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Going into Darkness or The Light Beyond the Night
by Jinjer Stanton
Hello, Darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again... from Sounds of Silence, by Paul Simon.
For many years, those words were a touchstone for me. They meant that somewhere, out there, someone understood. Paul understood why I went out into the night even though, at the time, I couldn't understand. I didn't consciously understand that I felt safer under cloak of darkness than in the clear light of day. I only dimly understood that I took refuge in the night to escape the judgments of the day. At school I was judged by both teachers and fellow students and even at home where I knew I was loved I felt judged, but at night, alone with the wind and stars I was accepted and free with no eyes upon me.
Not only were there judgments, there were expectations. Teachers and family members expected high achievement. Those expectations were a weight on my shoulders. I tried very hard to want that too, but I see now that I wanted to just be and I didn't know how. In the darkness there was nothing else to do. The boundaries between myself and the ecstatic scents carried on breezes dissolved.
The stars expected me to be me. The wind and rain didn't notice all the myriad ways I fell short. At the time I expressed the feeling to myself as being wild and one with the elements. That was true.
Through high school and college, that was enough.
But when I left the safe halls of academe there were no more clear paths for what to do with myself. I'd educated myself with only the vaguest of notions what my life would one day look like. I didn't know what I would be. I'd always assumed that would become clear when I walked away from my graduation ceremony. I thought I would be raptured by my new life.
Instead, I found myself adrift with no clear direction. I got jobs. Some good, some horrible. I found living situations. Even after making a major move I had no clear path before me. I kept expecting that some day, like Bilbo Baggins, I'd find a wizard at my door telling me where to go and what to do.
As years followed months followed weeks and days, I grew more despondent and felt lonelier and more lost. And on top of that I felt the weight of other people's expectations and the voices I'd internalized grew louder and more critical.
At night I came home and yelled at my cats before crying into my pillow. That is when night changed from an uncritical friend into a wise counselor. I would scream into the darkness, railing against the day and when the storm of my frustration was spent I heard a quiet whisper in the night. I wrote in my journal and saw two shapes of letters conversing back and forth. One was large and jagged, the other smaller and smoother. It looked like my journal was being written by two different people. The smaller hand spoke common sense in response to the arguments of the other until all the arguments were answered. One time in particular, I was raw from loneliness and felt no one loved me. The darkness laughed gently in my ear and explained that the very molecules of air I breathed love me. The fibers of my pillowcase and the feathers inside loved me. In fact, there was nothing in my room or in the world at large that did not love me. And, mad as it sounds, I recognized the truth and went to sleep that night cradled in the arms of the universe. I began to understand that I can never be alone and I am always loved no matter how contrary appearances might be.
As the darkness revealed more secrets to me, I began to trust them more and more. Little by little I began to use that wisdom to live differently in the daylight. I began to trust myself and my own knowing and as a result daylight itself began to change.
Gradually I lost my fear of being judged. Gradually I began to judge others less and less. I occasionally still feel the fear and desire to judge, but the wisdom I learned in the night quickly steps forward to curb both tendencies.
It was through the darkness that I came to the light, but it is a different quality of light than that we get from the sun.
Sunlight and lamplight illumine the surfaces of things only. I promise you that the surface of me that is thus revealed yields an erroneous impression. It reveals an illusion. Yet many of us spend our lives sculpting and propping up the sagging veneer that the light shows.
As the visible spectrum of light recedes, the world is less defined by surfaces. The range of possibility in reality rises dramatically. In absolute darkness we can see forever. There are no limits. The truth of this is in the palms of our hands. Place your hands over your face so that your palms cover your eyes (without touching them) and squeeze fingers and hands together until all light is excluded. Then, with your eyes open, look into the distance. See if your gaze is blocked by anything.
And the truth of who you are, the light that is inside you by nature, can shine forth. In the clear light of day, you may not be able to see that. But, at night, the surfaces are peeled away and only the light of truth remains.
Even with the loving spirits pressing close in the dark, we experience a peaceful solitude free of judgement and expectation that leaves us free to be who we truly are. At the same time we are closer to the spirit that moves in all things because there are no distractions. We can hear the thoughts of God, have conversations with her (and him), receive revelation from spirit and move closer to enlightenment, closer to seeing with God's eyes.