Endless Fourth Day

In The Beginning

Musings on Genesis 1:14-19:

Once, not so long ago, I did a lot of research on why it is that I just can’t sleep well at night. Let me rephrase that…. why I just can’t sleep well period. Night didn’t seem to have anything to do with it.

I tried all the various sleep aid advice. No caffeine, don’t drink after X p.m., don’t eat after X p.m., DO eat after X p.m., supplements, douse the light, shut off the electronics, listen to relaxing music, hypnosis, exercise, meditate, develop a routine…. yadda, yadda, yadda. In the end, I was still sleepless, but a lot more educated about it.

I became obsessed with the whole light issue, and it’s affect on me, you, the plants and animals. It leaked over into my writing life and eventually light became the focus of most of what I write about, sometimes directly, often indirectly, but always there, always reacting with us. (Note I said “reacting”, a reverse action response of stimuli).

Light, and it’s corresponding absence (dark) has a profound effect on all of life. So what happens when day is no longer easily distinguished from night? When you pull all the shades in your house and flip all the switches off at midnight and there is STILL enough light within your home to wander room to room by sight alone?

You learn new words, as I did. Words like “light pollution”, “scotobiology”, “phototropism” and “photoperiodism”. I learned some helpful stuff, but I learned some scary stuff too, about disease caused from too much light, and biological and behavioral changes in plants and animals. And us.

To be clear, I’m not writing this to descry conspiracy theories or pull a red flag and shout warnings from the rooftop. Rather, I’ve developed this blog, and two others, because I want to explore more fully the link between light, dark, and the world around us. And because I think maybe we would all be a little better off if we stepped off the gerbil wheel for a moment and tried to work in conjunction with our planets cycle. At least part of the time.

For the sake of clearly defining my particular interests I have three main topics… 1) Plants and animal life, 2) Science, and 3) Spirituality. I write articles about plants, sci-fi stories, and inspirational fiction. Those three may seem incompatible at first glance, but when you throw light into the equation you see that they are all linked, as are the three blogs I have created to address them. One geared towards plants, one toward science, and one exploring our spirituality.

By way of introduction, this (my first blog entry), is the same on all three blogs. But hereafter, entries will be tailored to meet the specific slant and subject matter of each. Feel free to contact me and leave comments for discussion.

And please…. do come back and travel this journey of light with me. I look forward to meeting you.