Transforming in the Dark
Many people have a hard time with the dark time of the year. There’s so much less energy around to carry on our affairs, or to keep us afloat emotionally. What the dark does provide, however, is an opportunity for deep transformation.
If we know how to go into it, if we know how to work with it, if we know how to let it work on us.
In the winter, because of the lack of light and warmth, there is a general hibernation that wants to go on. Like plants, our energy is in the roots and there’s little going on in the leaves, flowers and shoots. This really is a returning to the dark underground. This is hard for the ego but good for the soul, because just like a good long sleep, deep replenishing is going on during this time.
If you can go with this process and not fight it with constant attempts to “stay up”, then there will be a natural emerging that occurs in the Spring when the light and energy of the sun return. Then, just like the trees that start budding, and the flowers that start sending up their first color, you will bloom as a new being. Literally new!
As humans, our bodies are made of the stuff of the earth, and measuring our lives in solar years, we are deeply affected by the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planets, as well. The coming and going of the sun impacts our bodies and our psyches significantly. But as we are also eternal beings of consciousness, who have the Buddha Nature or the Christ energy at our core, there is a part of us that is not impacted by these movements of heavenly bodies.
The Light of consciousness shines through us, as it shines through the sun and the giant orbs floating in space. In us, we might say that this is the awareness that is able to give witness to the changes that occur within the body we inhabit. It is from that place of knowing that we may choose to care for the body in different ways during the winter-to get it that extra sleep and simplify the life so that the requirements of self and family can take place during the light hours and the dark hours can be used for sleep and meditation, dreaming and cuddling around the fire.
