The Keeper of the Dark

I walked down to the pier tonight just to watch the last of the daylight slip away. It’s a strange habit, I know, but there is something about the transition from blue to black that makes the world feel honest again. I stood there until the streetlamps flickered to life, one by one, like a slow conversation starting up across the water. We spend so much of our time trying to illuminate every corner of our lives, terrified of the shadows or what might be hiding in them. But standing there in the cooling air, I realized that the darkness isn’t an absence of anything. It is a space for things to rest. It is a quiet boundary that tells us we don’t have to be everything, all at once, to everyone. Sometimes, the most important thing you can do is simply hold your ground while the rest of the world fades into the deep, velvet unknown. What do you find when you stop trying to chase the sun?

Mike Dooley has captured this beautiful, steady presence in his photograph titled Castle Hill Lighthouse. It feels like a quiet anchor in the middle of the vast, darkening sea. Does this image make you feel lonely, or does it bring you a sense of peace?