Table of Contents

• Home
• Introduction
• Where Goths Come From - Neef
• The Watcher - Hobbes
• The Resurrection Shuffle - Barbarella
• Cassandra - Cosey Mo
• Drunken Old Bastard - Sandro
• Alcohol - Trayce
• Shadows - Entrippy
• Entropy - Kage-Ryu
• Is There A Point - Trajik
• Whispers - Kitsune
• Confessional - Sandro
• Garden - Entrippy
• Radio - Cam
• Cold Spell - Nikolai
• Slices - Neef
• A Bottle of Something Strong - Jraff
• The Light Fades - Tim
• Rain - Tim
• Self Help - Gothic Gallae
• Cato - Trajik
• Addiction/Fragment - Trayce
• Heal Thyself - Nikolai
• Shattered - Hobbes
• Travelling Song - Solitaire
• Distance - Stranger
• Legacy - Stranger

The Light Fades

As the night approaches, the mind and body alter. The changes in people who work with the rising of the sun are tangible, people in markets and deliveries who move gloomily in the pre-dawn light, gradually cheering as the sun catches up with their travails. So too does the rise of the moon summon a change of mind and body. Becoming more restful, the body gives up the days heat in gradual degrees and the mind coils around itself, turning inwards and becoming contemplative. The soul becomes more clearly seen as the physical world fades away beneath shadows, like a mirror that works better without the constraints of light, reflecting something that is felt and expressed rather than seen and impressed.

In the daylight hours, there is movement and action and the world throws itself bodily at you. There is things to see and things to touch and hear and taste and smell and summon and banish. There is that which wishes to experience you and there are others to interact with. The considerations of nighttime are forgotten amidst the swirl and chaos that construct our lives out of. Get up before we are late, clean ourselves before someone notices, work so we are paid, eat so we don't starve, entertain ourselves so we are happy, interact so others will remember you. There is no time for the internal processes that only become visible at night. Like we have locked some part of ourselves outside like a pet and let it in as the sun goes down and we are ready to feed it and pay it attention to the exclusion of all others.

Why do I feel more in sync with the universe when the light is gone? I'm not wise enough to offer a definite conclusion, but in spite of that, I offer what I can make of one. Without the light and the fury of the day, my focus is drawn back to myself and it is easier to commune with something as ambiguous as the night sky which covers everything and feel a connection only between the things I choose to experience. Just myself and the outside world. Separate entities. From here I can see the things which pass back and forth between the two and see more clearly how things work within one and the other and how things work inbetween the two, their relationship to one another.

The transition between the two states, this fading of the light and the encroaching shadows that follow is a doorway. Once ass through, the doorway changes and stands between the two entities. I think maybe each time I watch the doorway, I am able to see how I am connected to the other a little more clearly.

When I was younger, I would sit in the house, and experience the silence of the senses. I would watch the light being sucked from the room, I would hear the quiet and feel the stillness and taste and smell the absense of taste and smell. My family would return, the clatter of feet, the lights would be turned on, the smell of food and earth would come back and they would ask why everything was so dark.

While I am yet to have an answer for them, I have learnt it is important to continue asking the question.

© - May 2001 - Tim Hamilton