As a young child in the back country, far from the cities and bustle of people I had just outside my bedroom window a tree who was perfectly aligned each fall night with the setting sun. For me, at first, it was pleasant and pleasurable to watch the tangled shadows weaved by its branches paint the wall at my bedside.
As leaves fell in one autumn from the rising wind and the dark of night came earlier and more swiftly, The shadows become more jagged and harsh, and I had begun to notice things that a young boy should not notice - those shadows cast by that seemingly innocent tree had bits of something in them that did not belong - bits of subtle, tiny movement not from the shadows themselves but by something passing through them. Intangible and ethereal I could not touch nor disturb the thousands of things that existed there, and they only shared their presence with me for mere minutes each day until they sunk into the darkness of the jagged lines cast by the tree as though the shadows themselves had the depth of an ocean.
It dawned on me that autumn that light - both from the sun and artificial - was merely a veil that hid a much larger and deeper world than we subconsciously knew of, but preferred to avoid. For the reason every child's instinct is to fear darkness, I unlearned what a cavalier society had taught me and became afraid again. Now, on the darkest nights, if I concentrate to my fullest, I can feel myself moving through, even disturbing some dark and unseen sea, and the sanctuary of light becomes more desirable than any other thing until - and even after - I reach it.
edited for a typo :-/