Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Dusking: the Dutch Twilight Ritual Helping People Slow Down

A Dutch writer is reviving “dusking” — the nearly forgotten practice of pausing to watch the day fade into darkness — and in doing so, offering something quietly radical to a world that has forgotten how to be still. Once common among farming families in the Netherlands who gathered to mark the end of the working day, the ritual disappeared as modern life accelerated, but writer Marjolijn van Heemstra believes that “noticing twilight requires a persistent kind of attention” that can restore our relationship with the natural world. As one participant discovers while watching a gnarled tree slowly dissolve into the gloom, dusking happens “so gradually – and then all at once,” requiring nothing but presence and the willingness to witness change. Van Heemstra sees the practice as addressing a deeper crisis: “If you don’t know a tree, even if it’s in front of your house, because you never take the time to look at it, you don’t mind it being cut.” In a culture obsessed with productivity, the simple act of watching darkness arrive becomes both resistance and reconnection — proof that doing nothing can sometimes mean seeing everything.

Be The Change

Today, as daylight begins to soften, prioritize time to step or look outside, and simply watch the world darken — no phone, no task, just your steady attention on a single tree, cloud, or distant hill as its edges blur into night. Let this five-minute practice of dusking become your way of establishing a relationship with something in your landscape you’ve looked past a thousand times.