I’ve known many people who have been sick the last couple weeks. Some from Covid-19, some from other illnesses, some potentially life threatening. My mother in Oregon is recovering and doing well now after weeks of dealing with symptoms from Covid 19 – she still hasn’t regained her taste but is on the mend and getting her stamina back. I’ve known many people connected to this community who are dealing with some kind of illness, and many more who are dealing with the on again off again sense of disappointment of feeling stuck in place away from friends or loved ones in person. I also know a great many like myself who feel fortunate, lucky enough to feel healthy enough this season so far and have basic needs taken care of, even if there is a kind of blueness in the air.
I’ve always liked the blue light you see as dusk arrives, and there is this beautiful mixing of light as daylight turns to evening and then eventually into night. It’s sometimes called twilight. It’s a special kind of light where both realities are existing simultaneously – the night and day unafraid to become one another, mix, be touched and changed by each other. This kind of light helps give me a greater perspective on our plight and on our reality – everything is touching everything, and no reality is separate, alone, by itself, though it sometimes feels that way.
In Youngstown we had our first real snow this last week, and I feel grateful to live at the edge of a city park where they have closed off one of the roads for the Winter to car traffic. Jennifer and I would take walks on the road at twilight, just as evening was arriving, and the promise of darkness was in the air. I enjoy going out and walking in the snow during that time, and I forgot how quiet it can be. I enjoyed hearing the gentle landing of snowflakes, as I looked around all the trees looked present, but indistinct, a kind of visual merging happening with the darkness that was approaching. I felt myself as part of that merging, touching the reality of snowfall, touching the reality of trees, of deer, of neighbors who had their lights on in the distance. The edges of my body when I looked down at my legs and hands were growing more indistinct by the second as the light was changing, and this kind of blurring instead of being scary was actually very peaceful. It reminded me: Yes, this is part of true reality. I am meeting and being met by all that exists, never alone, never isolated, never completely distinct and separate. Walking in twilight taught me that.
I find it very easy to forget all this on many occasions. I find it really easy to get so wrapped up in my own problems and dilemmas, that I forget very easily that my life is actually being supported by other realities outside of myself: snow falling, light, darkness, air, my neighbors, my church family. I find it incredibly easy to forget all this. I learned how easy I forget this a few days ago when I went walking out of our house, and promptly slipped on the snow in our lawn. I twisted my knee in a funky way, and I felt by backside getting increasingly colder plopped down in the snow while a dull ache was beginning to grow and throb around my knee cap. Jennifer observed the whole thing, and she came to help get me up, and she fell right next to me. Jennifer was easily able to laugh about it all, feeling that her reality touched mine, but I was still pretty serious about my knee, as if I was the only one in the entire world who fell and injured themselves even though there was visual proof right in front of me that someone was in the same predicament. It’s actually kind of amazing how ingrained it is – how easy it is to feel alone even when presented with clear evidence right in front of you to the contrary.
For me, the darkness provides an opportunity to see a portion of reality for what it really is. As the light dims, I find that it is not so clear where I end and my bed begins, where my feet end and the floor begins, where I end and you begin. It reminds me how close we really are, and how new that feeling is for most of us.
It is not lost on me that in church we say we are there for you from womb to tomb, from the beginning before you enter the world while you are being nourished in darkness to become who you might be, to the tomb when you go to a place that is mysterious, cloaked in darkness to most of our minds.
I find most people are startled the first time they hear this term, womb to tomb, because I think it makes plain that our life depends on darkness to thrive and become who we are. And it makes clear something that I think is disconcerting to the normal ways many of us approach our lives: our life depends on happenings and realites outside of our control and full knowledge. I think this is why sickness or injury can be so destabilizing. It seems like something is happening to us, something beyond our control or our consent.
But I would like to offer an alternative perspective that may be worth living into and exploring. Instead of seeing these uncertain and permeable realities like our health and well-being of ourselves or the health and well-being of others as a scary reality, we can open ourselves to being supported by this mystery, supported by realities that we see, and many that we don’t. Instead of seeing the world coming to get us and eventually take us the tomb on some inopportune time, what would it feel like to welcome reality and various realities, various shades of darkness and light as our true home, a place we can learn to rest in and get support into becoming what we will become.
I think that darkness often has a negative connotation in our culture because we can’t tame it, and make it what we want. It’s the opposite actually. Darkness makes us who we are. It’s the beginning of creativity, when our life and all of life is indistinct and taking shape, coming apart and taking on new shapes. Many of us including myself often live with the illusion that our life has a definite distinct shape, and we get very upset when that definite distinct shape feels threatened or modified in some way. But the truth is our life is never completely distinct. We are continually forming and being formed by each other, by our environment, by both darkness and light.
One of the reasons I’ve grown to appreciate the celebration of Winter Solstice, is it delivers a message that I need to continually hear: I am not the center of the universe in the way I typically assume without realizing it. The truth is much bigger than my usual way of living. My life and your life is the center of a universe that is vast, dynamic and constantly taking shape according to darkness and light. We are being shaped even as we speak right now, though many of us feel like we are doing nothing. Our life, if we take time to notice it, is actually being born again and again and again. In truth we never leave the womb. The world is our womb, and though the journey is at times unpredictable and arduous, I think we can choose to trust it. We can trust the darkness, we can trust vast realities that are shaping and giving us the experience of our life. I choose to trust it, because frankly I find the alternative too exhausting, and too small. More and more I’m seeing that the zest and meaning of life is not based on what I can control or manage, but in opening myself more to what is arriving and who I might become in the process. It is wondrous when we willingly with the support of a community like this can open ourselves up to creative possibilities of darkness, and begin to trust rather than fear the life that is taking shape.
Darkness for me, is the birth of a real hope, a reality that is necessary for light to be appreciated. Darkness is not a symbol of toughness or something lesser, it’s the exact opposite actually. Darkness is the greatest power, the greatest creative power in the entire universe, it is the place from which all life becomes and to which all life returns. And we as humans living in the 21st century still know so little about this. It is beyond our control, beyond our best thinking, beyond our plans and expectations. Instead of seeing this as endlessly frustrating and dismaying, we can choose to see this as wonderful in the literal sense. It is a wonder, something that holds us close, like a womb, a friend, a reality that will never leave us.
I’m not naïve to think that all of this will come naturally just because I say it. It certainly does not always come naturally for me. But I think with practice, the awareness and appreciation of this reality grows. We learn to trust what we can’t see or understand instead of being constantly afraid. We can learn to experience darkness as a gift rather than a hindrance to our life. We can slowly begin to surrender our life to a reality that connects us to everything and everyone, a reality we can see most acutely in darkness. With time and attention, our life can become something we open ourselves up to rather than a project we need to manage and get disappointed when we can’t. Instead of seeing this as a failure of our living, a failure of our health, a failure of our plans, we can see the period we are in as a new re-shaping of our life, a re-shaping based on numerous realities.
Light is very good at guiding us and helping us see where we are going. Light is very good for the body and the soul, giving us nutrients we need to thrive. But darkness may be of equal or even greater benefit in teaching us who we really are and what our life is really about. Darkness awakens another sense in us that is natural and born of stillness, a sense that is not based on sight, touch, or smell. It is our greatest sense, in my opinion, that we have. An intuition which can guide us, lighting a candle into the places that are unknown and sometimes hard and scary. A trust born of experience that our life is being supported by indistinct but present realities. With support from a community like this and attentive practice, this kind of trust is possible in many different circumstances, including grief or sickness. It can guide us if we allow it.
The moments we have together are precious, more precious than we can ever quantify. Many including myself are excited to catch a glimpse of the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn on the actual Winter Solstice, when the promise of light returns. But my hope as we celebrate in our own way, even just being cozy in our own homes, is that we never forget the promise of darkness for which light depends. The planets are aligning to support us and our appreciation in turn supports the world. We exist in a network of mutual support if we can practice opening ourselves up to this. I look forward to celebrating the gradual return of light in this season, because this too is a wonder and a lesson. We are just the right distance away from the sun so that we can appreciate light in our everyday life. I intend to practice gratitude for this wonder. But light also exists in places we don’t always notice it. Light can also be felt within us when we are kind toward our predicament, and we practice kindness toward one another. Light is expressed as a simple smile, an expression of what we are grateful for, in seeing our life as a gift worth appreciating and taking care of.
Circumstances have aligned in just the right way that you were born, and that alignment was not something that we controlled or managed. It just happened and our whole life completely depends on that alignment of realities beyond our control. This is still true even now no matter what age or predicament we are in. We are here because of a specific and special alignment. As the sun shines on us let us allow ourselves to ingest this. Even though a flame is not sensed, we are never separate from the warmth of community or the fire of commitment. These we keep in our hearts, the endless storehouse of light in all seasons.
