex clues, such as when plants would be ready to eat, and which sides of a ravine, chosen for shelter, would allow his children to grow and prosper. Far in the reaches of his brain, there turned rhythms. Light-sensitive, these led his body around the circle of a day toward the deep, ingrained marker where he would fall asleep.
The loss of Circadian rhythms is perhaps the single deepest felt loss our recent generations have sustained. Electricity has forced countless shift workers into poor health and prolonged mental confusion, as they struggle to overcome what the body knows. Tube lights notwithstanding, our inner self feels acute awareness of the dark, and the need to sleep. Beyond factories, many office workers are so strapped for time during the day, that we try to cheat our bodies with night-time chores, such as shopping. This turn forces retail workers into night work limbo. In Northern countries, higher proportions of us spend whole work-weeks without natural light than ever before.
Small wonder that many of us begin to feel ‘low’. When you have no sight of the sky, where will you find room to soar? I challenged myself with this question when, in my early thirties, I lost motivation as soon as daylight savings time ended. I had never heard of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but my family doctor had no doubt that it was the cause of my listlessness and depression in late fall.
Strategies for coping with S.A.D.
Just the way you would move a houseplant to catch the sun, I began to seek ways into the light. Below I’ll share with you what worked for me.
1)I stopped taking the subway to work, walking blocks in pearly light to watch the morning rise.
2)I took in fresh air and outdoor light every lunchtime, nourishing all my senses, not just my tongue.
3)If winter days were short, I’d take an outdoor stroll or run near my work location, rather than sliding into the gym when I got home.
4)Most of all, I made a quest of each small park, ravine and body of water concealed within my urban environment. (Water reflects and magnifies light, so it can cause your eyes and spirit to lift on even the dullest day.)
5) Find a way to hold and cherish your moments of light, by drawing, word sketching, or even composing a song. (This piece was written by a hidden urban lake, in a small window of time.) Let’s return now to where that window opens…
Just before sunset, the lake lays down a path into the Milky Way, leads my eye down through the depths of clouds, toward planets submerged beyond.
At this moment, I glimpse why people immerse(baptise) to become holy –
Water is the closest sky.
Nature's Path 