Harper and I were out late in the day again today. It was one of those days when time got away from me, and before I realized it, the sun had set. We set off in the dusk.
As we walked by our neighbor’s farm, I could feel the light closing in on us. It was like there was a soft, gentle curtain falling.
Our field of vision narrowed, and then a couple of lights came on.
The trees that are so familiar became unknown figures and shapes.
Everything became still, as if on cue.
It felt like time slowed down.
I used to try to finish our walk while it was still light, but then I realized that I love being out at dusk. There is a particular quality of time and light at dusk.
Dusk is an ending.
What is possible in endings?
We continued to walk in the soft light of dusk. I felt the urgency of the day fall away. All of those things that seemed so important to tend to earlier suddenly lost their pull on me.
Maybe dusk is an invitation to let go of some of the hurried quality and urgency of the day, and to let things be complete, for now, to be taken up again when the light returns.
Our electrical and digital world offers us far more choices about when we get our work done, but in that flexibility, we lose the natural boundaries of the day that existed before.
I think, for me, the key is to come back to the wisdom in my body. This wisdom knows a deeper rhythm than that which is determined by calendars and computers.
That wisdom knows what rhythm is organic for me.
Dusk is clearly a transition time in the day. It is a choice point. It is an invitation to bring myself to full presence, and to ask and discern: What is ending, and what is beginning?
What is ending, and what is beginning, for you?
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