Nocturne: Nature by Night in Talbot Woodland

Saturday 6 December 18.30-20.00 Talbot Woodland, Slades Farm, Bournemouth

During a wild week of storms in December, we were blessed with a calm, still evening for the first Nocturne in Talbot Woodland.

The wind dropped, the sky was clear, the moon and stars bright above us as we assembled at the cafe in the park ready to walk into the woods together and wondered, really, what on earth were doing out in the dark. Everyone was given a simple glass jar with a night light and handle while we introduced ourselves and put on hats and gloves.

Walking together into the dark woodland with minimal light, a natural procession formed. We entered the clearing after a few minutes and slowly found seats on chairs and tree stumps, with candle poetry lanterns scattered over the forest floor to gently light us up.

No torches, no fire, just a group of strangers in the cold dark woods, choosing to do something different with their Saturday night. We had stepped away from doom-scrolling and TV, from online shopping and alcohol, from the passive absorbtion of flickering images fed by of algorythms.

We settled into our seats and soaked up the darkness around us, listened to the gentle breeze in the trees above, the rustle of creatures, with a patchwork of moonlit filtering to the ground. And then we talked... Why are we here? What do we usually do at night? Why do we stay in? What did we do at night when we were younger? Why has this changed?

We listened as nocturnal music and poetry was played... work throughout the decades inspired by night... and thought about the creatives who made them, working at night in different eras of history. What has happened to our creative spirit, our wild self now that day time is so busy and night time is filled with screens?

Using our lanterns we wrote down a favourite memory of night and slipped the papers inside, hanging the lanterns on a tree to share. By reading each others memories we learnt about the strangers with us, and talked about their memory, what it meant, why it was special. It felt amazingly visual, with visions of the memory forming in our own minds as they talked.

We left the woods carrying our memory lanterns, new connections and conversations. Excited to be out in the dark, to have done something different, stepped outside, been brave and breathed in nature at night.

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