Into the Dark: A Real Person’s Guide to October Positivity
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October arrives like someone turning down the lights.
Not harshly. Not all at once. But gradually, day by day, the world grows a little darker, a little quieter, a little more interior. The clocks haven’t changed yet in many places, but the shift has begun. You feel it in the mornings, when the mornings are properly dark. In the evenings, which end sooner than they should. You feel it in the air, a chill now that October didn’t have at the start.
And yet. October is also breathtaking.
The trees are on fire. Literally, visually, magnificently on fire with colour – amber, rust, gold, deep burgundy, all of it happening at once in a display that stops people in the street. The light that is still there is low, golden, and extraordinary. There is a richness to October, a density and warmth in its colours, that no other month quite matches.
October holds contradictions well. Dark and beautiful. Ending and glowing. Going inward, surrounded by colour. I find it one of the most emotionally rich months of the year, and I think that richness is worth sitting with rather than rushing past.
The Turn of the Dark: What October Actually Is
October sits right at the pivot point in the Northern Hemisphere where the scales tip decisively towards darkness.
The clocks go back at the end of October in the UK and most of Europe, and in the first week of November in the US, which means October is the last full month of the longer evenings. After the clocks change, something shifts abruptly in the daily rhythm of life. Darkness arrives in the afternoon in a way that feels sudden, even when you knew it was coming.
So October is worth paying attention to as a transitional month. Not to dread what comes after, but to be genuinely present in what is still here.
Ecopsychology — the study of the relationship between human well-being and the natural environment — suggests that consciously engaging with seasonal transitions, rather than pushing against them or ignoring them, significantly reduces the psychological difficulty of those transitions. The Ecopsychology journal publishes research on this if you want to go deeper.
Practically, this means going outside in October specifically to experience it. The leaves. The mist. The particular October light. Not as an errand or exercise, but as an experience. The season is doing something extraordinary. You might as well watch.
“October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen.” — Hal Borland
Quotes That Belong to October
October has gathered some of the most vivid and emotionally true writing of any month. Here are the ones that feel most alive right now.
“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup.” — Rainbow Rowell
Honestly, this captures October joy so perfectly. The comfort, the cosiness, the specific pleasures of the season.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery
From Anne of Green Gables. And yes. Same. October is one of the genuinely good arguments for being alive.
“At no other time than autumn does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke was obsessed with autumn and wrote about it with more precision than almost any other writer. This line stops me every time.
“October gave a party; the leaves by hundreds came — the Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples, and leaves of every name.” — George Cooper
Playful and joyful. October as a celebration rather than a fading. That reframe is worth keeping.
“There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual October events.” — Kat Howard
October carries memory in a particular way. Old Halloweens. Autumn walks from years ago. The smell of wood smoke from childhood. October tends to surface things.
Affirmations for Going Inward
October affirmations are about depth rather than expansion. About accepting the inward turn rather than fighting it.
“Going inward is not retreating. It is tending to what matters most.”
“The dark is not empty. It is where things quietly grow.”
“I am allowed to want quieter things this season.”
“I release what the year no longer needs from me. I make room.”
“There is richness in stillness. I am learning to find it.”
That second one I keep returning to. We have a cultural tendency to treat darkness – metaphorical and literal- as something to be overcome or endured rather than inhabited. But some of the most important inner work happens in darker, quieter seasons. October is actually a good time for it.
If you want structured support for going inward in a healthy way this month, Tara Brach’s website offers free guided meditations and talks on topics like self-compassion, sitting with difficulty, and finding stillness. Her work is accessible, warm, and genuinely useful.
Halloween, DÃa de los Muertos, and Honouring What Has Passed
October 31st is one of the most widely observed dates in the calendar, and it means very different things to different people.
For many, especially in the US, UK, Ireland, and Canada, Halloween is a beloved secular celebration — costumes, pumpkins, trick-or-treating, horror films, and community. The History Channel’s deep dive into Halloween’s origins traces it back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when the boundary between the living and the dead was thought to be at its thinnest. That origin is worth knowing, even if your Halloween is entirely about the candy.
Directly following on November 1st and 2nd is DÃa de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — celebrated primarily in Mexico and in Mexican communities worldwide. This is a beautiful, vibrant, joyful tradition of honouring ancestors, with altars, marigolds, the deceased’s favourite foods, music, and storytelling. It is not morbid. It is the opposite of morbid. A celebration of the continuing presence of those we have loved and lost. The Smithsonian Magazine has a wonderful overview of DÃa de los Muertos that does justice to its depth and beauty.
Both traditions, in their own ways, ask us to consider mortality and memory. That might sound heavy. But I think there’s something genuinely healthy about having cultural permission to acknowledge loss, remember those who are gone, and sit with the impermanence of things. October makes that feel possible in a way that other months don’t.
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” — Thomas Campbell
The October Cosiness Prescription
Let’s talk about cosiness. Because October deserves it.
The Danish concept of hygge – roughly translated as cosiness, warmth, togetherness, and the pleasure of ordinary things- has entered mainstream culture in recent years, and I think October is its natural home. Not the Instagram-filtered version. The real version: warm drinks, candlelight, soft blankets, good company, unhurried evenings.
The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen — which has done serious academic work on hygge — describes it as fundamentally about presence and connection rather than consumption. You don’t need to buy anything to practice it. You just need to slow down and be in a moment with some warmth around you.
Some specific October cosiness practices worth trying this month:
Light candles in the evenings instead of overhead lighting. The quality of the light is different and genuinely affects how relaxed you feel. Cook something that takes a while and fills the house with smell. Reread a book you loved the first time. Watch something comforting rather than challenging. Give yourself permission to go to bed early without guilt.
These are not lazy choices. They are a sane response to the season.
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” — Henry David Thoreau
Managing the Mood Dip as the Light Fades
It would be dishonest to write about October without acknowledging that for many people, this month marks the beginning of a genuinely difficult stretch.
Seasonal Affective Disorder typically begins to bite in October and November as light levels drop. But even people without clinical SAD often feel a mood dip as the evenings shorten and the greyness sets in. This is real, it is biological, and it is not a personal weakness.
Light therapy lamps are among the best-evidenced tools for managing this. Used for 20 to 30 minutes in the morning, a good-quality SAD lamp can make a meaningful difference. The SAD Association in the UK has guidance on choosing and using them effectively.
Vitamin D supplementation is worth considering from October onwards in many northern latitudes, where sunlight is no longer strong enough to produce adequate levels through skin exposure alone. The NHS recommends that everyone in the UK consider a daily vitamin D supplement from October through to March. In the US, the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements has useful guidance on dosage.
And if your mood is consistently low in autumn and winter, please do talk to a doctor. Seasonal depression is treatable, and you don’t have to simply endure it.
“Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” — Lucille Ball
October and the Creative Mind
Something interesting happens to many creative people in October. The inward turn, the darker days, the quieter pace — all of it seems to unlock something.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) begins in November, and October is traditionally when writers start preparing. The NaNoWriMo website has fantastic free resources for anyone considering taking on a creative writing challenge in the coming weeks.
More broadly, October seems to lower the threshold for creative work. There’s less pressure to be outside and active. The evenings demand to be filled. And there’s a particular autumn moodiness that is genuinely creatively fertile if you lean into it.
If you’ve been meaning to start something creative — a journal, a painting project, a podcast, a newsletter, a craft — October is a genuinely good month to do it. The season supports slow, interior, made-by-hand things.
The Creativity Foundation has free resources on developing creative habits if you want some structure. Or just start. Imperfection, messiness, and a lack of a plan. That’s how most good things begin.
“The October air is full of art that has not been made yet.”
A Few Things Worth Trying in October
Some small, concrete ideas for inhabiting October fully.
Go somewhere with trees this month and look at them properly. Not a glance as you pass. Properly look. Stand underneath one and look up through the canopy. Collect a handful of leaves if you feel like it. Notice the specific colours. This is not childish. This is being alive in October.
Make something warm to eat from scratch. A soup, a stew, a pie, a loaf of bread. Something that takes more than 20 minutes and involves your hands. The act of making something nourishing is itself nourishing.
Spend one evening this month without any screens. Read, listen to music, have a long conversation, sit with a candle and just be somewhere quiet. Notice how different it feels.
Set your intentions for the final quarter of the year. Three things you want to do, feel, or experience before December 31st. Keep them simple. Keep them honest. Write them somewhere you’ll see them.
And if there is someone you have been meaning to tell something to — gratitude, affection, an apology, a thought you’ve been carrying – October has a way of making those conversations feel more possible. The season of thinning veils. The right time for honesty.
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” — George Eliot
Wrapping Up: The Richness of the Dark
The series continues.
January was intention. February was endurance. March was emergence. April was growth. May was aliveness. June was fullness. July was freedom. August was savouring. September was renewal. And October? October is depth. The willingness to go inward, to sit with complexity, to find richness in the dark and beauty in the ending of things.
October asks something of us that the brighter months don’t. It asks us to be okay with less light. To find pleasure in smaller, quieter, interior things. To sit with the year that is passing and feel something real about it rather than just rushing to its end.
That’s not easy. But it is worth it. Because the depth of October – if you let yourself be in it, is its own extraordinary kind of abundance.
The leaves are falling. Everything is gold. Let yourself notice.
“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.” — Elizabeth Lawrence
Take good care of yourself.
Useful Resources
- History Channel: Halloween Origins
- Smithsonian Magazine: DÃa de los Muertos
- Happiness Research Institute: Hygge
- Tara Brach: Free Meditations and Talks
- SAD Association UK: Light Therapy Guidance
- NHS: Vitamin D Guidance
- NIH: Vitamin D for Consumers
- NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month
- Ecopsychology Journal
- Greater Good Science Center: Awe and Nature
- Mental Health Foundation: Autumn Wellbeing
