We need the light because we are the light. And yet, we are, and need, the darkness too. Our inner landscapes exist in darkness. Visible light may enter our superficial skin layers, but our interior is shrouded in total darkness. And our organs are nourished by photons emitted through the sun’s rays. Most photons that reach us on Earth are not in the visible spectrum but in the Near Infrared (NIR). NIR is light we cannot see, so even in its presence, without visible light, it seems dark. Even so, these photons bathe our internal landscape. In Kreyol, we have a term, “Sa nou pa we,” that describes the ever-present unseen— the invisible that surrounds and protects us, especially in the dark.
Darkness is what the tiny seed experiences when it is first placed into thick, dank loam, completely buried in earth. It is this dark embrace that allows that tiny capsule of potential to quiver with the idea of life and begin to reach through the dark toward light and space, until it unfolds in growth to become a fresh expression of life itself. Darkness is what invites the depth of rest and the potency of stillness that allows vibrant creativity to emerge.
Depending on where you are, this year’s ending will fold into winter’s darkness or stoke summer’s light. May we all be enveloped and embraced by that blanket of darkness that quiets and stills in service of regeneration. And may we be courageous enough to be the light.