Sitting in the Dark
“What a time to be alive!”
This refrain has become a common one for me lately. It is often met with some form of a sideways glance. I get it. Things are chaotic. Systems are crumbling. People are confused, scared, angry, divided, overwhelmed, under-resourced. Genocides continue in Gaza and Sudan.
How, they wonder, could I say something so seemingly flippant?
As someone who cares deeply about. . . well, most things, I assure folks in these conversations that my words are anything but flippant - or naive.
The truth is, there are days when the weight of the world feels like it will squash me like a grape. There is just SO MUCH HAPPENING; the energy is so intense. I have said many times that we are on the verge of an awakening unparalleled in our collective history, and that the intensity of this moment is both the death rattle of an old way of being and the birth pangs of a new one coming to form. But, still. . . oof. Some days are tough.
I’ve found that in those moments when I become overwhelmed, the best idea is to be still and wait, to go to a meditative space and resist the temptation to grasp at ideas like straws. When I am still, I remember that this journey is less about figuring it all out and more about discovering all that is here to be seen and experienced. Meditation reminds me of my connection to something beyond time and space and gently lets my body know that I can rest in the abundance of All that IS. Even if the outer world doesn’t shift, my perspective does; and, that shift can make all the difference in the world.
Stillness enables me to tap into the source that cannot be shaken by external force, showing me of the truth of who I am and the power and grace that come with being human.
It can feel incredibly counterintuitive to be still in the face of such madness in the world; but only when we find that stillness can our next moves be taken from a place of steadiness rather than anxiety. When I find that stillness, I can see this moment in a new light. The systems that are crumbling need to crumble so that something new can take form. And it is taking form. Steadily and consistently, people are coming together and finding the strength they have in community, and the goodness that is called forth when we lean into honest, vulnerable spaces together and the care for one another from that space.
The benefits I experience through meditation on an individual level expand exponentially when experienced among a group. When we tap into the thing beyond time and space together, we feel into the divine abundance that is always here. A new way of being emerges as we draw from the endless wellspring that binds us. The impossible begins to seem less so. Hope emerges and is given legs. And wings.
On this Winter Solstice, Sunday December 21st, we are inviting the community to join us in a space of stillness in the dark. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice marks the start of winter; it is the longest night and shortest day of the year. It is a time of both rest and renewal, when we allow ourselves to be held in the womb of darkness as the light emerges.
To mark this pivotal moment in the year, we are creating a camera obscura for the community. I first learned about camera obscuras when I was in my first semester of photography, learning about the principles of light and how cameras work. Literally meaning “dark chamber,” a camera obscura is a natural phenomenon where a single hole pierced in a space of otherwise total darkness projects an image of the scene outside that space onto the surface opposite the hole. The result is an upside down, reversed projection of the view outside on the walls of the space inside.
As we sit in the darkness, we will celebrate the gifts offered by the darkness. Eventually, what’s outside will be projected inside and all around us.
Every time I do this, I am struck in that moment of recognition that the amount of light in the room never changed; only my perception of it has changed.
May it be so.
