The One In The Darkness

Why are we afraid of the dark? We come from the dark; a child in a womb, a seed buried deep in the Earth. It begins and ends with darkness.

Yet, when darkness finds us one unsuspecting spring morning, like a sudden quake that rattles the ground beneath, it causes a kind of insufferable emptiness, and we’re left grasping for a light switch that is nowhere to be seen.

I wonder how much time goes by before our eyes adjust to the darkness. How long before we stop reaching for the light switch and let the darkness hold us like it has done so many times before? Just like the seed. Just like the egg.

What can we learn from the dark?

What did I learn from the dark?

I gather that by now, you might have caught on to my metaphor. Perhaps you saw I’d stepped away from social media. Perhaps I haven’t answered your calls in some time. An un-replied email. A WhatsApp message with two grey ticks.

I’ve been there recently. In the dark. A place strangely familiar. A place barely endurable.

It was the perfect storm really, engulfing black clouds, clamorous thunder, violent waves. Everything was destroyed - the relationship, the job, the home, the future I thought I would have, the family I thought we would have, my perfect castle in the sky. All gone. Smashed by the waves of destiny and the winds of fate.

I was left feeling helpless and fragile.

I was left with a gaping reminder that life is fragile.

Buildings collapse, empires fall, the things we think we want the most don’t happen. Hearts break. Injustice looms like a bad taste in the mouth. And we’re reminded just how bittersweet this melody of life is.

As an empath, I feel it all. Not just my own aching heart, but a collective grief for what was, what is and what could have been. Wars rage on. Tyrants take their seats on their thrones. Hope dwindles. Freedoms unknown.

I do not recall reading the warning label on the handbook of this human experience.

Contains: Gluten, soy, suffering.

Oh, take me back to the sweet, sweet days of playing in the tall grass amongst the snails and the ladybugs.

But I knew darkness then, too. The very journey here was through the dark; though held by the mother, and the mother of the mother.

Am I still held? Are we all?

In this time of great grief, I don’t look to the heavens above, but to the ground beneath; the roots, the dark soil in which all things grow. My feet sink into the Earth. My nerves speak to the mycelium in the language of the stars. I am a part of the darkness and the darkness is a part of me.

“There's no coming to consciousness without pain. No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” ~ Carl Jung

So, will you sit with me for a little while, wrapped in darkness, held by Her tender cosmic blanket of protection, until my eyes adjust, and I can see again?

~B

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