In The Deep

“The dark is the light I most fear.”

Tis the season of darkness. The time when the light is brightest because of the growing darkness. Sometimes, the light is most illuminating, because its other half is equally present. It is my contention that darkness complements the light, and makes all of our seasonal rituals more powerful.  Thankfully, the diminution of the light reveals the true abundance, and grace, of the dark.

I am a creature spawned by the darkness. I am evidence, that what appears in the light like an unmitigated disaster — a tragedy of the first degree — can be a form of endarkenment. Pain, uncertainty, and hardship, can be grace-prone too. The darkness caresses too. The light is extolled during this season, for good reason, but the darkness does some of the heavy lifting too. What we often don’t want to see, is what transforms us the most. Anyway, tis the season when what is not celebrated, is boosting and empowering what is. Paradox is rampant, twisting us all into our real form.

I’ve heard it said that we humans only perceive about 10% of the Universe. The rest is called ‘dark matter.’  The theory that science prefers right now, is that the Universe is actually composed of 90% dark matter, which no one can perceive, even with the most sophisticated scientific instruments.  Darkness is almost everything. Who would have guessed?

Only the grotesque who have been blessed by the dark.

Darkness also seems to best portray the deep. It is the metaphor that best captures the unknown, uncertain, reaches of mystery. It is where all of our unactualized potential resides. The unknown benefactor has a dark, indistinguishable face, a complection feared by many.

I have a complex relationship with my parentage. If I had not been assailed by what appeared to be tragedy, I would not be what I am. No one warned me. No one told me such a thing was possible. The only discussion of dark angels I was privy to, was of evil. I can tell you now, there are dark angels doing providential work. Being born in the dark is perhaps the most accurate birth one can have. Happily, I can look at the face of darkness now, and see a lover. Light is, for me, a particularly brilliant part of the darkness. I float in a deep and wonderfully dark sea.

The turning of the year, the solstice, the birth of new hope, the family rituals and the religious and spiritual moments, all underscore the power that resides in Mystery. The darkness is Mystery made most evident. I welcome this season not because of what it portends, but because of what is already here, beguiling us with darkness. The deep is coming to our senses.

Deck the halls with deeply uncertain joy! It is the uncertainty, more than the certainty, that makes this such a wondrous, and joyful occasion.

May darkness, and depth, fill your cup this year!

 

 

 

  

The Initiating Wound

A life review

 is one of the most important 

developmental tasks of later life. 

 

These forays into the past

are a naturally occurring, 

universal mental process in older adults.

 

 Only in old age

 with the proximity of death 

can one truly experience

 a personal sense of the entire life cycle.

 

 That makes old age 

a unique stage of life

 and makes the review of life

 at that time equally unique.

Pulitzer-Prize winning gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler 

No one knows where they are headed. I didn’t. Maybe, I still don’t. To look back, and to see some of the trail that brought me here, is painfully beautiful. This is especially true when one beholds a part of the trail, that one has never seen before or, that one had assumed was something else. There is a kind of dizziness, or vertigo, that befalls one when the landscape of fate reveals itself. As one’s story changes, so does one’s sense of self. Recollection, or a life review, is a big deal. Aging begs me to better know myself. And, that can be an existential thrill ride.

In the summer of 1986 I was 38 years old, I had just completed my MA. and was living by myself. There were so many ways my life might go, and I had very little idea which way was best suited for the being I intended to be. I knew that I lacked a center of gravity, a place within, from which I could decide where my life might go. The decision was made, I much later discovered, by an unknown part of myself, someone I can now see at 74.

That long ago me, started spontaneously to write. Little did I know that writing was going to be important to me. Instead, I just wondered about what I was doing, and went ahead and did it. Without any real intention, mainly to pass the lonely time, I wrote a piece, which I called at the time ‘The Initiating Wound.’ I’ll spare you the details, except to say, that that piece carried the elements I was to discover later in the aftermath of my stroke. All the seeds were present, I just could not recognize them yet.

Unknowingly, I wrote of a painfully important initiation, that involved being broken and wounded, to become whole. I wrote about how initiating hardship and loss can be. 20 years later I experienced it. I may have survived, because some part of me knew what was possible. Seeing it now, is poignant, disturbing, and enormously gratifying. I don’t believe my life, or anybody’s for that matter, is preordained. Still, this recollection gives me pause. I call it now, pre-traumatic growth. Somehow, some part of me knew the impossible. You can believe the world looks really different, when it veers off into the other-worldly.

When one can see crossroads that were traversed by an unknown self, it is sobering. It makes one wonder to what degree of reality one is actually perceiving. It’s a good thing ‘not knowing’ grows on you as you get older. I probably have never been what, and who, I thought I was. For me, one of the benefits of life review is that I get a clearer picture, that I am not what I supposed. The mirror of the past belongs in a funhouse, because it is revealing a me I know, and a me I don’t know. How astonishing!

The uniqueness of life review reveals to me that I am a holy mystery. Time has helped me ripen into a unique form that somehow was predicted long ago. I can’t figure that one out, but I sure can be swept into awe by it.

I hope that is your experience too.