Day 25 - On Darkness

Of course I mean metaphorical darkness. A place I like to refer to as "beneath the ice". A place that I dislike immensely, even fear. The darkness within. The place I spend the majority of my time trying to avoid. This is the darkness I am referring to.

I dislike this darkness, because I don't know how to handle it when it comes. As I've said before, I keep moving, always trying to find my way back to the light. Because that is my nature. I seek happiness, for myself and for others. I choose to live in a world of possibility and beauty, and when the darkness comes, it's like I'm wandering blindly through life, all my senses doused.

When I feel trapped in this way, I withdraw into myself. Perhaps to heal. Perhaps to try and make sense of where I am, mentally. I don't talk about it. So bringing this topic to my friend, just the other day, was not an easy thing to do. If we didn't understand each other so well, I wouldn't have brought it up at all, and I would have continued about my life, as usual. But I brought it up, and he told me something that gave me a whole new perspective on the darkness.

What I already knew is this: there is beauty in the darkness. But I've always thought of this beauty as something to be viewed in hindsight. Something to appreciate in much the same way you do a photograph... through a lense, after the moment has passed, in hindsight, after you've made it through. Tuck this understanding away in your picture book and move forward. Glace at the photograph again when you need to remember.

What he told me is this: there is beauty in the darkness, but you have to open your eyes to see it. It does no good to wander through the darkness with your eyes pressed shut, hoping to find the light. When we are children, when we are afraid of the dark, we close our eyes. We hide under the covers. We wait, terrified, for morning. The trick, he told me, is to not fear the darkness, because no matter what, it always comes back around. Life happens in this balance. If we keep our eyes shut in fear, we miss half the experience. The trick is to embrace the darkness, and see the beauty present within that space.

What I learned is this: there is beauty in darkness, and darkness is only as scary as we allow it to be. Just because I prefer the light doesn't mean there is no value in the dark. To experience, understand, and appreciate the darker side of things, we must open our eyes.

When we open our eyes to the darkness, the sky is full of stars. Stars that glitter against the veiled, black sky. If we spend our lives with our eyes tight shut in those moments of darkness, if we spend our lives running, trying to get back to the light, we miss the beauty in the night. There is value in the darkness. There is beauty there if we can let go of our fear and let it be what it is. Let ourselves feel it. Let it be part of us, without turing our consciousness away in shame. There is nothing wrong with the daker side of life. It exists within all of us. We cannot run from it, but we can learn, we can grow from it. I am grateful to the man who taught me this.

Many years ago, another dear friend corrected my definition of Namaste, reminding me that this salutation includes the dark. In my classes, I now offer forth my own, amended definition:

In yoga we say Namaste, meaning, "The light and the darkness that coexist in me acknowledge and honor the light and the darkness that coexist in you. Because this light and this dark exists within all of us, we are the same. We are one.

So, Namaste. And tell me that you'll open your eyes.

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