Why Does The Word Noctilucence Exist?

The winter solstice is a cosmic turning point so primal to our psyches that it has spawned myths of gods’ deaths and resurrections (echoing the sun’s), festivals of lights (to celebrate it’s return), and rituals of feasting and revelry with wine (to celebrate our endurance and pack on some extra calories to make it through the rest of the winter).

In this magical moment, we simultaneously endure the deepest darkness of our cyclical journey, and find inspiration in knowing that we’re returning to the light. Dread and hope, fear and love – the demons and angels of our souls – dance on the edge of this climactic nadir.

The word “Noctilucence” (which my spell checker doesn’t even recognize) is a real word in English, despite its obscurity. It means nightshine. Like the winter solstice it seems to embody the existential oxymoron of the possibility of light within the darkness that is defined by its absence.

It is a word that seems to try to tell us that this self-contradiction is not actually impossible.

Online dictionaries will tell you that “nocitlucence” exists for scientific reasons, to describe the bioluminescence of phytoplankton in the ocean at night or lightning bugs, or to describe clouds that remain visible after twilight.

But the word is much older than these concepts. I found it inscribed in Latin on the gazebo at the Temple of Diana in Rome, Italy:

“NOCTILVCAE SYLVARVM POTENTI”

Or, “TO THE MIGHTY NIGHTSHINE OF THE FOREST.”

That ain’t about fireflies I don’t think.

But what is it about? Why do we need this word?

I don’t have an answer to why, but its existence fills me with a sense of wonder.

First, of course the moon and stars, and their reflections in the quiet streams and marshes, glinting off the rain-wet leaves, is clearly a form of nightshine one might encounter in the forest. The goddess Diana is closely associated with the moon, and so this inscription at her temple could be a poetic evocation of this role. And I think that the forest, like a great book, can be read in this straightforward way, while other meanings lurk deeper in the shadows.

But Diana was a much more interesting god than just the divine incarnation of the moon. She was also the goddess of the hunt, the goddess of fertility and birth, and the goddess of the underworld. Even if this inscription evokes her lunar association, why is the focus on the forest?

What it would take to find out about this mighty nightshine of the forest? To truly understand it, to experience it, we need to transgress several human boundaries.

We need to leave civilization and go into the forest.... the forbidden realm, the realm of mystery and danger. The forest is where we can become lost. It is the unknown.

We also need to enter this realm at night, when we should be home safe and warm by the fire. The nocturnal realm does not belong to us. We are strangers to its secrets. At night we cannot see. We become the prey. Going to the forest was scary enough, but to go at night is terrifying.

Finally, we also must not take any light. No torch, no fire. If we want to see what is shining in the forest at night, we cannot bring any artificial light for comfort or guidance.

So now, here we are, in the darkness of the forest at night without a light. What do we see now that we’re blind? What do we perceive in our terror? What do we experience now that we’ve traveled beyond all things known and safe and human? What is the mighty noctilucence?

We could panic, of course. We could succumb to fear and descend into the madness of horror.

Or we could discover something about ourselves. We could find a courage at the core of our beings, an ability to face the darkness, a gleaming wildness within that matches the shadowland without.

We may realize that this was our origin, that we emerged from the dark womb of the forest of night. It is part of our lineage. We have more than one family tree... we have a forest of them.

We come from mystery, we incarnate it, and realizing this gives us the strength to confront its terrors.

What we may find shining in the forest alone at night without a light is a light that we project from inside.

I don’t know if this is what the ancients intended to convey with their inscription. I don’t know if this is why “noctilucence” is a word. We will have to go into the forest some night to find out.

But as we pass through this solstice, I hope this meditation gives you another perspective on these celebrations, and the magic of darkness giving birth to light. Let yours shine!

The artwork on the label of our wine, Noctilucence (below), tells the story of a young child, old enough that their parents let them stay out just past dark. In the twilight they began chasing fireflies whose flashing light is always just out of reach. Led by wonder, the child is soon out of sight of home and becoming lost in an ominous, but magical, forest of vines. As the fireflies fade, the moon and the stars begin to light the way, and the forest seems to have a light of its own shining from deep within. The child won’t discover the magic of the forest if they don’t become lost.

Happy Holidays!
Adam