Looking Into the Night

[digitalraven]

Had a bit of a ramble about the night sky and magic last night. Sadly, that ramble was on facebook, so unless I put it here I’ll never see the fucking thing again.

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It’s ten to eleven, this sliver of a moon is in the sky, and it isn’t even fully dark.

I fucking love it here

It’s breathtaking. I’m thinking about the spiritual and the miraculous and (even though I don’t smoke any more) the ritual exhalation of smoke out into that infinite beauty.

I may get wanky from here on in…

I love nights like this in a way that I don’t know if I can properly convey — the sky not quite dark enough to hide the silhouette of the city skyline, warm enough to not need a jumper but cold enough that a jacket’s a blessing, nothing stirring the air but the passing of traffic. It’s perfection.

The last one I can remember is coming home from feorag’s Eurovision party a couple of years ago. 2015, I think. Walking home across North Bridge at so-late-it’s-early-o'clock, and looking back and seeing this perfectly clear sky and the shades of a sunset not fully finished, a sunrise already starting.

When I lived in Hessle, just outside Hull, I saw the night sky a lot. I used to stay up at nights reading, long after my parents had gone to bed, and I’d look out of my bedroom window just to see what the world looked like when most people were asleep. Okay, let’s be fair, when many people were asleep and many more were staggering out of nightclubs and being sick in gutters, but still. Work with me.

Once I was old enough to have a job, I worked in newsagents that closed at ten or eleven at night. When they’d shut, I’d meet Luke and gominokouhai for a drink or five, then a pizza, and a stagger home. I loved a clear night. For some reason, the only constellation I could definitely identify was Orion. If it was a clear night, I’d look for Orion. That’s how I knew things would be okay. I took that habit with me — to university, to Munich, and with me now.

One of the things about living near a big city is how it warps the sky. Clear nights aren’t that common, after all. The night skies I remember at home are all from when I would stand behind the garage at my parents' place. It was the one spot none of the house windows could see, so the perfect place for me to have a crafty cigarette. Most nights it didn’t feel dark. Clouds hanging over the city meant the sky was a dirty grey-orange, and real darkness didn’t happen. Clear skies were the only time I saw the night for what it was. I got entranced one evening (and I will admit for the record that drink may have been taken), when for the first time I realised I could see the shadows cast by moonlight.

It was a night like tonight that I had my first properly magical experience, my first taste of the divine. First year of university, late on a Sunday. We’d been at a live-action roleplaying event — which somehow managed to be even nerdier than it sounds — and rather than going straight home, we’d gone to someone’s house to play card games and watch vampire films (starting with Blade, naturally). Said house was in Stoke, one in a long line of semi-detached houses, parallel streets full of them running along a gentle slope.

It was a clear night. I could see Orion, and the moon was bright, and below the sky was row after row of tiled roofs, almost glowing in the moonlight, stretching off down the hill and on until they hit the distant glimmer of the city streetlights. For a moment — just a moment — I was enraptured. Captivated by the perfect beauty of the image, this juxtaposition between the timeless sky and stars and the neat slates on the houses dating from the early twentieth century rising to meet them. The timeless and the modern, the universe that doesn’t even know we exist reflected in structures that we built to house people as industry changed the world.

At that point, someone from the game — a woman I only vaguely knew, but knew to be a pagan of some flavour — broke the illusion. She commented on how ugly the view was, how the houses were a scar on the land, ugly bricks and tiles claiming space that should be meadows or forests or fields, how it drained the wonder out of the world. I didn’t argue, but I didn’t understand her. I still don’t. To me, magic is a human thing, and the idea that it can only come from the “natural” (read: pre-industrial) world strikes me as wrong on a fundamental level. Magic comes from the world around us, and should come from the world as it is, the fucked-up and lived-in world that we inhabit, not the world as we imagine it was.

I know lots of people don’t agree with that, but it’s what I am. I’ve never felt an affinity with woods or fields or meadows. I know lots of people do, and I respect that. But I get the same feeling of spiritual and divine connection from walking empty streets late at night, soaking up the streetlights, seeing the occasional light in a flat window and wondering about the stories that go along with it. I don’t get the same feeling anywhere else. I’m made for urban environments.

Comments

this is really lovely.

[beachglass]

you're an excellent writer, very descriptive.

I feel magic everywhere.
it's definitely, like you said-inside us...

[talkswithwind]

I'm of the generation where War for the Oaks was a new release. And to make things more interesting, it was set in my home-town. So, magical cityscapes ahoy. The numinous events I've had have mostly been in the greenspaces between houses. Those areas we set aside so we can have a picnic, or celebrate something, or take a walk someplace that doesn't have No trespass signs everywhere.

Those areas that act as focuses for our interaction with the greater world. Could be a dark back-yard. Or the corner-park with the broken lamps. Or the creek-side park with all the picnic structures and hiking paths. Standing in one of those after nightfall in the midst of a big city is an experience like no other.

One time me and a group of friends who were coincidentally working the night-shift went on a walk in our glittering downtown full of high-rises. Completely devoid of people, and the few that were around were trying not to be seen or were sleeping in out of the way places. A place normally full of people, but not. That was its own kind of magic.

[selki]

the idea that it can only come from the “natural” (read: pre-industrial) world strikes me as wrong on a fundamental level. Magic comes from the world around us, and should come from the world as it is, the fucked-up and lived-in world that we inhabit, not the world as we imagine it was.

Hear, hear. And I'm someone who does love woods and fields and meadows, too.

Group singing/music can be another kind of magic, too. That can happen anywhere. My community orchestra is performing video game music this afternoon, and it's wonderful to be creating something ephemeral together after months of work.