I have recently heard several oral traditions that were imbued with natural wisdom and valuable insights about the natural world. The first was that it is time to plant corn when an oak leaf is the size of squirrel’s ear. Another one pertained to the stars, an Indigenous legend of the Six Nations, imparting that it is time to hunt when the Ursa Major constellation, or the Great Bear, reaches a certain part of the night sky in autumn.
There is a scientific term for this type of interwoven connection between living things in time and season, Phenology, which is the study of the timing of natural cycles, especially as it pertains to the changing environment and the lifecycles of plants and animals.
Humans have deviated from ancient timings of the natural world, and we have especially abandoned the natural daylight cycle, in particular the cycle of natural darkness. Constant light at night blankets large swaths of the planet. The night sky is now so muted with shapeless light that we have hidden a once perennial source of wonder.
For wildlife, there has never been a more critical time to reverse climate change and to realign with the natural daylight cycle. As surface temperatures reach new highs with heat that burns to the touch, untold harm to wildlife occurs each night that we over-light the planet. Insects die. Pollination declines. Birds crash. Biodiversity is put at risk.
Yet sustainable lighting design technology and practices can support lighting for human activity while reclaiming darkness and the night sky. Light pollution increases each year not because we lack a solution, but because we lack clear intentions and understanding of the consequences of light at night. This is evident even when looking at key terms, such as flood lighting. Why are we naming lighting solutions after natural disasters?
The Earth’s light-dark cycle is a biological clock for all living things, a fundamental environmental factor that has informed evolution and behavior since life began. Darkness is an invaluable temporal space that must be preserved; it is an ecological necessity for wildlife.
Humans also suffer from a disconnection from darkness. Screens have transformed nearly every waking hour of our interior lives. Night vision takes up to an hour of darkness for full adaptation of the retina. Light meets us at every front of modern life, puncturing the darkness. Most of humanity is no longer able to see any meaningful view of the stars, not only because of skyglow, but because we are overdosing on light altogether.
Moreover, each year, satellites fill the night sky, reflecting our own information back upon us. Images of night-sky photography are now cluttered with streaks of satellites passing by. According the Union of Concerned Scientists, as of December 31, 2022, there were 6,718 active satellites in orbit around Earth. In the last few years, we have seen an exponential increase in the number of satellites launched, climbing steadily alongside the exponential increase of light pollution.
In fact, a large proportion of satellites in orbit are no longer even active. What does it say about our current approach to astronomy that our view of the universe is becoming blocked with the static of space junk and wasted light? The sky is a frontier in which shortsighted endeavors may come with profound repercussions. What is humanity losing when we lose the stars?
The sky was the first screen. Across time and place, human beings have revered the stars, and used the placement of constellations in the night sky to mark time and live in harmony with the planet and other living things. The constancy of stars became the backdrop to stories that attempted to understand our relationship to the environment and the universe. These celestial codes enabled the passing down of wisdom over generations.
When we lose access to starlight, we lose not only the stars, but also the stories they conjure. Many of these oral traditions contain valuable Earth science, and were based on generations of irreplaceable Indigenous knowledge about the timing of natural cycles. Light pollution erases access to invaluable natural wisdom as well as the cultures whose heritage was not written in books, but rather the sky.
Without starlight, humans are also becoming more and more desynchronized from the natural world and our own circadian rhythms. As work has become highly digitized and mobile, we have increased our obligation to stay connected to the light-driven information of screens at all hours. Nowadays, we wear watches that light up and monitor our own heartbeats. Our sense of time is based on human devices that reflect human metrics around human activities. There has never been more of a need to reset our expectations of what constitutes a workday and to re-wild our circadian rhythms. Before technology was our basis for understanding time, human beings looked to the sky along with all other living things.
Light at night also overshadows the massive source of perspective that is unique to the night sky. When darkness falls, a window to the universe is revealed. Stargazing looks to the past in the old light of stars, and to the future in the expansion of the universe. When you look at the night sky, you are looking at a different timescale than your own life. There is no other experience that so nearly confronts existence and expands consciousness.
Stargazing also nourishes a part of ourselves that cannot be reached by logic. To bring your gaze to a distant star is to reach the edges of human thought and understanding. Stretching the imagination in this way is a healthy practice to gain perspective on the milestones and challenges of life and to understand one’s place in the universe.
Modern lighting design tools either reclaim the natural wonder of the night sky or obliterate Since most people have lost meaningful access to the stars, we are already forgetting their meaning and the immense gifts they bring into our lives. As lighting designers, we must offer lighting design plans along with darkness design plans; to speak of light and darkness as two parts of an ecological whole. Through advocacy and education, we can guide communities to agree upon periods of natural darkness and reclaim nightly access to the stars.
There is universal benefit to returning to our ancient origins of night. Stargazing is as necessary for wildlife as it is for humankind. When we rescue the stars, we reclaim the wonder, inspiration and meaning they provoke within humanity. Here on Earth, we may see all the differences between us. But out there, among the counterpoint of stars, we are all rendered living things on a turning planet. From this vantage point, harmony and peace seem so very possible.