The Darkness is Here

How I am learning to live in it.

The darkness is here. Even though we still have fifteen days until the Solstice, the darkness seems to be in every crevice lately. Lately, when I first open my eyes, I have been finding myself wondering what time it is. It feels like it could be any time, late evening - early morning. I can’t tell; all I know is that I am tired. My body feels heavier than usual, a feeling I don’t particularly love, but a feeling that also often reminds me to move slowly with myself. The whole uncertainty about the time, of night or morning, feels quite disorienting; and I have been finding myself quite shocked when I realize it is time to begin the day. 

With two drowsy eyes, I get up and switch on the lights that will guide me around my space. As the day presses on, the darkness continues to follow me; or I follow it—I am not quite sure which way it flows. Either way, the thoughts begin to trickle like running water through a creek of crowded pebbles in my mind. I begin to wonder if the sun will come out today, if there will be a break in the rain for a walk or if I should just go anyway. I wonder if I dressed my son in enough warmth, or if sending him cucumbers in his lunch was a good idea, I just know he will eat them.  I wonder if my office will provide enough light  life, to be able to see the faces of my clients through a screen that I must keep at a low brightness due to my deteriorating eyes. I wonder if I should drive to pick up my son from school or if my raincoat will hold. 

As with the darkness, my wonderings continue on. I wonder if I am low in Vitamin D, and if Vitamin D is really good to take or if we should be taking something else. I wonder if now is a good time to quit drinking the coffee I know I must part with or the worst. I wonder if I can really get through months more of this and I wonder how. I wonder how much heavier the world might become.  

As I made my way to sit down with a cup of hot water and honey, I realized just how hard it can be to reacquaint yourself with the darkness. To know what to do in it, to know how to get comfortable in it, how to be with it, how to exist with it, and even how to welcome it in. The darkness is not easy. It does not feel like a natural flow (although I know very well it is). It feels like something forced, something that you just can’t look away from. This darkness feels like truth staring into your eyes. Your eyes, your eyes, the eyes that just can’t look away. 

My mug is hot in my hands and as I realize, I wrap my fingers around the top of the cup. And although I can’t fully grasp onto its wholeness yet, in some ways it feels good. I trace the steam making its way up past my face. A scene, an illustration of warmth, of cozy, of content, of rest, of winter. 

Though that image sounds nice, that is not entirely my experience. As the wonderings precede to rattle my thoughts, there is a restless unsettled urge humming along. I am not fully comfortable here, in the dark. In truth, I'm a little uneasy grappling with how to handle the darkness.

The afternoon rolls in without much knowing. It is a bit after lunch, and the darkness has danced around my house. The gray glow from the sun, which was found in my bedroom this morning, has now made its way to the front of my house. My office, the place where I spend most of my working day, resides in the middle of the house. A place that gets even less light glow. A place where I have been feeling resistant towards.  

I have never been one to shy away from pain. To shy away from my own pain, of another’s, of the world’s. I might not always be able to access my own darkness, but I don’t feel so afraid of it; not anymore at least—I just don’t always know how to get in.  

For the last hour, I have been trying my hardest to make my way to my office and show up to my writing, to my newsletter. But the truth is, I feel really overwhelmed and a bit speechless. It feels like I don’t have much to say right now, but instead so much to feel. My reserve, it seems, is going to try to take note of each moment passing. And although I am experiencing more than I ever have, I just don’t feel like I have the names for it all yet. I am still living it and finding it a bit hard to see out.  

It’s now almost 4:00pm, the gray glow will soon turn to darkness. Yet, I somehow, shockingly managed to get myself onto the page by intentionally choosing to enter it. By accepting what is real, and what the darkness actually looks and feels like. As my feet made their way over the threshold, I realized how lost I am feeling. How tired, heavy, overwhelmed, shocked, scared, and so so sad. I stared at my computer screen for a bit, hoping that my eyes would release the flow of words that I did know needed to make their way out. With little luck, and a scrambling sensation, I think to myself, “Start with the basics”. As I turn off my screen and open to a random page in an old notebook (something I sometimes do to inspire me), I find this:

Rerun to the pen. The teacher. The holder. The truth teller. Let the page carry the weight and the emotions that are too heavy to be alone with. Let the page teach you, free you up, create more space so you can breathe deeper. Let the lines guide you, as you slow down and become more intimate, more aware with each passing moment. Aware of the complexities of being human, of loving, of grieving, of honoring, of creating, of crying, of hiding. Let the page show you, hold you, comfort you. Let the page remind you, you are not alone. 

The light shined in the tears that began to roll down my face. A prayer answered, in the way I know prayer to be. The light illuminated me to where I needed to go. It sparked in me, another way through the darkness. 

I wrote three sentences with my pen. The three sentences that began this essay. 

The darkness is here.

Before continuing on. I decided to try and lean in more. I lit a candle, even though it was 2:00pm in the afternoon. I turned off my overhead light that was causing me to feel watched, and put on my desk lamp. I warmed up another cup of tea and heated my rice bag to cover my shoulders for a minute. 

And then I sat with the darkness. 

I lingered in it. 

I felt it. 

I welcomed it. 

All of it. 

I know I cannot run from it. I can’t follow the glow from room to room that travels throughout my house. I can’t pretend it is not here. I can’t look away. 

I must surrender. 

And know that through is where I must go. 

As my eyes moved away from the screen, I glanced up to what I was needing to see in that moment—the image shown below, my desk in its entirety. I saw my journal with the message my past self wrote to me. I saw a picture of my son and I as a new mother. I saw the framed postcard of the goddess Gaia, the ancestral mother, along with a dried flower from last spring. I saw a cup that my dear friend, and writing coach,

Megan Febuary

gave to me, as a gift for being a part of her sacred group with words on it that I really needed to hear. I saw a picture of a sunshower that my son created, along with an illustration of the lifecycle of a dandelion by Caitlin Metz. I saw my hamsa coaster that I bought with an elder who no longer lives but who I dreamt about a few nights ago, a woman who fought hard for justice. My hamsa coaster, which means a lot of things to me these days: like knowing and honoring my identity and my values as a Jewish woman, what that means right now, and how I am fighting for the liberation of those who have been oppressed in my name—a name I am relearning and relearning and relearning.

I glanced up and saw everything I needed to see and know.

I glanced up and saw through the darkness.