I’ve had people ask about Bernie’s light. The one that mysteriously gets noticed when she is moving around in the dark. Like running across the fields and forest to see her mum in the pit, and moving around in the cave. Where did that image come from?
It is an actual experience that I have had in the dark of the night when I have had to move around outside. When I first moved to Colorado in late 1992, I spent a few months deciding if I wanted to stay. A piece of land came up in my price range far out in the woods, but near some friends. I bought it and the first thing I did was put up a teepee and get it ready for year round living. I also had to go out and find a job. There was an archaeology job over in Utah. I would have to live in a tent for the summer and move to Utah. It wasn’t perfect. I already lived in a tent. So I got a job as a landscape and nursery laborer and I am glad I did. I stayed home and learned the ins and outs of my new housing; showering under a solar shower hung in a tree, keeping a clean camp to discourage bears, and other necessary elements.
As winter approached I would have to change jobs, so I got a lift operators job at the near by ski area. It was not that close, about an hour drive. A drive that was made in every kind of weather, whether I liked it or not. It also meant that I would be skiing in and out about a mile to get to my truck which could no longer make it up to the teepee due to deep snow. I would leave before the sun got to the horizon and get home well after it was down. It was during those skis that I began to notice a glow. At first I disregarded it, it was like a thought that just wouldn’t come to mind. But one night, when the snow wasn’t blowing and I wasn’t in a hurry, I stopped and turned off my headlamp. I sensed the light and it seemed like it was over my left shoulder. I looked up and all around, it must be the moon. It was a cloudy night and there was nothing.
The light continued to be with me under dark circumstances wherever I was. I never really got too excited about it, it was just there. It didn’t really illuminate very well, maybe if I slowed down I could have used it. Maybe if I paid more attention to it I could have coaxed it brighter. I made Bernie’s light a little brighter so she could actually see by it. But no one else can see it, except for the Slig Maith. 
