Small night mysteries

I walked home in the dark last night, my route taking me through a wooded stretch, where I needed the torch – I don’t see well in the dark, and it gets pretty dark in there. It was a dry night with a soft breeze, and leaves were falling from the trees. They came down in front of me, bright and golden in the torchlight, vivid against the unlit background. A quiet and soft rain of discarded leaves, rustling against the ground as they landed. It was a beautiful experience.

I had missed this.

For the last two years, narrowboat life had given me trees aplenty – hedge trees, edge of canal trees, but not places I could regularly walk where trees surrounded me. On top of that, the last few autumns have been harsh, weather-wise, with angry winds and torrential rain stripping off the leaves. There wasn’t much scope for gentle flutterings.

This year, autumn is taking its time. The tree outside my window has turned to yellow and brown in a leisurely way, and still has a few green leaves. The nights have been relatively balmy, the weather mild and I like this gentle season a good deal more than that which the last few years have delivered. I love that I live somewhere where I can easily go out and walk amongst trees, too. It is a very different experience, being in amongst trees rather than seeing a few here and there. I’ve missed that. I’ve missed enjoying the autumn.

I know a lot of Druids see themselves as solitary people, craving distance from the majority of humans. I’ve done that. I’ve lived for short stretches in places there were no other lights at night, no other humans in shouting distance. I’ve looked at the vast night sky and felt the loneliness of it. I’ve walked, as our ancestors would have done, in natural places with little light, watching the shadows morph into mythical beings, some of whom, the stories tell me, might be hungry. Sometimes you have to go outside the village to remember what the village was for in the first place.