The 3AM Candle: Insomnia as Meditation
Three in the morning has its own weather. Not quite night, not yet day—air that feels suspended, clocks that tick too loudly, the mind performing without an audience. I’ve stopped fighting the hour. I light it.
The point isn’t cure; it’s witness. Flame says: you’re awake, not broken. Scent says: this time counts too. I choose accords that make peace with darkness rather than promising morning—oud’s depth, amber’s warmth, leather’s groundedness, a line of birch smoke that behaves like a horizon inside the room. Nothing sugary; nothing that pretends this is noon.
Screens stay dark. The match is the only notification I allow. I watch the pool widen, a slow geometry that keeps thought from spiralling. The room shrinks to the circle of light and expands in my chest at the same time. It’s meditation without posture—attention attached to something ancient and non-negotiating.
By four, sometimes sleep returns; sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, the hour was not wasted. It was held. I keep one vessel for these nights only. It accumulates that particular silence until striking a match becomes a password the body recognises. Alone-but-not-lonely is a skill. One flame teaches it.
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