Our of darkness . . .

      It was a dark and stormy . . . day.  I can't remember exactly what time of year it was, but given that it was Oregon, it could have been almost anytime! I do remember I was home, so it was either a weekend or a school break (I doubt it was summer). I was in the early years of elementary school when being at home on a rainy day was NO FUN! At some point, my mom, getting a bit tired of my restlessness and fidgeting, suggested I call Doug and see what he was doing. Doug's dad was the contractor who'd built every house in our neighborhood, so Doug had been a friend for as long as I could remember. "Great suggestion, mom! Why didn't I think of it?"
       I got on the phone and called him up. He said he was feeling just about as restless as I, and to come on up to his house "in ten minutes". Yes!  Ten minutes wasn't long. Or was it?  It WAS AN ETERNITY! Most of us can remember (or imagine) the drill:  look out the window at the rain, go check the clock, repeat . . . six cycles every minute, probably. But eventually the time did pass, and I was able to head up the hill to his house. I remember few details about the rest of the day, except that the wait was worth it (his mom's cookies were always good!).
     I recalled this experience  yesterday when our "Soul and Role" group spent an hour reflecting on the David Whyte poem "Sweet Darkness". We talked about literal darkness as well as metaphorical darkness. The poem suggests that there is learning to be found in darkness -- which we were able to find in both the literal and metaphorical. But what I also took away was that the darkness will end eventually. And, if one pays close enough attention, the new "light" is of a different quality than previously experienced.
     My childhood "dark and stormy day" was not any kind of profound "darkness". But for an impatient pre-adolsecent, it was DARK! And the "light" that followed wasn't profound, either. I did learn that ten minutes isn't an eternity! And that sometimes, waiting in the "darkness" is worth it.

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you. 

~ David Whyte ~
(House of Belonging)

Namasté,

Gary