red tooth claw

Was torn out of sleep at 3:30 this morning by some sizable animal's death cry out in the trees.

It set silence all over.

I guess every other living thing had to go quiet then. Me, too.

I was wondering what did it ... how big it was ... could it climb to my second storey ... could it leap through the window and get me, too.

What lurks around out there once no light covers the woody green world? This is the question ... no doubt ... common to the ancestors who lived on their own in the old weird natural world that has never gone away. I'm getting to know that. Fear of the dark ... what a concept.

Is this the new me?

Comments

[ms]

dark is paralytic terror, except when it wraps warmly around us, hiding us from those terrors. It is only in the last 10 years or so that I am not constantly terrified of the dark. I guess it was never the dark itself, but that animal screaming outide your window; no really it was the one just down the hall, in the next room (real or not) and my total lack of power (real or perceived) to do anything about it.

[ms]

the dark is either paralytic terror or a warm enveloping, fortunately it has become more like a soft cave over hte years ... I am embarassed to admit that it's only in the last 10 years or so I quit being so scared of the dark. It was that screaming animal outside your window, or worse, the one just down the hall or in the next room (real or imagined) and my total lack of power (real or perceived) to do anything about it when it came, if it came, to get me. Perhaps a self fear too. But now the dark is welcoming, not in a "dark" or gothic way but as an oasis of silence and privacy ... for whatever that's worth.
Better than the gunshots of the big city ... maybe. At least your night noise is natural.