The Season of Darkness

Why Stories are Only Told at Night

“It is said that whenever a story is told, it becomes night.”

-Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

In some places, stories were only allowed to be told in the dark. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re no strangers to darkness. Slate-grey skies can cover the horizon for weeks on end. Sometimes, a silent snowfall blankets the land, wrapping all of her creatures into that still embrace of winter. The birds don’t even leave their nests. We humans aren't much different.

It's not an easy time of year. I know many folks who deal with seasonal affective disorder, or some form of cyclical depression when the darkness comes around. There is a level of dreariness present, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, that the recently arrived often become bluntly confronted with during their first “winter” here (though having lived in Vermont, I can tell you that this is hardly one at all). Still, enduring the murky long-haul of this season can sometimes feel like wearing wet socks.

But then I think of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest, who not only survived, but thrived in this climate and knew a thing or two about making it through these dark days. During the fall and summer, the salmon runs would occupy most of their time, along with following the flushes of berries and other flowering food plants that needed to be collected, processed, and stored. Summertime was for work, gatherings, and all those other warm-blooded pursuits.

But winter was for stories told around the crackling hearth fire of the longhouse, and sacred ceremonies, which as far as I can tell have very much in common.

There is a deep, cellular knowing that ties together stories, darkness and fire. As far back as we can conceive of, humans have engaged in this simple, primordial ritual of telling stories in the dark. Our imagination implicitly understands this.

It was fire that enabled us as a species to come together with enough safety and free time to recount the events of the day, and to engage in the imaginative act of storytelling. Without fire, there is no time or space or safety in which the imaginative act of storytelling can occur.

I’ve heard one of my teachers, a Native elder, say countless times, that the fire has been with us since the beginning of time. That it knows everything. Everything begins with the fire.

As Edward O. Wilson wrote in his book, The Origins of Creativity (2017),