From time immemorial, human beings have evoked the symbolism of light to get through the darkness time of the year. As sunlight fades and days shorten, it is easy to go inward and become more despairing, pessimistic, and tired.
Instead, we evoke magic and wonder with festivals of light. They provide a kind of beacon, pulling us toward hopeful new possibilities. They call forth our deeper nature, even as the world is wrapped in shadow and cold.
I was raised Christian and I loved the candlelit services on Christmas Eve when we would sing cherished songs like “Silent Night” and the church was lit only by candles and one star above.
While it’s unlikely that Jesus was actually born on December 25, the celebration of his birth just as the light is beginning to “resurrect” itself after Winter Solstice is no accident. When things get darkest, we turn towards a path of redemption.
Collectively, many of us have experienced an ingathering of darkness, which can result in despair for the future.
Will we rise to meet the great challenges of our day, from climate change to warring civilizations to the lure of authoritarianism to uncontrollable AI? It is easy to read the news and become anxious. It is easy to see the gathering clouds portending violent storms ahead.
And yet, it is now in this time, the darkest part of the year for most of humanity, that we are best served by doubling down on our practices of light, practices of remembrance, practices of self-care.
When we can use the gathering darkness to summon our light, we become more whole. We stop resisting the darkness and see it as a kind of fertile birthing ground for the new. Seeds of new possibilities are planted in the blackness of night in dreams. Seeds of new possibilities for humanity are planted in times that go very, very dark.
Just so, may this December be a time in which you approach whatever darkness you perceive — personal or collective — as an opportunity to birth not only more light in your life (of hope, possibilities, and enlightenment) but also to move beyond polarities and see that both darkness and light are necessary polarities that complement each other.
As we rest into darkness, we are nourished in a more visceral and embodied way than in the bright rays of day. We connect with our cosmic roots and weave our bodies and minds together with Mother Earth in a different kind of way.
No longer fixated by shiny objects, we become attuned to subtlety, depth, and complexity. Edges blur. Boundaries soften. Visions become more diffuse.
Every star is but a tiny speck in an ocean of darkness. Every life is but a momentary supernova of form in a sea of emptiness. There is freedom, power, and magic in darkness. Let us summon the light and fully relish the dark in this, the darkest month of the year for most of us.
Stephen Dinan, founder and CEO of The Shift Network, is a Stanford- and CIIS-trained leader, author of Sacred America, Sacred World, and internationally recognized voice in transformational education whose vision for a more conscious world continues to inspire global change.
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Thank you, Stephen. It's easy to focus on the darkness when we are so constantly reminded of bad news. But when we turn our focus to the light, it's way more powerful than the dark. And it's everywhere, especially in these days.
No need to ever fear the great wisdom in the darkness! Actually we are literally 'born' within a dark womb, something often forgotten in these 'busy' times. How does a seed grow? In the dark, fertile soil, allegedly 'unseen' and never heard by others around it. But one day, however, when that seed is ready, after a long period in that dark, rich, fertile soil, the divine Light appears, inspiring it to rather suddenly spark its own inner growth process, once again, a truly magnificent and amazing cycle of our innate potential of that 'Phoenix quality' within us, being kickstarted all over again, to insure that yes, the medieval wisdom phrase of Lux Lucet In Tenebris - 'Light shines in darkness - That very cyclic process is deep within us, and in the natural world also, and that cycle also ensure that continual renewal, will continue on. Long may we all appreciate the fertile darkness, during this peaceful, but powerful, time of year. Blessings to all, as from the Solstice and the Christmas holiday(s) period onward, the Light begins to return again. Long may our own Light and our awareness of its connection to the whole, continue to shine, every so brightly.