By Roberta Silman

The intent was to create a winter display that had no religious message but that would illuminate The Mount at this darkest time of year, that would call attention to its wintry beauty. 

A glimpse of NightWood, 2025. Photo: The Mount

On Sunday night, this year’s Winter Solstice, I had the privilege of being taken around NightWood — the light and sound show at The Mount in Lenox (through January 3) by its Executive Director Susan Wissler.  It was a magical and deeply spiritual experience, which I recommend to all of you who are hoping to make the coming holiday special. NightWood is the brainchild of Wissler who decided six years ago during the Covid pandemic that she wanted to have a winter event at The Mount, which was Edith Wharton’s summer home from 1902 to 1911, and is now a haven for tourists and writers and sculptors and hikers year-round. Visitors interested in seeing the restoration of Wharton’s home, where she wrote her stories and novels and memoirs, and its spectacular garden and esplanade, which she designed and have been restored to their original designs.

As she told it to me, Wissler wanted to create a winter display that had no religious message but that would illuminate The Mount at this darkest time of year, that would call attention to its wintry beauty. “I knew it would have something to do with trees,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure of anything beyond that.” She found a group online called Clerestory Light, led by lighting designer Chris Bocchiaro and his staff of about fifteen people — lighting and scenery designers, musicians, architects, computer technicians — who ran with her suggestion and have created a mile-long walk through The Mount’s grounds that more than fulfills her dream.

Each year it has been slightly different. This year’s Artist Statement read:

There is something powerful about being in the woods at night: a connection to our ancient past, to old traditions and long-forgotten experiences. It conjures a host of emotions, memories, and fantasies unique to each visitor. NightWood awakens these nocturnal ideas through a combination of sound, light, and sculpture, evoking an atmosphere that stimulates the imagination.

It has ten stops, beginning with The Portal and ending with The Homecoming, and at each stop there are a few lines of text in English and Spanish explaining the display. For example, at The Stream, we learn this: “Water is the lifeblood of the forest. Along the banks of this stream, life flourishes from the smallest sapling to the greatest and most ancient of trees. It courses through the small valley, sometimes no more than a trickle, but always onward — powerful, yet generous.” And accompanying the texts and the lights —sometimes twinkling, sometimes strong and solid — is lovely expressive music, anchored by a constant, subtle beat that resembles the beating of one’s own heart.

As we made this short journey through the dark winter night, illuminated by the cloak of stars above, we could feel the mystery of the creation of this universe, our universe, and each stop can evoke not only wonder, but joy. In the round garden that is filled with white astilbe and hydrangeas during the summer there is a circle of lanterns, each filled with a piece of lacy cloth; these evoke memories of our grandmothers’ doilies and handkerchiefs in a way that brought me to tears, my brain overflowing with memories of those I loved who were so attached to their gossamer possessions.

In this experience, which feels as if one has been dropped into Narnia, the overwhelming emotion is exactly what Wissler intended: the house recedes, like a silent observer, and the trees take center stage. We feel the enormous importance of those trees, the ineffable connections they have to each other and to the earth and sky, even to us humans, who can only stand in awe before their majestic beauty.  Connections that we humans can learn from, especially now when our world feels so fragmented. As we completed the tour, it became clear to me that I needed to learn more about trees, how they are born, evolve, and die.

What I also resolved was to make NightWood a yearly family tradition.

Roberta Silman is the author of five novels, two short story collections, and two children’s books. Her second collection of stories, called Heart-work, was just published. Her most recent novels, Secrets and Shadows and Summer Lightning, are available on Amazon in paperback and ebook and as audio books from Alison Larkin Presents. Secrets and Shadows (Arts Fuse review) is in its second printing and was chosen as one of the best Indie Books of 2018 by Kirkus. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she has reviewed for The New York Times and Boston Globe, and writes regularly for The Arts Fuse. More about her can be found at robertasilman.com, and she can also be reached at rsilman@verizon.net.