Polar Night

The Darkness Conference in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. I don’t know if I could ever get used to 24-hours of sun below the horizon, but maybe someday I will get the chance. At first I thought it was calming, soothing, not to be confronted with light and its pressure to get things done. But then I realized I just wanted to crawl into bed, found myself drooping and wilting, curling into hibernation position as soon as I opened the door to my hotel room. After five days, I was feeling suffocated by the dark. It was a shroud, like forest fire smoke every August, that I couldn’t shake off.

There were plenty of bright spots, though. One being the dogsled into the polar night. One being the bakery on Main Street. One being the ideas and interesting discussions during the panels. One being the aquamarine lights that danced outside my window all day and night. One being visiting Polar Permaculture Solutions and getting to plant herbs in bright purple dome.