Endarken Futures I: Darkness as Healing
2050, an era of endarkenment
Like moths fatally attracted to artificial light, we were equally lost in our light-polluted cities. Light pollution had disrupted circadian rhythms, put a toll on nocturnal species. Blinded by ever-growing artificial light, we had even lost sight of stars in the sky. Earth was turning into a glowing globe, and yet we had never felt more isolated and lost in the universe.
We needed darkness to heal in an ontological level and to restore our relationship with nocturnal Earth and cosmic natures to thrive together. Across the world, cities were embracing nocturnal darkness for sensorial healing, for ecological restoration, and for cosmic re-awakening. But it was not only human choice making cities darker. Nature’s agency had caught up with us. Massive blackouts followed extreme hurricanes, storms, floodings, wildfires in cities. Climate change was sweeping cities across the world and leaving them in the dark. With the clock ticking, human civilization was shifting thinking. It seemed a change of hearts in humans sometimes comes after facing deep loss… to find again our place in the world.
Today we live in the era of endarkenment. We are rewiring our relationship with light and darkness. Historically, in western thought light had been depicted as superior to darkness. In the Enlightenment, light had been a metaphor for reason, knowledge, and progress, leaving darkness as the place for ignorance and the uncivilized. It is no surprise the history of modern cities is a story of the triumph of light. Darkness was what we needed to conquered, the ultimate domination of nature. And we erased darkness. Its place, if any, was out there in the wilderness. We, in our cities, took pride in outshining the stars. We took the expansion of artificial nighttime illumination as far as we could. Until we lost sight of the stars. We set themselves up in a an endless rift with nature, with our own nature. But we left those days behind, together with Enlightenment´s reductionist rationality, human exceptionalism and domination of nature as the pathway for progress.
Many cultural movements of our time sought to de-escalate the aggressive human colonization of the biosphere. The ideas of endarkenment started as a call to stop the colonization of the nights with artificial light. But we were not to turn ourselves against light. Endarkenment ideals were to restore the balance of natural cycles of light and darkness, on which life on Earth had evolved over millions of years. It was not only about stopping light pollution, it was about thriving in darkness together with the natures we had expelled from our cities. To design our way out of light pollution, even more so, to design thriving nocturnal nightscapes, we turned to nature to form new alliances with more-than-human species. This is the story of Berlin…
Berlin: endarken by Fungi
The right of more-than-human species to the city in 2025 was the preamble to a lot of radical changes in urban nightscapes. And while the ethical compass of Berliners was changing steadly, maybe it took a sensorial revolution to tip the odds. For years, we had known that nocturnal light pollution was affecting nocturnal species wellbeing. But maybe beyond acknowledging it, we needed it to feel it, to embody the precariousness of the nocturnal worlds that other species had to endure in our human-centric cities. The discovery of Marvella Tenebris in 2023, a psychoactive mushroom, brought upon that sensorial revolution.
In a world of shrinking empathy towards other species, Marvella Tenebris allowed people to experience other species’ sensorial worlds via altered states of consciousness. It gave humans access to the internet of Earth’s sensorial worlds. The spectrum of experiences ranged from embodying the degraded worlds we left for other species. We would witness all the ways human-made sensory pollution was impairing their cognitive capabilities, and their ability to survive.
The “Moth syndrome”, as it became known, spread across Berlin in 2024. Like a moth to a flame, people under the effects of Marvella, were attracted to artificial light and were partially blinded, disoriented, confused. They became unable to navigate the city, a city bathed in an intolerable brilliant, white-blue light, which is the most harmful spectrum of light for moths or any other nocturnal insect. For many people it was a wakeup call of the kind of deceitful world we had created for other species.
It was not all despair. Marvella Tenebris also allowed us to experience the wonders of sensorial and cognitive entanglements of other species and their ecosystems, what binds life together. Many species use the celestial sky, including stars, the moon, and other celestial bodies, for navigation and orientation. Borrowing those senses was like discovering a built-in natural GPS, that only needed darkness to function. We gained a new sense of reverence and admiration for darkness.
Out of compassion, or awe, there was a deep ethical shift to defend the right of nature to darkness. Surely, not everyone needed to experience the effects of Marvella Tenebris to care for the wellbeing of more-than-human species. But maybe Marvella tipped the numbers. In a historical referendum in 2029, Berliners voted yes to implement the rights of nature to darkness in the city. From that day onwards the access to dark or natural nights was an inalienable right of all people, and of all species. Some people voted yes to ensure darkness for human health, and for others it was a matter of justice, for nonhuman species needed darker nights to come back and thrive in our cities.
Since then, an unprecedented current spatial zoning was put in motion in Berlin to manage the electromagnetic spectrum of light and its intensity to care for our and more-than-human wellbeing. Darkness soon became a symbol of cohabitation in a multispecies city. Blue and white light were quickly replaced, as they are the most detrimental for nocturnal species. Darker areas lit with only natural light are designated for at least 50% of the city, areas that soon became for hotspots of biodiversity. These areas are lit only with cosmic light (moon and stars) and bioluminescence. Red low-light is allowed for areas with high density of human populations.
But to thrive in a darker world, people turned to nature to find new alliances with more-than-human species. Mushrooms were showing up as great allies. These are the stories of those alliances and the worlds they engendered:
Chapter 1. Darkness as healing
There is no future without healing. Darkness was not just a technical solution. While berliners were proud of their regulations, they understood that what sustains the endarkenment movement is a deeper inner change. Healing was the most important technology of the self — a self-actualizing path to acknowledge brokenness and reconnect with otherness.
Across Berlin, Dark Healing Centers were created to heal the ailments of modern cities: disrupted circadian rhythms, deeply fractured relationships with nocturnal earthly and cosmic ecologies, and a shrinking empathy towards other species. These centers are located in darker areas of the city — therapeutic landscapes lit only with bioluminescent and cosmic light. They offer many public health services.
Collective meditation practices of healing with darkness are popular. Dark rooms are adorned with lanterns of bioluminescent mushroom, and with transparent dome-shaped roofs for stargazing. People go to these rooms to heal from the old light-polluted world. In darkness, they learn to retune their senses to live with natural light from bioluminescence, moon and stars. In darkness, they find a new sense of awe, wonder and connection. Bioluminescence is so dim of a light and yet if fires the soul with wonder, in the same way that a glimpse of a shooting star or the milky way does.
The experience: Meditation in the dark. Berlin, 2050
We walked carefully towards one of the many Dark Meditation Centre of Kreuzberg. Tonight, we came to a meditation practice of healing with darkness. We stepped into a pitch-black room, lit only with bioluminescent fungal light from omphalotus nidiformis and panellus stipticus mushrooms. They say the longer we stay in darkness, the more our eyes will adjust to perceive bioluminescence. We sit next to each other, the session is about to start.
(Soft gong signals the beginning of the session)
You are here. In the right time, in the right place.
We are here together in darkness.
Together to honour our connection to cosmic and bioluminescent light.
Touch your eyes and thank them for having endured years in the old light-polluted world.
You are here to heal
disrupted circadian rhythms,
broken connections to nocturnal ecologies,
cosmic isolationism.
Take a deep breath.
And with each breath surrender to darkness.
If your heart is unsure, if your body is trembling,
let it be.
Breath it away.
You are safe.
Calm your thoughts.
I give you this mantra to focus your attention.
Use it if it helps.
I embrace darkness.
I embrace darkness.
I embrace darkness.
Maybe in darkness
we are meant to forget of
our bodies,
our boundaries,
of the illusion of separation.
Maybe we are meant to remember how we are connected to everything else.
Connected to each other.
Breath loud, and hear the sound of each other’s breath.
Sense who is next to you,
even if you don’t see them,
hear their breath.
You are not alone in darkness.
Remember how you are connected to everything else.
In darkness biodiversity has returned.
Hear the sounds of the night.
Honor your coexistence with other Earth living beings.
They are noisy and thriving again.
You are not alone in darkness.
Remember how you are connected to everything else.
To this earthly bioluminescence.
Sharpen your eyes.
Acknowledge who else is with us in this room:
omphalotus nidiformis,
panellus stipticus mushrooms.
Embrace their fungal bioluminescent light
Don’t force it.
Let your eyes tune to it.
Welcome it.
A light that we can only see in darkness.
A light that helped us to co-exist with darkness.
Let this be a lesson for humanity.
to embrace our darkness, our losses, our pain,
to realize we, too, can shine through, specially at our darkest times,
maybe only then.
You are not alone in darkness.
You are connected to everything else.
Remember how your bodies, your destinies are bound to the stars.
Surrender to the cosmic light.
as ancient humans did before you.
Let starlight and moonlight help you navigate this world.
And beyond starlight, remember the vastness of cosmic darkness.
Let it remind you of the miracle of life in this blue marble.
Now extend your arms to reach starlight.
Inhale as you reach out.
Exhale and let your arms fall.
Inhale again and reach your hands down to connect to this Earthly bioluminescence.
Exhale, place your hands in your heart.
You are not alone in darkness.
You were never meant to be alone in darkness.
Remember how you are connected to everything else.
To each other,
to this earthly bioluminescence,
to nocturnal ecologies
and to the stars above.
Go back to the world with a sense of humility, and connection.
Another popular public health service of Dark Healing Centers is the psychedelic augmented empathy therapy. In these sessions, we let Marvella tenebris guide us into inhabiting other sensorial worlds as an empathy therapy. Sensorial Pods are dark floatation tanks that inhibit any external sensory stimuli, and are designed to host people while undergoing a journey with Marvella Tenebris. This combination is designed to increase immersion in the more-than-human sensorial worlds. Just like other mushrooms learned to eat plastic, even oil, Marvella tenebris is learning to decompose our broken consciousness and regenerate it, to heal us from our sensorial isolation.
On October 22nd 2023, 8pm, approximately 30 Berliners attended Floating University to experience darker futures. The first place they visited was the Dark Meditation Centre.
This piece is 1/3 part of a series of experiential scenarios created and performed in Floating University by Melissa Ingaruca Moreno with collaboration of 6 volunteer participants of “Endarken”. Endarken is a research-through-design project of Melissa Ingaruca Moreno´s PhD “Multispecies Cities and Emerging Technologies”, that re-imagines the future of nocturnal urban light for more-than-human wellbeing in Berlin via a series of participatory design workshops
