Yet this slowing of time can be the most relaxing and beautiful experience.

We have all experienced negative darkness – those long stretches of the night when we can't sleep, and worry about everything, and so we know that 'dark time' can seem interminably long, compared with daytime. You, as a dark shape in a darkening world, want to hold that intimacy, just for one night. Prepare dinner ahead, and plan a walk so that you will be heading for home in that lovely liminal time where light and dark are hinged against each other.Ĭity or country, that sundown hour is strange and exhilarating, as ordinary spatial relations are altered: trees rear up in their own shadows, buildings bulk out, pavements stretch forward, the red wrapper of brake lights turns a road into a lava flow. Make it a weekend, get in plenty of candles, and lay the fire if you have one. It doesn't matter whether you are in the city or the country, as long as you can control your own little pod. Have you ever spent an evening without electric light? As the nights lengthen, it's time to reopen the dreaming space. I think we should stop being night-resisters, and learn to celebrate the changes of the seasons, and realign ourselves to autumn and winter, not just turn up the heating, leave the lights on and moan a lot. Yet slowness and silence – the different rhythm of the night – are a necessary correction to the day. In fact we treat the night like failed daylight.

Our 24/7 culture has phased out the night. We now live in a fast-moving, fully lit world where night still happens, but is optional to experience.

Night light turns on in the dark