Who's Afraid of the Dark?

this morning on the Meseta

Well OK, I got a little dark yesterday.

It IS the Winter Solstice today, after all. It’s OK. It’s only natural.

Winter Solstice. I looked it up, and read maxims and meditations about the Earth’s axis, the “shortest day of the year,” farmers, crops, light, and of course Druids. (Druids and Templars apparently did everything that’s mystical or hip.) Everybody was really strong on the lights, candles, the twinkling brightness, hope against the blackness of the long, long night.

But then again, I thought, what’s so bad about the dark? Isn’t it just as real and normal as light? Don’t plenty of good, fruitful things happen in the dark? Don’t seeds sprout out of the darkness of the soil?

I commiserated with a friend, like me trying to analyze our anger at the way things are going nowadays in our countries. I told her to go someplace very quiet, shut the door, and let herself poke around at the base of her anger – what is it she is clinging to that no longer fits, that’s not real, that’s frustrating her?

   

She stopped me. Isn’t it sinful, wallowing in that darkness, letting those feelings take over? Isn’t it kinda… dangerous? Shouldn’t you always strive for the light, the brightness, the music?

I thought about that for a minute. I said No.

Babies are formed in darkness, and it doesn’t do them any harm.  We are formed of both light and darkness, equal parts – light and shadow.  If you never let yourself “go dark,” you will never find out what’s down there waiting for you. It might be a dragon. It might be Prince Charming. It might be the brainstorm that’s gonna change your life forever. It’s all You. But if you’re always busy with light, bright sweetness and chatter, you’re never going to pull that powerful stuff out of your Shadow and learn to use it.

 

the labyrinth under the trees, in Fall 

I walked in the rain out to our little labyrinth, on the Camino between Moratinos and Terradillos de los Templarios. The Ditch Pigs crew reset its stones in November, it stands out along the path, but most pilgrims never notice it. I walked the circle in, and then the circle out, praying aloud for my family, projects, country, town, health, and friends. I do that every Solstice, and every Equinox, four times every year. It keeps my inner calendar set. It reminds me of where I am in time, on the Earth, in a medium-size spiral galaxy of stars. How small I am, how tiny my life is.

How little it means, darkness and light, evil and good, seasons and solstices. We all are little solar systems in our own heads, full of daylight and dark, good and evil, intellect and idiocy.   

We gotta be patient with our darkness, and not fear our long nights and dark sides. God lives in the dark, too. That’s where she came from.