Shadow and Light Are Lovers

May a candle be lit by me...

Photo by Roger Ce on Unsplash

There is nothing outside of all creation
Nothing outside
of Creation

Yet we know you are afraid
and is this not
the whole question
the whole answer to your question
please tell us about our fear
and our rage?

When the carpenter
builds his house
the dust and the splinters of wood
must fall away
When the sculptor
carves into the stone
shards and shattered pieces
must fall away
When the tailor cuts her cloth
When the gardener trims the leaves
When we comb our hair
wash our skin
there is a shedding
a dying off
as even the newborn child
must leave the placenta behind
in the separation
from what once was
so that Creation
through form
may grow anew

We die
Everything dies
so that everything
may be born
This even the squirrel
in the forest knows
when she lies down under
the root of a pine
to await the cessation
of her pulse
She knows and lives it
when it is
her time

This even
the trees know
when they give their leaves
to the soil
This even
the sun knows
as he passes into darkness
stolen from our view
or so it seems
and yet always
to return
always to return
until another star
and another
shine their light
upon our Earth
into the realm
of our souls

Why then
does mankind alone
refuse to die?
Why do we fight and fear
when loss comes
when the cleansing of the poisons
must by Nature’s law begin?

We find our answer
in the separation from the Great Mother
and the mistrust of the Great Father
the denial of our own entwinement
with the forces of our natural earthly
and etheric worlds

There was a day long ago
when a wick was dipped in tallow
and set on fire
and a candle was born
Into the dark of the night
in the midst of those hours
when the sun hid from sight
the creatures howled
and shadow spirits roamed
darkness seeking to dine
someone lit a candle
and light poured forth
filling the space
of the darkness
which had once been

And then someone lit a candle
again

Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash

Because to be alive is to be in motion
in movement
and a graceful Earth
must dance
around her Sun
wherever we stand upon her soil
upon her back
no matter which Sky
we live beneath
after the day
there must come the night
we must learn to play
with dark and light
we are asked to surrender
every day
we are asked
to join in their game

Every day
we see
and then we are made blind
Every day we wake
and then we sleep again
Every day
beings are born
and beings die
as every day
we are asked
to join in the game
once more

In these days
as in so many days
throughout human history
the collapsing
and the rising of our world
tears us apart
and fills us with delight
and as we breathe
as we laugh and weep
we expand into ourselves
the night and the day of ourselves
and this is why
we said yes to the magic
of incarnation in human form

Within the arrival
and the leaving
of one human life
that life joins hands
with many other lives
countless other lives
and together they become a force
a synchronized breathing
as they shape a collective lifetime
of the community
the nations
the species
Together they walk
for together they were born
and live
and prepare to die

Photo by Drew Farwell on Unsplash

Just as a flutter of butterflies
fills the sky with their beauty
and then are gone
Just as the salmon drive themselves
up the river and then
are done
we humans take our turn
just as the planet dances
around the sun
we rise up
and then that which we have lifted up
must be allowed to fall
for the life of the flesh
is no longer enough
the separation from the soil
beneath our feet
can no longer go on
and so like the snake
emerging wet
from an old dry skin
we must let go
we must let go
to be born again

So can we begin to remember
that as children
of Creation
nothing is ours
to control or own
and yet everything
is ours to choose?
And that the cycles of
our ways of being
hold the lesson of trust
if we can but dare to learn it
to say
yes
here I stand
in the dark of the darkest night
and yet
I lift my hand with the will
of my human vessel
and then
I light a candle
I light a candle
and suddenly
my world is filled
with light again

It is when we are really ready
to say yes
I see that I create
not just light but the absence of it
I see
I have gathered substances
of ignorance and pain
forged them into form
and invited them
into my bed

I see that by letting myself see
what I see
what I fully am
by finally preparing
to tell myself the truth
with every gasp of new awareness
I reconnect to dimensions
which go on and on and on
never ending because infinite nature
is all there is
and every other narrow belief
slips and slides
like water spiders scuttling
upon the surface of the lake
not knowing
the vast depths right beneath them
not realizing the gift of the tension
that keeps them afloat
even when the storm comes
even as the waves roll
beneath our feet

Photo by Elvira Alexandra on Unsplash

And so I choose
to enter this dark night
of the collective Soul
to taste the dark flavours
to see what has yet been unseen
in dark days past
and then
always to light a candle
for in that simple act
of inviting a blessed fire
I say yes to the shadow
of my own Divinity
I cast the light
upon it all
until there is nothing left to hate in me
and nothing left to fear in you
for I have seen it all
and for all eternity
it lives completely
within the union of us
Our embrace
our sacred love-making
finally free from shame

Just watch
how letting go of the fight
against death
brings life
alive again
Just watch
how by greeting the four-leggeds
the beings of earth and sky
as messengers of Creation
just like you and I
watch
how the world becomes no longer
a dangerous place
when we are willing to acknowledge
that we ourselves
have been the danger
the most terrible threat
to our own human lives
and all of it
driven by the fear
of the very thing we have created

And of course we have
because we are the reflection
of all existence
the brutal and the exquisite
the dark we sometimes find
even within the light
we are all of it
all of it
so now we can give ourselves permission
to send the troops home
to stop hurting ourselves
because we have forgotten ourselves
and the place from which
we were born

We can light a candle
and another
and another
No matter how dark the shadow
we can light a candle
and remember
the breath will come
which brings with it
the end of the night
L ove will be remembered

It always is

And if these words
cannot quite yet reach our hearts
no matter
speak them aloud anyway
and they in their own form
will become alive

Even if
our legs do not wish to hold us
Even when
the madness destabilizes us
and we feel seasick in a world
we do not recognize
the simple act of setting the candle alight
my candle
your candle
our own candles
will remind us
and the world we shape next
will take on a beauty
so new to our eyes
and yet eternal

But first
we had to light the candle
we had to surrender
and witness
that we are only angry
because we have been afraid
and we are only afraid
because we have allowed ourselves
to become blind
in the dimness
of the night

And this is so
in our own hearts
and in the faces and the voices
of all the ones we see
hurting and being hurt
blaming and being blamed
They are only angry
because they are afraid
And their fear
is the greatest teacher
of their eternal lives

They say
so long as there is breath
there is life
and because the All
the Divine
the Universe breathes
and we are the Sun and the Moon
and the stars and beyond
We are the angels and the demons
and the aliens and the viruses
we are poisons and the purity
the rainforests and the fires
the oppressors and the victimized
the pious and the damned
right and the wrong
the left and the right

We are both the face we wear
and the face we see in the mirror
in the eyes of a lover
an enemy
a parent, child or friend

We are fractals of the Infinite
and so we breathe forever
together

Let the living and the dying
be
and every day
say the words
May a candle be lit
by me

much love, Adi