Night Walking and Nocturnal Musings...

I'm a nocturnal person, a night owl, and one thing I like to do is go for walks at night – not for exercise, but purely to get out of the house. And I'm not talking about 10 o'clock at night, I'm talking about 2-4 in the morning. I don't want to get too deep and philosophical about it, but at this time the world's a very different place; man and nature are sleeping, the air is cool, and the peace heightens awareness.

Time slows down, and you can feel like you're the only person on earth. And yet if you tune in you'll see that nature’s still operating, but on a different rhythm; one of meditation and contemplation.

Night walking suits me because while I like to get outside, I tend to be an introverted person who enjoys quiet. It's not that I mind saying hello to people on the sidewalk, but when I walk I admit I prefer not seeing a soul. And living just outside of a major city, this is one of the few times when it’s actually quiet.

Occasionally I'll scare up a dog who wants to bark, but that's about it. While walking I often either solve some issue nagging at my brain, or it simply melts away and I realize that on the scale of things, it’s insignificant...especially if you look up.

I've often figured that people may suspect I'm up to no good -- out walking around at 3am. There’s a paved trail that runs right beside the house that's open "dawn till dusk" -- it's a little like the Silver Comet Trail, except I imagine at a moderate pace you could cover it in less than an hour. If someone asks me what I'm doing out there, I've always figured that the best answer is I'm doing what everyone else does during the day.

The association of night with danger and evil goes back to man's most primitive roots. Night was a time when the world was transformed into a place full of hidden dangers. Later men associated night with the time that ghosts left their graves and witches held their Sabbath with the Devil. On a deeper symbolic level where spring and morning represent birth and awakening, nighttime, much like winter represents the end of life ("Dead of Night" anyone?).

It's easy to see these fears as somewhat justified, imagine if you lived in a cabin deep in a hollow two hundred years ago without electricity. When the sun set over your mountain it suddenly got dark, real dark. Not dark like we have today, where the sky is inevitably lit up by some nearby town. The silence was overwhelming and when there was a strange sound that your nature-keen ears couldn't identify it would chill you to the bone. It's no surprise you stayed inside by the fire, door bolted. You must admit, trees do appear a bit more gnarled by moonlight…

I imagine if I was a female I would feel uncomfortable doing this, but I think these fears are simply ingrained into us from a more primitive time and aren’t as justified today. I hope that as we continue to exist in a 24 hour world people will become comfortable with the night, until then I’m happy to have it to myself.