The coming of the dark, that is.

I am trying to stay with the Solstice dark. It seems so profound some days. Here in Central Minnesota, I awaken to the dark at 7am. I come home to the dark at 7pm. The temperatures hover in single digits, the snow falls, the trees look like scarecrows. We live in a monochromatic world. Yet, even in the dark a blue sparkle dazzles me as I walk across the snow at night. It is la luna, her bone white, eerie face spilling over the landscape.

And the darkness in our culture these days? Maybe it’s necessary. A friend sends an article. It is a footnote to the darkness in which I feel encaved. Kali, the Hindu Goddess of death, destruction and resurrection is afoot.

                    Kali has brought down our house in a shocking blow; all the illusions of America, stripped in a single night. We are not who we thought we were. Now we must get ready to stand in her fires of transmutation. We need them…we are collectively getting so sick and tired of lies, of the superficial, of the shiny neon lights of pop culture, pop spirituality and politics as usual. We thirst for the Real… As our heart breaks, as our veneer cracks, we open to more integrity, more truth, more tenderness. We stop trying to be all things for all people. We become this one small thing, feigning nothing.

Before we rush in to reanimate the discourse of hope prematurely, we must yield to what is present. Receptivity is the great quality of darkness; darkness hosts everything without exception….Darkness heals us without a spoonful of sugar; the wound is the gift, and this election is a good dose.

This article, reminiscent of Christianity’s Dark Night of the Soul and the eternal Christ story of death and resurrection, nails what I wish public servants, spiritual leaders and politicians would say.We must grieve this hour that we live in. It is a time of confession, lament and sacrifice. We are sickening and killing our earth and each other. The powers and principalities among us are running rampant and unbridled with excess of money, greed, narcissism, vile hatred and superiority. It is an old narrative of domination, destruction and death.

I’m ready for a new narrative. Is it in the ashes?

Perhaps darkness is the medicine we need right now to wake us up. Some days I cannot bear so much darkness. Within the last week I have seen multiple postings of the same horror. Migrating snow geese, encountering a snow storm over Montanta take refuge in the acidic, metal-laden waters of an old open pit mine. Once animated and alive, now there is a 700 acre boneyard of white birds. As another friend said, “The perfect storm of our ignorance”.

I think of my bees. Dying. Everywhere bees dying. Industrial agriculture, chemicals, GMO’s. We are poisoning ourselves.

I lament the loss of so much life.

I read the book  All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr, Thorndike Press, 2014). I am learning that all the light we cannot see is often hidden in greys and shadow. It is covert and subtle. Light comes as a messenger in night dreams, small kindnesses, a childhood memory, a song, Providentially placed people, a wise word spoken at the right time, healing of an old wound, small victories that come from great love and sacrifice. Honor the dark, for the light is illuminated more.

And the darkness has cracks in it.