Stepping out of the tent in the middle of the Welsh night, I was struck by the millions of stars I could see. Never had I seen such a myriad of stars in the sky even though I grew up in the countryside. Crawling back into my sleeping bag I thought to myself how interesting it is that in order to see you sometimes need darkness. You need less light.

Of course the opposite is true, we often need light to see. Operating rooms in hospitals have very bright and distinct lights. We shine lights into corners to see more clearly. And yet, as I was true of the Welsh night, I needed darkness to see things I never could in the daylight. No amount of bright light would help.

Needing darkness to see sounds counter intuitive. It seems like it can’t be true. And yet, sometimes it is. Sometimes we need to do the thing that is counter intuitive in order to see afresh, to see things we never would have imagined.

This is true of stars and of change.

The choice to try is up to us.

Photo by Jackson Hendry