Turn Off The Streetlights

The glare can be blinding. At each turn the lights dazzle us, the neon bouncing off the wet pavement, the logos and the slogans flashing, buzzing at us, hurting our eyes. Walk, don’t walk they tell us, but it’s so bright we can’t see where we’re going, which foot to put in front of the other, what’s ahead of us. Buy, drink, eat, consume. Everywhere we turn the electric flicker of artificial light vying for our eyeballs, attuning our brainwaves to sleep patterns, switching us off to anything but the capacity to shop, to function as a cog in the machine, to feast upon the artificial, and be feasted upon.

After a while it gets heavy and the burden makes us tired, and our bodies ache. We are drained.

But turn the lights off, and the iridescent cacophony gives way to a new darkness. Slowly, as our eyes become accustomed to nature’s silence, and we blink into the void, new lights appear. The stars emerge from their hiding places, twinkling their semaphore at us. This is a different message, and these beacons offer us a choice of paths, or the option to just bathe in their light and let it soothe us.

This new light is soft and refreshing, yet bright and clear. We’re not dazzled, but rejuvenated, not blinded, but cleansed, and suddenly we know where we are, who we are, why we are.

This is the place, and any time we need to come here all we have to do is turn off the streetlights and let the starshine wash away everything that is not us. And we’re always welcome.