Sunday, December 22, 2013

Going through the dark to get to the light


 

“There must needs be opposition in all things…” was a scripture from the Book of Mormon quoted to me as a child.  As I got older a spiritual leader of mine Judith Lamb-Lion a master of Surat Shabd Yoga, described it as the earthly plane of existence having polarity that the spiritual planes did not.  She drew a pyramid illustrating that as “word became flesh” or as spirit becomes flesh, we have this opposition.  We need darkness as we need light.  We need darkness in order to find light.

This weekend is the solstice in which the sun is at its lowest point in the south before it starts to move northward and we begin to have longer days.  It is the darkest day for many of us.  Pagans and others celebrate the winter solstice  as it signified a turn in the seasons to hope, a new cycle of life, and light.

Every night we need to return to the dark to cleanse our brain of dangerous toxins that can even lead to Alzheimer’s.  It is important to make our bedrooms as dark as possible for healthy pineal glands and melatonin production for our energy and sleep cycles so this healthy brain cleansing and other important brain activity can happen.

Carl Jung says, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”  I’ve found that on my personal spiritual path it was important for me to get in to the dark recesses of my psyche to bring things to the light.  The path hasn’t always been an easy one and I’m still on it and find dark times.  However, the understanding and self-awareness that past traumas have done to a conditioned earthly “self” have taught me so much about who I’m not and who I am beyond the conditioned self.  The “I” that is taking me on this journey is what others might refer to as the “higher self.”  I don’t refer to it as “God,” because to me “God” is that which is transcends us and includes our combined higher selves in an infinite bubbling life of pure energy consciousness and light.

So on this particular solstice, it is my silent prayer that we quiet ourselves and our minds.  We stop and as said in church today by our wonderful Reverend Diane Dowgiert, the sun pauses as it heads back north, and we too might consider taking a pause to feel our “callings” for what is next in our lives.  It is in silence and rest that we can bring ourselves in to presence of experience.  It is in the presence of experience that we can calm our brains and find transcendence in who we really are and begin the much needed healing of humanity.

At Christmastime we sing songs of Joy to the World and Peace On Earth.  Since I’ve been watching a bunch of Star Trek lately, I’d like to add, “Make it so.”

Blessed be and Amen.

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