The days are growing darker as we enter into winter. I feel the darkness speaking to us.
In darkness, edges and definitions disappear. When I get up in the dark morning, the edges that define shoes on the floor, the bed that I have to navigate around, the bathroom door, the sink, the light switch–all places– all seem to recede and even disappear. What is left is a huge blanket of softness, a huge field of no places, of one place–darkness.
In the light, edges and definitions are clear. I think that we are a light oriented culture: we value definitions and edges. We define life by the edges and definitions. We expend a great deal of energy working with, pointing to, and defending edges and definitions.
Consider the energy that people are expending right now defining and defending the edges of their political issues–whatever they may be.
We tend to think of light as life and dark as death. But what if it’s the opposite?
What if the light is the place of death–the place of expenditure, the place of energy usage, the place of giving out and burning up?
What if light and edges and definitions is really where we give, give up, serve, expend and die every day and . . .
What if the darkness is the experience of re-merging into a oneness, into the interconnected web of all existence?
What if the darkness is the place of life, where we reconnect with what restores us, rests us, heals us, re-makes us, rejuvenates us, so that we can face into the light–to give, serve and die again?
What if in order to give in the light, we have to have full faith in what happens in the dark?
Bob Patrick
