Defeating the Dark [side]

Our glorious Ontario Fall, while clinging on for an unseasonably long time this year, is falling. Winter approaches, quickly chasing. Although yesterday's first snow fall in Toronto was really just a few small flakes, it felt momentous nonetheless.

There is a long tradition of celebrating light in the wintertime, when, in the Northern hemisphere at least, the amount of natural light significantly diminishes. The lack of natural light provides us with the opportunity to celebrate our ingenuity in creating light. While our celebrations of light have many individual significations, together I feel they also represent humanity's capacity to rise above naturally-imposed difficulties, a certain technological optimism, and human solidarity amidst darkness. Examples of these traditional celebrations range from the Jewish Honukkah, the Indian Diwali, the Persian Chahārshanbe-Sūri, the French Fête des Lumières and the Germanic precursors to Christmas.

These traditions, linked by their appreciation of our ability to create light in the face of impending darkness exemplify how some symbols can transcend geography, nationality, and religion to evoke the universals of the human experience. Like how Hallowe'en costumes and decorations have adapted over the years from the traditional ghouls and devilish characters to include characters from the popular media such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and now even includes items such as security tape, reminiscent of CSI, so, we continue to forge new celebrations of light.

I took this picture at Notte Bianca in Rome, 2005

Nuit Blanche is one notable international example of a new celebration of light, where people stay up all night, often accompanied by many light-related art installations. In Toronto we also have the Cavalcade of Lights, a wintertime and Christmas-related series of projections, lighting displays, and fireworks.

Last night in front of the ROM occurred a new sort of light celebration, and one totally in keeping with this lineage of traditions. Far from a tradition, it was organized in a very brief amount of time on the Internet. Newmindspace's Lightsaber Battle drew over 2000 people to the small public square sheltered under the precipitous juttings of the new ROM renovation.

It was a tremendous time, with a great deal of communal positive energy. Together, people were vigorously battling darkness both real and metaphorical with their brightly coloured cardboard tubes. What I loved most about the event was that, while many would worry that people could get hurt at an event such as this, nobody did. Except in a few notable exceptions, where people really made it very physical, most people spent the time standing upright close together twirling their 'swords' in the air. The swords thus hit each other in their simultaneous radial movements - constituting a 'battle'.

In the few situations where people made it physical, it remained good natured, if frenetic. Even at one of the points where the battle seemed most like a mosh-pit, action was seen to come to a complete pause when someone's glasses fell to the ground!

Indeed, this new form of quasi-spontaneous event is I think a new manifestation of the same instincts that lead us to string our houses with little brightly coloured lights or light bonfires in the streets. It symbolizes that we are together in this; creating light, we can take shelter from the natural darkness.

To see more photos from the event, visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/newmindspace/pool/