The Nightlife
I remember a day from my youth. A summer’s day with a summer’s afternoon sunlight. A lover of the Sun and his warm, I was on my balcony, sunbathing, a common activity I’d enjoy. The Sun became too strong on the face and the eyes and I placed a black cloth, a scarf over my head. I closed my eyes. But then I decided to open them. Gazing into the black of my fabric, I saw the Sun’s rays penetrate through the black. As it penetrated, on the surface of my black scarf, formed many little circles and inside of them translucent colours. Circle upon a circle. With rainbow colours. A nature’s stained glass. Realities, universes, circles. The spaces between the thread of fabric allowed the sunlight in, creating a coloured spectrum.
A simple and naive experience and yet it was a very direct initiation into the interaction between the spacious darkness and white light. The alchemist, the poet, the metaphysician inside of me held the experience inside and allowed it to grow, telling me more about itself.
Sleep, Terror, Love
Light Abstraction by Francis Bruguière (1879–1945)
Night is an hour when most of humanity is put to sleep. At least the decent, the working, the respectable part of the humanity. Asleep, this humanity dies and begins to associate the night with death of itself. True indeed, they are dead. No light shines at night and not even dreams come to paint images.
The night has her life. There are creatures that awake and are active only in the dark. The flowers that open and bloom at night. The tides of the oceans. The saints, the mystics, the prophets. The thieves, the prostitutes, the transvestites, the hedonists, the freaks, the troubled, the sad, the pensive. The poets. The journey people. The refugees. The exiled. The day does not have much to offer them. The journey people navigate the terrain by the stars. And know the day of the month and the hour by the moon. Night illuminates, creates the gaps, the spaces, like my fabric, through which light is to travel.
Her creatures and eccentrics terrify those asleep and too accustomed to the daylight. A dream is a terror. A sleepless night, a restless insomnia, not an ecstasy, not a revelry, and not a waking dream. The forests at night terrify them. The neon lights of the city at night overstimulate them. The nightlife, for them, is an infinite loss. From the night they try to protect their reputations and insurance numbers. Night, for them, is a terrible mother who brings terror and loss; not the mother who hides the exiled and inspires the mystic.
Among all the creatures, Night perhaps favours most the lover. For he is the saint and the mystic and the poet. The hedonist who gives and savours pleasure. The thief of hearts. A transvestite in his desire to merge with and hold that which is not he and wear their shoes. Lover is the journey man. The sorrowful and the yearning one. And eternal refugee. And forever exiled. He is asleep and he is awake. He shines in the night. The night’s canopy envelops him.
The Debauched Permission
Katherine Dunham posing atop a Steinway & Sons grand piano while a jazz pianist plays alongside her
You and I may have been born in time of the night! Yet everywhere one looks, one sees humanity desperately yearning for the dawn. They want a resolution. A clarity. The murky, the shadowy, the unclear, the unresolved bothers them. They want the orgasm without knowing how to engage in sex. No wonder that the orgasm never arrives. How can it arrive for the one who never took the gifts of night? For the one who never loved?
Nightlife is of revelry! Debauchery. Love. Love and debauchery! Debauchery and love! While waiting for the dawn, which is inevitable, why not have a magnificent night? Have a magnificent night life! Those who refuse to participate in night’s birthing pains, do not be surprised if you do not find them anywhere once the dawn comes! For what is Dawn but night glowing crimson?! Who will come to see their own faces gleaming in the Dawn’s Red but those who gave it all and lived and shone through the night?!
We picture a scene. Full of glamour and melancholy. Something like out of a Fitzgerald’s novel. It is a New Year’s Eve. The dinner table is spread with champagne, caviar, meats, fries, cakes, fruit. The countdown to the last ten seconds begins. The arrows on the clock touch. You shout in unison with others “Happy New Year!” and the firework bursts in the dark sky. You clap, smile, giggle. Another threshold had been crossed. Whatever pains you had yesterday, yesterday being the entire previous year, the Midnight hour erases. In her dark hour, you gaze towards the upcoming dawn that you trust will bring you new, a fresh babe, unburdened by past. You are so excited! To begin anew. A new start. You will read the books. And go to the gym. And finally do what you wanted to do. Midnight is an open field. A promise of one’s own dawning.
Oh the things you have done during the night! Intoxicated and mad. Gluttonous you ate the meats and the cakes and the fruits. You took another’s wife. You invited enemy to a duel. Your heart was full of apocalyptic hatred and you shot him. He fell dead in front of you and you were glad. Inside the night’s madness, you kissed the woman that was not your wife. You wanted it for so long. To take her. To defy the daylight’s law. You were a coward but night gave you the sudden courage. You kiss her once again to seal the act. Dawn brings to fruit the Midnight’s kiss.
For a extra to his article, exploring the mysteries, archetypes and spiritual signification of the Night, please check the Orpheon Patreon where you can access the extra to this and the other texts, focusing on exploring the symbols associated with what the article touched upon more creatively and contemplatively. You can sign up for five euros a month.
