In keeping with the greyness of the day and the
hopelessness of the political landscape, my
mood is gloomy at the moment. Having written several blogs that
amount to angry rants at the world, I determined that this week would be different
and something gentler and more positive would flow from my laptop. So here we
go with er… ‘dark’, the connotations of which are almost all negative – gloomy,
threatening, brooding, mysterious, sombre, evil, funereal, menacing, opaque,
depressed….. And yet the dark can be a backdrop, an essential foil to an
explosion of scintillating light. Without the stark contrast that the dark sky provides,
we could not fully appreciate the beauty of the stars, for instance.
In
the 1990s I went on holiday to a farm in Ireland. Fairymount Farm in Co.
Tipperary was a magical place in the Irish midlands, with a mystical history
and was said to be situated on a ley line. We arrived at night and I have never
forgotten glancing up at the dark cobalt sky, which seemed to be brooding just
above my head. And, set against it, MILLIONS of winking, twinkling, glittering
stars, so close that I felt that I could reach up and pluck one for myself,
hold the scintilla in my hand. The magic could be within my grasp.
Image by Tim Hadfield - Canada at the World Fireworks Championship, Blackpool 2014
I’ve
never liked fireworks. As a child I used to hide myself away from the staccato gunfire
racket of bangers and rip-raps. The house felt under siege from heavy artillery
and I was relieved when it was all over. Braver now, I’m possibly regressing to
the child-like awe and wonder of fireworks, the explosion of life and colour
against the night sky, that I never experienced as a child. Along with
thousands of others, we went with our family to the World Fireworks
Championship on the promenade in September and were amazed by the winning display
by Canada. The grace, ingenuity, exuberance, verve and, above all, colour of
the display were magnificent. An inky, expectant sky hosted a cornucopia of
dazzling, dancing lights of every hue imaginable.
As
dusk descends on Glastonbury festival a palpable air of expectancy and
excitement envelops the Pyramid stage, reaching a crescendo as the headliners
take to the stage. There is good music, and much more, to be found in the
festival’s vast acres and numerous stages every minute of every day, but, as
night descends, a particular frenzy takes hold of the fun-loving hordes. Once
again, the darkness of the sky facilitates a magical transformation, as the pitch-black
stage suddenly bursts into life.
In
1995 the Sheffield indie band, Pulp, found themselves unexpectedly propelled
into super-stardom, headlining the Pyramid stage on the Saturday night.
Summonsed at very short notice to replace the injured and rapidly imploding Stone
Roses, Pulp lit up the Somerset sky and owned Glastonbury with their evocative songs
of grubby teenage angst and longing, culminating in the magnificent anthem, ‘Common
People’. Jarvis Cocker, fizzing and spitting with righteous indignation and
contempt, was a wonder to behold. His spleen had never been more……splenetic!
So
there, for me, are a few examples of the bright side of dark. And I’ve managed
to steer clear of politics!
Thank
you for reading,
Sheilagh
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