The darkness these days is deep, notwithstanding slowly lengthening days of the approaching equinox, the alignment of planets in a perfect, fleeting arc on the horizon, the warming sun. In nature, darkness is a resting time. Each day, each month, each year. Some are so welcome; the darkness of the moon, the depths of lovers’ nights. The tipping point of the winter solstice when dark shifts to light in an instant.
I go into the world seeking crisp air, signs of living things tucked into thickets, deep, fur-lined dens and nests that protect the emergence of spring. I sink into these sights and sounds, scents and secrets. The light of stars, frozen drops of rain, the quiet of slumber, the calling of birds that remain throughout the season. I fill myself with these in anticipation of darker times.
It differs, the dark that consumes me now. Not my particular mixture of sorrow and loss and longing, although that will visit again, no doubt. No. This is a darkness that casts shadows over all the world in caves, mountaintops, cities, lakes, streams, plains, and deserts. Darkness that makes me believe that I will see the end of days. When humanity will cease to exist from the fog of war, the fire of our ever heating world, the fierce grasping for more of this and that and yours and mine. When our attachments defeat and destroy us in so many ways. “Us” and “them”- the beginning of disaster when we cling to our familiars as others cling to theirs and we throw stones at one another.
Still, I turn toward faith, countering helplessness with hope, soaking up the beauty available to me as I look and listen, see and hear. Storing it within microscopic particles of light so that, once the earth has heated and cooled, beauty and magic will be reborn.
Reborn, I hope and pray, to wiser beings, that follow a slower rhythm and count time in response to Creation’s call. And return again and again to the awe of that first particle, that kindles and will continue to kindle, the spark of life from embers and emptiness.
