There are many days, that after getting home from work, having dinner with the family, and then put my daughter to bed it is already dark. So if I want to go for a walk, and not feel like I am abandoning my wife and child, I have to go at night. Luckily I live in a part of Michigan that I worry more about walking up on a skunk than a mugger.Even though current circumstances force some of my walking into the night, I have chosen to walk in the dark before.
I was lucky enough to have lived in a small city on the shore of Lake Huron for a number of years. I would often walk along the waters edge and listen to the waves at night. It started because it was cooler to walk at night in the summer, but later found it was beautiful to see the ice break on the shore in the winter. While I now live some 200 mile south, I still find it meditative to walk in the dark.
Unless you walk under streetlights your vision is decreased, but sound seems to carry farther. The phases of the moon, the stars and the clouds all combined to a ever changing show. At the same time when you meet both man and animal on the path, they seem different than those you meet in the day.
I also find that I walk different in the dark. My steps seem very loud, so I unconsciously try to soften them. Even in unlit areas I have found that I rarely need to carry/use a light (though I always have one). I also find that this makes me less worried about how I look, and I tend to slip into my natural walking rhythm faster. My mind also seems to focus on something that has bothered me during the day, and I need to ponder. So while I often find myself out after dark at this point in my life I actually find it beneficial to my Aimless Pilgrimage.
