The Dark, On Purpose.
Two generations ago, night was part of childhood. Let's reclaim the deep dark for our modern kids.
"Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea... To-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night." — Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928
There is a habitat your child has probably never visited, and it begins at the end of your street every single evening. Two generations ago, night was part of childhood. Kids caught frogs by flashlight, walked home late, lay in yards while the sky did its slow wheel overhead. Then, quietly, it disappeared. Between the porch light, the streetlight, the headlight, and the schedule, the modern child's day simply ends indoors, and the oldest spectacle on earth plays every clear night to an empty house.
The world atlas of artificial night-sky brightness estimates that roughly 80 percent of North Americans can no longer see the Milky Way, the home galaxy every human ancestor could see, from where they live. A Portland kid can reach adulthood without ever once seeing it. Which is a strange thing, when you consider that the arm of the galaxy is still right there, 2 hours from your driveway, waiting behind a curtain of our own making.
This piece is about pulling the curtain back on purpose: where to take a child to meet real darkness, and why it is worth the lost sleep.