On the last day of the Fall semester’s classes, the FEELed Lab convened its third “Welcoming the Dark” gathering. The dark falls fast at this time of year around here, and can be challenging in all kinds of ways. We convene this event not only to gather at the end of semester, but also to remind ourselves that there are many reasons to welcome the dark: it offers a chance to slow down and rest, it brings different sounds and different feelings, it hosts communities that can’t thrive without it… and more.
This year, inspired by the children’s story Frederick by Leo Lionni (about an artistic mouse that collects stories, poems, colours, and feelings as his contribution to his community’s wintertime stockpile), we asked folx to bring a story to share, and to help fortify us for the winter ahead. We heard stories about mycorrhizal communities, fire wisdom from a novel in progress, musings about candlelight, dark sounds from a guitar, a reminder of the crackle of the aurora borealis, and more. We even got an amazing improv darkness dance!
Although in some ways this gathering could be just a simple social event, there is something important about rethinking our relationship to darkness, in the night, at the edge of a forest, around a fire – and (as always) on stolen and unceded syilx lands. How is darkness part of these places, and part of us, in ways we may rarely contemplate? How might offering these stories to others — folx we may barely know or are meeting for the first time — also be a way of practicing vulnerability in the dark, and offering shelter to others, though our smiles and our snaps? What is here that we don’t, or can’t, or find difficult, see? What does darkness allow us to see, differently?
Thank you to the “OG FEELed friends” who returned to greet the dark once more, and also to new FEElers who found there way here, guided by mysterious zine invitations left around campus…
Until next year!
The FEELed lab 