“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
Darkness falls …
when we make a mistake.
Darkness falls …
when we experience failure.
Darkness falls …
when we fall down.
Darkness falls …
when we suffer a loss.
Darkness falls …
when we experience tragedy.
Darkness falls …
when we witness tragedy, from near or from afar.
Darkness falls …
Darkness falls …
when someone hurts us.
Darkness falls …
when someone scares us.
Darkness falls …
when someone lords their power over us.
Darkness falls …
when someone has a perverse disregard
for our feelings, our needs, our safety.
Darkness falls …
when we are helpless in the face of abuse.
Darkness falls …
when we are powerless in the face of cruelty.
Darkness falls …
when we try to fight abuse by responding in the outer world alone.
Darkness falls …
when we try to fight abuse by retreating into our inner world alone.
Darkness falls …
Darkness falls …
when we hurt someone.
Darkness falls …
when we scare someone.
Darkness falls …
when we lord our power over someone.
Darkness falls …
when we have a perverse disregard
for someone’s feelings, someone’s needs, someone’s safety.
Darkness falls …
when we are helpless in the face of our own abuse of power.
Darkness falls …
when we are powerless in the face of our own cruelty.
Darkness falls …
when we try to fight our own abuse of power by responding in the outer world alone.
Darkness falls …
when we try to fight our own abuse of power by retreating into our inner world alone.
Darkness falls …
when we don’t even acknowledge our own abuse of power and cruelty,
when we don’t even try to heal our own abuse of power and cruelty.
Darkness falls …
Darkness falls …
at the end of the day.
Darkness falls …
at the end of the moon’s cycle.
Darkness falls …
beginning the day after the summer solstice,
and the light only slowly begins to return
on the day of the winter solstice.
In the cycles of nature to this point …
all we had to do was wait till the darkness passed
and the light came once again.
In the cycles of our own nature it isn’t quite so easy.
We need to work with the darkness within.
We need to find the ancient wounds in the darkness within.
We need to find the suffering and trauma we experienced once
long, long ago,
and utilize that darkness to heal the darkness within.
And utilize that darkness within to heal the darkness we create
in our outer world.
And utilize the darkness within from once upon a time …
to heal and preserve the
cycles of nature that flow from dark into light and dark into light,
again and again and again.
And utilize the darkness within from once upon a time
to weave a new fabric of our inner lives and outer lives …
so that we can flow from darkness to light and darkness to light
inside and out …
without making darkness a bad thing and light a good thing …
any more than it is in the cycles of nature.
My prayer for this season of darkness
is that we work with and through the darkness within
to find the true light within us –
individually and communally.
© Judith Barr, 2016
“Grief and loss and suffering, even depression and spiritual crisis,
the dark nights of the soul
only worsen when we try to ignore or deny or avoid them.
The healing journey begins when we turn toward them and learn how to work with them.”
–Jack Kornfield, Your Difficulties Are Your Path
“If we cannot face the darkness, we will not see the light.
There’s beauty in the day,
but there is healing in the night.”
–Jennifer Berezan, Open It Up
“The light at the center of our inner darkness
is unlike any light in the world outside.
The only way to reach it is to go through the darkness within our very selves.”
–Judith Barr