starlight

this morning i awoke to a cloudless and pitch-dark sky – with dawn still more than an hour away, the stars robust and unfettered against the inky black. still a miracle to me, these skies are unheard of within city limits where the neverending neurons beam from streetlights, cars and automobiles – bouncing against the finite atmospheric roof and encasing every living thing in an orange dome 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

i had an experience about two weeks ago, driving out of the ferry terminal in langdale at 8 pm one night. my car was one of the last off the ferry, and so there was no one behind me on the highway winding up the hill. for the first hundred metres or so the road is bathed in the orange light emanating from the ferry complex, a pool of artificial colouring on an otherwise unlit passage. as i drove, i was not conscious of this division between artifical lightness and authentic dark, but as my car slipped out of the pooling light, the release in tension from my shoulders was unmistakable. i felt suddenly released, and the force of the relief that washed over me was so great i almost started to cry.

it is no secret that one of the reasons i left the city was because of the destructive air quality which was threatening to weaken my health over time – but besides air pollution which is obviously miasmic – i wonder how other environmental contaminants such as sound and light disrupt our central nervous systems? not only would this appear to be physically damaging to us as natural animals, but preliminary studies in mental health have shown a correlation between intense urban environments and what is termed mental illness. this is some of what i am interested in studying as a master’s in counselling psychology (my primary interest is ecopsychology which flows from these and other observations made working as an activist in a highly urbanized environment for the past 10 years).

in any case, the stars this morning were brilliant and as i got out the door, i spied a shooting star streaking across the early morning sky, engaging me to make a wish best left unsaid. although our society’s “quality of life” is tied to dollars, i’m pretty sure there are better measures of such things – such as stars in the sky unobscured by artificial light, and quiet places where cedar drinks from clear rivers.