The Forest Dark

Don’t look now. You keep the windows closed. You don’t want to hear that strange noise behind your door, and you don’t want to know what’s going on outside. You turn the lights on. You think you are safe inside the house. But they’re coming, and they will find that door that you can never close. They will find you in your dreams. The “rough nights” are the time for big dreams. Some dreams are visionary. Some dreams are more disturbing.

And this time the reality of the dream feels more real as in other dreams. You might be a different character acting in a weird movie. Then – perhaps – they have found you. You don’t see them as monsters because they are the WRITER and the DIRECTOR of that movie, which they have written only for you.  You not only might become the victim of disgusting and frightening acts, act you won’t tell anybody. You might do things in your dream, strange things, shocking things you keep for yourself. They got you.  This is when you see the world from their perspective. All you can do is join the dance. When you wake up you might think it was just a dream. But can you be absolutely sure?
Sure, our bodies rest in bed when we sleep (until we begin to sleepwalk), but do we know where our soul has been over the last hours? Maybe they can take you with them and offer you visits to other possibilities. Maybe they test you if you can resist. That’s maybe the experience of these magic nights in the middle of winter.

The dreams we don’t forget might be a reason why men invented so many rituals in the hope to find protection. However sometimes part of the ritual is to dance for a while in the forest dark with them and hope to survive. And any ritual can change you as the dreams can change you – perhaps the dream doesn’t really end when you wake up. Or you wake up and see the world from a different perspective. They love to whisper in your ear and give you something to think about, maybe dangerous thoughts, maybe intimidating thoughts you will never forget. You can’t really avoid this dance.

http://youtu.be/6NLtFIdpFi0

Between winter solstice and the 6th of January is not only Christmas time but according to older traditions a dangerous time. These nights are called rough nights which is in German “Rauhnächte”. They are also called the “Twelve Nights” (between Dec 25-Jan 6). In the alpine countries a lot of traditions are celebrated during the longest nights of the year. People receive important dreams. Demons need to be banned through appropriate ceremonies. Men wear huge wooden and very scary masks and become the demons themselves for the hours of the ritual. But even more important is that these are the nights where the future is formed. And outside, the wild hunt now reigns in the Forest Dark.

What does this mean to us? Long nights, often the sun now seem to have completely disappeared. Pure superstition? One explanation is that people in ancient times were simply  afraid of the weather conditions. Or do these traditions have deeper meanings? Were they used as a ritual to reconstitute order by keeping people in fear? It’s interesting that the winter solstice and “rough night” ceremonies are most popular in catholic regions and the church obviously tolerated the dark rituals even they appear pagan and seem to stem from an archaic background. These questions are still subject of a lot of research and there aren’t so many books about the “rough nights”.

Maybe there is a reality about the old stories and legends around the “Twelve Nights”. They happen at a time where something ends and something new hasn’t yet begun (in an astronomical sense the lunar year is shorter than the solar year). Indeed many of the rituals have something to do with getting rid of the past and predicting  and yes, creating an influence on the future – think about the little games which are often played during the last hours of the old year.

There might be a strong feeling involved here, a feeling of torn between two realities; an old cycle ends, a new one begins. We can’t know for sure on what level the exchange of  -let’s say old and new energies – happen, but for sure this is not only a time for strange dreams but also for strange things to happen. And it might be a time where chaos is closer, where the darker forces might take their chances to play their games and try to gain an influence. They want to become part of what’s happen in the future. Maybe our ancestors had a deeper sense for what’s going behind the veil, since there might be also something happen in the Otherworld – an ending and a new beginning, but in between there is a gap, where everything is possible.

Long nights and even longer nights. Short days. Some days without really becoming a day. The sun seems to have disappeared. The last autumn leaves have fallen. Darkness prevails. Sometimes it seems like things have been turned upside down. Summer is full of life but now it’s the opposite. It has become quiet in the forest. Since we can’t see so much we don’t really know what’s going on in the dark. Thus we avoid walking in the dark, if we don’t need to. We place our lights everywhere. However we shouldn’t forget that darkness is a normal state of things. Happy Sunshine is not the norm. Somehow we all still relate to darkness. We even can’t forget our darkness.

It’s surprising how fast we can adapt to darkness. We might not compete with our cat’s super hero night-vision but if we walk in the wilderness for some time we not only revive our older instincts and we begin so sense if there is a presence or danger. Sometimes it might be pitch black but normally we are able to see more as we think we would. Our eyes adapt like the visor of our digital camera to these conditions. And in a clear night even big planets like Jupiter can cast a shadow. No mention how bright moonlight can become, even it’s a different world without the usual colors we know. We are  able to detect movements in the dark. However there is more going on as our eyes and ears adapting to the dark.

There were times when light was the extraordinary and darkness a normal state of things. These were times of survival. Maybe civilization came with the knowledge how to make a fire and keep it alive during the endless nights in the woods.It’s interesting that there are so much fears around what would happen if we would experience a long-lasting black-out in one of our well lit big cities. Many people think we will revert to tribal beings and it takes only one thing to make that happen: darkness.

We need to protect the lantern not only because we are afraid what might be out there when we are alone in the dark. It’s maybe because we are afraid of the thoughts which will come up in the middle of the night and what we might become then. It’s ridiculous to say that we have a second identity after sunset. We know that.

After a while, when we are out there in the wilderness, we are afraid more of our own darkness rather than what might be lurking around us. For some people it might be even a danger that darkness becomes an obsession, they become addicted to their second nature.

Today we don’t believe any more in the old folk tales of the wild hunt roaming through the forest in stormy winter nights and the dangerous and often deadly encounters in the longest nights. Part of the myth of the wild hunt is that the wild hunt is not so much about you getting killed or getting sick when you see the lost souls and demons but that you get forced to run with this unholy army and become one of them. And if you run with them you might do certain things.

Swedish writer Kerstin Ekman collected the stories about the old fears in the wonderful book about the forest, “Herrarna i skogen”. Some medieval tales tell us about horrors which are even outside the Christian world of angels and demons. In the darkest of nights chaos reigns.

Maybe that is why we are putting on the lights and why we worship the light. For example Christian tradition’s like St. Martin Day Celebration (Children carrying lanterns) might go back to older traditions and have a deeper meaning even for our days. It’s a ritual to keep darkness at bay and whatever waits in the dark and hopes to invite us to run with the wild hunt. It is also a time to remember where we stand in the cosmic battle between light and darkness.

The nights are getting colder.  The days become shorter and shorter. Everything changes. When we go into the forest in the autumn we enjoy the great colors of the season, red and yellow colored leaves and the last warm rays of the sun. For those among us who are more sensitive or even have some psychic abilities this time is ambivalent. Not only that Samhuinn (Halloween) is the moment when our dimension and the other dimensions overlap, there are certain energies in the air. These energies can be very strong particularly when a full moon in October rises and sometimes the days become unnaturally warm again.

It’s a good time to visit the secret places in the woods again. However the wanderer needs to know when he has to be careful. This is a time for very special dreams. Some dreams are more as pure dreams. Sometimes they seem so real. And where do they come from? Where do certain images come from which even pop up sometimes in bright daylight? Maybe there are seasons or times of the year, which present more like a change of mere weather conditions. Like many other phenomena in nature they present an idea. This perspective can be found in ancient myth, like the cult of Persephone. Today we have lost this ancient wisdom. But in certain moments moment we sense a certain atmosphere or some kind of energy, which triggers sometimes disturbing images. And again there might be ceremonial places which work like batteries, storing up energies and waiting to be released.

http://youtu.be/qbrmIJurX50