Midnight, my dearest friend. Somehow, we always manage to find each other in the chaos of the world. No matter how early I rise or how entangled I find myself, there’s always that moment of recognition when the bell tolls and the hours of magic begin.
“Midnight. Worship Her.” Words I saw scrawled on the back of a subway seat in San Francisco. I’ll never forget them. I do worship her, with an adoration so deep that words cannot describe. She is my patron saint, the goddess who brings with her the gift of creativity, of words, of emotion.
I lay awake to greet her, putting off my earthly duties for a chance to commune with her in the space between calendar dates, the lapse in gravity between the inhale just before and the release immediately after the second hand switches over from yesterday to today, or today to tomorrow, however you choose to look at it. A time appropriated and designated by the Roman Catholic Church, which I just learned today operates from its own country – did you know that the Vatican established itself as its own country, and is the smallest country in the world? The smallest, and yet somehow the most mighty, with command over everything from calendar days to the decisions of how women should manage their own bodies.
But there are many things that the church never managed to wipe out completely, among them the lore of those who believe in listening to the words of the wind and the whisperings of the moon. I don’t use the word “magic” to refer to spells and incantations, or rituals involving blood offerings and chants to demonic deities. No, to me it is listening to the little voice inside me the first time my fingers touched my favorite medicinal herb, Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot. That little voice told me that this was the herb I needed to heal my sore throat, and that little voice was right.
There’s just something to the way that plants grow fatter when you speak to them regularly, or the way people seem to inexplicably appear in your life when summoned to help guide you along your path. And there is undoubtedly something in the way midnight sweeps over the mind of a creative, enveloping them in the comfort and security of knowing that the world around them has largely been laid to rest for the night, and that the darkness is theirs to enjoy with the freedom of fresh air and quiet spaces to stretch their limbs.
Very shortly, I will blow out my candles and go to sleep. I will take a moment to speak words of gratitude and hold my intentions on my tongue before sending them into the flames, extinguishing them and taking with them my prayers into the place where fire goes once it’s gone.
Is there fire in heaven? All these questions and more I’ve been promised to receive answers to once I’ve reached the promised afterlife.
I never expect to know these answers, for I don’t believe there are any. Instead, let me simply take a moment to relish in the witching hour, the time between midnight and 3am, when the world goes still and the streetlights blink on and off, when the lights remain on in the windows of people like you and I who just can’t help ourselves sometimes.
Midnight. Worship Her.
