Darkness

Looking for solstice ideas on Pinterest, I came across this reference to a story about a raven who tricked a guy who was hiding all the light in the world. (I looked it up, it’s a native Canadian legend myth story).

According to the lore from north western indigenous people, the raven executed a complicated plan to capture the light that an old man had hidden away. The world was pitch dark up until this.

As we head for the longest night of the year, while I am still getting used to living in the NE, I am more aware than ever that it’s only 4pm and already getting dark. Add in the gray sky of rain or snow and its no wonder that stories about light and darkness are told.

Darkness affects so many things.

As does light.

Light can’t exist without dark, but at these times when the balance is tipping to darkness, one needs to hold onto the hope that it won’t always feel so extreme. The cold and dark won’t last forever. There are warming activities and ways to comfort ourselves.

Just like storms don’t rage forever, winter ends. Darkness is interrupted by dawn. This story was one of patience and endurance and magic. The guy who hid the light did so out of fear, which I thought was interesting. There was something he didn’t know and was afraid to find out. Raven played a long game. It took some clever ‘out of the box’ thinking to trick the old man to open a series of boxes. The box must be symbolic. I didn’t look it up yet.

I braved the rain and the wind and the dark and the possible wrath of not being home for dinner, to go to yoga at 5pm. (pitch black sky) I learned there that in the yoga tradition the opposite of fear is wisdom. We did some back hip stretches to release fear because sticky fear energy can settle in the hips.

I don’t know how true that is, but it was a lovely class with crystal bowls and metal ones placed on the body so our cells could absorb the vibrations. I filled my cup with ginger tea afterward and drove back through the dark and storm, feeling quite wonderful.

Some things we don’t know until we know. I’ve had many fearful worry filled life experiences over the years. Becoming wise to new information has given me courage at times to power through. It may have been just what I needed to chase away darkness and or fear. We sometimes say we’re in the dark about something, meaning we don’t know about it. Denial is another form of the fear of knowing something. I love this concept of light and wisdom being the opposite of darkness and fear.

Today was a tough one. I had had a lonnngggg lousy day. I was wanting to change my energy and raise my vibration a little. I’m glad now that I was feeling out of sorts enough to be motivated to go. If I was feeling fine, I would have stayed in. Weird how things work out.

The right amount of dark made me venture out to find a little light. Good to be tricked. I appreciated this clever twist.