Up on Madeline Island, darker days have settled in. The town has grown quiet, the water cold. Summer folks have flown off with the geese to sunnier shores, leaving the rest of us to navigate the dark. I was once among them. But this time, this year, I wait and witness as the light bows out early. In the remote solitude of Island life, traffic lights are replaced with stop signs, pulsing neons give way to the soft glow of lanterns, and darkness arrives honestly. It takes hold of the cabin, cuddling it in a black velvet-gloved embrace, until I can’t see my own hand an inch from my face, which is mesmerizing and feels less like absence and more like arrival. I am here.

Here, where blaring search lights and sirens are replaced with subtle starlight and silence. I watch in wonder, realizing that I can be comfortable in the dark, no longer afraid but oddly intrigued, and apparently prepared for it.

Earlier this year, I found myself reading book after book, such as Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor and Waking Up to the Dark by Clark Strand. I had no idea why I was gobbling up these volumes designed to romance the dark. But I know that many of these books didn’t just ask us to make peace with the dark, but to enter it —walk in it, alone.

As I thumbed through the pages, I had no idea at the time that they were welcoming me into an initiation that I would have never chosen for myself.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.-Theodore Roethke

I don’t think I need to confess my bias toward brilliance and brightness. I’ve been taught to fear the darkness. I have romanced, regaled, and relished the light. Fire it up, friends, court your brilliance, chase off the shadows, and shine, shine, shine, sis-star!

It seems that this overamplification of light’s value has blinded me to my own dualistic allegiances. And so it’s time that I forgive my fears and make peace with the full spectrum of humanity. To welcome darkness not as void, but as a fertile field of possibilities. A classroom, a teacher, and an opportunity to own and honor all aspects of myself, the waxing and waning.

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In the cold, dark, stillness of these northern nights, I am discovering that I need darkness as much as I need dawn. My soul has been craving this. And as a sunny optimist, a seven on the enneagram, as a card-carrying rose-colored glasses, self-identified “silver lining factory,” I am honestly unerved by the depth of darkness and the rich love affair I have forsaken for sunnier sermons and high-vibe brilliance. I guess what I am saying is, I am ready to dance in the dark.

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” -Mary Oliver:

My sunrise spirituality and breezy barefoot blessings have been effectively honored and celebrated. But now the darkness calls, and it will not be denied. It whispers of richness: of warm mugs of spiced dark chocolate, red velvet and incense, warm, worn leather… candlelight. And even now, as I write, I see how I am attempting to romance the darkness, to wrap and rebrand the bare bones of winter —the chill of shadows — as some glorious cashmere-grey mist settling over the woods. It just may be, but I hope you can spot the Ever Ready Bunny of Sunshine, so determined to avoid the darkness.

Although these textures are sensual, and tangibly and decadent, do not be distracted, dear reader. Beneath the warmth of velvet, the richness of candlelight, they point to something deeper: the winter of the soul, the cold, dark, damp cave of hibernation, the solitude, the silence. And I, a people person through and through, find myself trying to convince myself that I am not afraid of the dark. I mean, I am not… I am really not. But then again, I am also not very fluent in it.

And so I watch as grey skies turn black and deliver a generous sprinkling of stars who brilliantly dance and delight this audience of one, and I make myself stand in the darkness. And I find that it’s not a hiding place, but is a womb. It is not just the absence of light, but a beautiful mystery. Some things can only be seen in the dark.

And so my task is to venture into the shorter days and solitude, not because the dark is comfortable, but because it offers me a sense of the sacred that I could not have secured for myself on sunny shores.

And although I still favor them, I am entertaining the sacred in me that has always known how to find its way through the dark.

The darker the night, the more brilliant the light appears.

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.” -Hafiz

I hope to find that, share it with you, and invite you into your own sacred darkness. So join me tomorrow at SpeakEasy Spiritual Community as we contemplate the full spectrum of darkness and light — the laser, the lantern, and the sun — and explore how we might navigate the continual waxing and waning of illumination within and around us.

“Perhaps the light can only be found by those who have learned to love the dark.” — Barbara Brown Taylor

May our love grow bolder in the darker days and darker times; may our love grow so bold that it outshines the sun.

LOVE, Maur

PS: Enjoy dessert.

EVENTS

SpeakEasy Spiritual Community honors all paths and is anchored in the teachings of A Course in Miracles and the Divine Feminine. We meet virtually on Sunday at 10:30 am CT and feature a community conversation that invites us to speak easily about spiritual principles and practice. Please don’t leave your brains, beliefs, or background at the door. We don’t have all the answers, but we love the questions.

DESSERT

A little spoof on daylight savings. I mean saving. It’s not plural!

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