Learning To Dancing With and In The "Darkness"

Editor's Note: Namastewholistic celebrates its 200th POST today!

I didn't realize until recently: I'm learning to dance with "the darkness" in my life.

I understood I was doing this when I attended a recent AMORC networking event and heard the speaker talk about "learning to walk with the darkness." I wanted to holler back, "Not only learn to walk but learn... to dance... with the darkness."

What I know the speaker was referring to and what I meant, too, was learning to dance with the "unknown, trusting in the Spirit within to guide and direct your life."


I don't know when I gained such confidence about being in the "dark," but it's happened.


I guess this gift was "thrusted" upon me in one of the too frequent "challenges" I've encountered along the way on this spiritual path. I did not always realize "the dark" as a gift. So I fought and tried to claw my way through the dirt, grim and unattractive "settings" that we often associate with "darkness."

Then, one day I just stopped fighting. I could not claw my way through anymore. I didn't have the strength, and strangely, too, the desire to fight anymore. I guess, I wanted to walk that final mile into the darkness just to see what lay within.


The day after that day and night of allowing the darkness to swallow me whole, I woke up to truth:


"In the darkness, there is the biggest, brightest light obscured so much by living in artificial light that it cannot be seen, until our surroundings fade to almost black." Che'


It also was on that day I began to truly learn to live "day by day, moment by moment."

I understand more fully now, there is no other way to live. The "future" is just an illusion, as is our past.

Yes, we can look forward by dreaming ahead and holding visions of a future filled with our dreams. But it is not until we embrace the currency of the moment...whether filled with darkness or light...that we can create a pathway for our dreams to follow and be fulfilled.

In order to get to the light, there must be darkness. There simply must be some of that darkness, as without this, we cannot make the distinction.


Alas...without this distinction, we cannot truly know when we are in the light.

We heard the lamentations of Job, who may not fully have appreciated his prior life until he was fully tested to his limits in the darkest period of his Soul.

Many of us are like this, too, never knowing that we fully are in the "light," until darkness comes and we recall our "yesterdays" with fondness and nostalgia.

If we walk from light to light, there is no differentiation.



But to walk from darkness into the light...even the slightest improvement of light...seems like a form of "heaven." In the corporate world, even *Chrysler learned this lesson. I recently tore out a print ad for Chrysler 200 in one of my magazines to remember these words:

"When you've been through hell, you tend to appreciate Heaven." Beautiful as is the Chrsyler 200, I beg to differ with the ad's concept of "hell," often seen as "darkness."

The darkness is not hell; it is "illumination." It leads you to the controls in your life.


In the darkness, all the gifts of the Soul are illuminated brightly for us to see and to know what we have. We also are able to clearly see people, places and "things" for the "true" role they play in or lives.

We are able to recall the many gifts that we've taken so much for granted. These are gifts of intelligence, resilience, giving, loving, being that we often overlook in our daily walk.


Until we walk in the darkness, we cannot know or see that so much ...indeed...all of who we are is a gift.


The unique person, individual...wife...mother...child...lover...friend...worker...that we are in our daily walk in life is what we're called to be and to share in this world.


This is our purpose.

Yet, we overlook our uniqueness, thinking it is just an ordinary flow of our humanity.

No. NO. NO! It is not.


The characters...traits...beingness...that you and I are...are given to us solely for the purpose of serving the world. For us to stampede and trample over these "gifts" of our Spirit/Soul is to negate the very essence of who we are called to be.

Yet, we trample over ourselves...running headlong into a "future" we believe is brighter, because it promises us that we will be a better, wholer, richer, person than we are today.

No. NO. NO!

With all our mistakes...with all of our missteps...we are growing into the "light" of who we are. From those halting moments when we learn to embrace our inner selves to the time when we fully allow the Soul/Spirit to shine through us, we are on purpose!


It is only through the seeming mistakes and missteps that we learn to uncover the truth that lies within us.

Don't discard those as worthless and useless. They are the gifts of life.

Don't also walk headlong into a future that belongs to someone else.

Yes. YES. YES!




You may have heroes, but no idols, when you walk on the Earth.

You may have people you try imitate, but not emulate, when you walk on the Earth.
[Indeed both Lady Gaga and Bruce Springspeen, pictured above, sang of "Dancing in the Dark" of a different type.]
The only true "idol"... the only Soul...you may "emulate"...is that which resides within your own flesh.

That is the Spirit within you.

It exists only and solely through you for you to fulfill your purpose as you go about your Earthly walk.

We so long to discard aspects of ourselves when things go wrong.

But it is by becoming still and embracing the darkness that we can see the light of who we are shining through.



When we stop the struggle...indeed when we learn to dance...with the darkness, we begin to embrace ourselves and our uniqueness.

We are able to see clearly...in the dark...why there can never be two lights of the same hue, as they wash out the impact and effects of each other.

So, it is with darkness and light.

Except, we've got to begin to see things in a different way:

"In the darkness, there is light. In the light, there is darkness."

Knowing these truths, and learning especially to dance with the darkness...in the darkness...we will be illumined.

Namaste',

Che'
*NOTE: In these references, I'm alluding to Chrysler's 2009 bailout by the U.S. Government, even if the ad are not!