Halloween // In the Edge

I wrote this today while in a spooky mood. I hope you enjoy!

Boundaries can be tricky. Most people can recognize when they encounter a sharp transition, such as the sharp edge of a cliff and the void beyond, the surface of the sea and the freezing briny depths below, or skin from the blood and bone underneath. But what is less often considered are those boundaries that do not have clearly defined edges. A place where the transition from one to the other follows some gradient in space, or in time. A swirling mixture of both. Sprinkling rain to heavy rainfall. Childhood to adulthood. The dying light that dims as it reaches into the darkness. These boundaries are the true transitions of nature where the normal curve shows us that complexity and chaos reign supreme. Nature appears to abhor a vacuum, but she seems content with obfuscation. The limits of human knowledge and experience are not a clearly defined circle separating “knowns” from “unknowns”. It is more accurately represented as a set of flickering candles of various size set in a broad cluster in the woods; the maximum extent of the candles may be visible, but there is darkness beyond… and in-between.

I find it important to highlight these transitions on the basis of humility. It is easy to mock those ancient peoples and their mythologies that attempted to explain the things that go “bump in the night”. But are we really now in the light, or inside the “edge”? Where do you currently stand in our candle-lit caliginous forest? And is the light of the candle always the safest place to stand?