How many times do we find ourselves in the darkness? Statements like ‘I am a little in the dark’, are not uncommon when we are feeling lost and unsure of the way forward.
As a ‘Light Seeker’, one wishing to experience and photograph the Northern Lights, I am very aware that to see the Lights necessitates a period of darkness patiently awaiting through the night. I have learned over the years, not to fear the darkness for without it there may be no hope of illumination.
If we look to Nature for our guidance how remarkable it is to consider how the caterpillar is destined to become a chrysalis – moving from mobility to relative immobility – before then discovering liberation and the miracle of wings. Maybe nature can reveal deeper clues and insights to our human nature?
Imagine if the darkness we fear (whatever we place in the name of darkness) and would automatically turn away from, we are able instead, to turn towards and face- what might then happen?
And rather than automatically judging darkness to be bad or unwanted, if instead, we were able to see it as a natural gateway or bridge to the light? And what if one could not exist without the other – the inseparable twins?
This would invite each of us to explore ‘meeting with’, rather than ‘turning away from’ our fears and vulnerability.
Now, if you are willing, reflect for some moments on what you may be fearing at this time?……
And consider the invitation of these words, to become more ‘fully acquainted with’ and how you might ‘come to know’ this fear more fully.
Imagine what it might be like to befriend your fear.
And most especially notice what happens when you do?…….
We often automatically judge difference to be right or wrong, light or dark, but what if we could embrace rather than judge and divide and so see the world more in paradox than partiality… We would then give our attention more fully to both right and wrong and dark and light.
Imagine if rather than judging, we could instead ‘hold both’ equally. And offer the chance to consider two sides rather than our temptation to favour one. Might this potentially offer a deeper more reflective, resolution?
Mediation and holding together may be a vital opportunity to uncover ‘something more’ to which we may be blind in our need to rapidly judge.
If we did not judge when faced with difference, might we aspire to the lesson of the Lights – where darkness and light are less distinct and more of a natural inevitability – a journey of exploration to be mined and experienced. Then darkness may become more of a natural aspect of our illumination. And the wings and liberation that we seek, maybe hidden in the one place we might never think to look.
May your exploration of the dark be illuminating…
May you in the invitation to ‘hold both sides’ discover a deeper resolution beyond a temptation to judge and swiftly answer….
May reconciliation proceed resolution….
Podcast Version