The Nights are Drawing In
Journalling prompts for the darkening nights
Yesterday I stepped out into the lane in my little village and was met with a pure starry sky. It was 6pm. It felt completely magical to be in the darkness, out walking the dog with a torch in the still air, the trees almost bare now, knowing I’d be heading home to a warm house, a slow cooked vegetable stew, a good book and my warm PJs (if you don’t know the joy of putting your PJs on the radiator an hour before you wear them, you should try it).
I’ve been sleeping well this week, something that doesn’t often happen. I wonder if it is the earlier darkness, the cosiness, the permission that this season gives us to just rest and hunker down. I am someone who gets cross at themselves if they don’t get a full night of sleep, as if I haven’t trained my brain well enough not to chatter on in the night. But a solid block of sleep wasn’t actually the norm for a long time - records in the medieval period tell us that the norm was to have biphasic sleep - a first sleep and a second sleep. And that people rose from their beds and did all sorts of activities in the night - brewing beer, preparing work, smoking pipes and telling stories, before the second sleep. It’s something we’ve lost. But perhaps our brains are tuned to it still? This is what our journalling prompts are about today, what we do in the night hours.
Below you’ll find your downloadable journal prompts, the last for this, the first season of Notes from the Margin paid. Thank you so much for your support so far. I can’t wait to work with you in the next season. At the end of the month we’ll have an open mic, and a get together to see the season out ready for the next one. I’ll let you know a date next week.
But in the mean time, let’s journal.