what we see when we look into the dark

feeling around frantically for the light and then remembering the dark was on purpose

captiCredit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI), Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)on...

My eight year old, almost to be nine in seven days, was walking with me on a little wooded trail behind our campground yesterday. She stopped in front of a tree and put both her hands out, like she was waiting for the tree to run into her arms or something. I almost giggled but I’m getting better at not laughing at inappropriate delicate childhood moments. I stopped and quietly watched her. I thought maybe she would tell me something about the tree, she likes to feel into things, but after a minute or two she opened her eyes and smiled at me and said, it’s amazing what you can see, when you close your eyes, when you stop looking so hard at everything.

Basically, she had just put herself in the dark to see better. 

I kind of looked around to see if the universe was laughing at me behind the bushes. These words from my kiddo were wise and lovely. The kind of wise, graceful and lovely thing that only children can bestow upon you in moments which suddenly reveal you’ve been a maniac and are in need of a sit down and some deep breathing. 

Confession time. I have been looking real, REAL, hard at everything the past few weeks. I think they call this looking for answers. I have felt, suddenly, that I know nothing about why I am here in Minnesota, what we are looking for as far as a home goes, or if any of this will work out. And here’s the thing; this kind of wide eyed I know nothing does not sit well with my nervous system. I become vicious with myself. I must have put the answer here somewhere, I think. And I begin to tear the place apart the way you do when you can’t find your driver’s license and you’re late for the airport. There are tears. There are clothes everywhere. And the cat is hiding from you. This kind of furious searching of course does not allow you to see anything but instead leaves you hating yourself, sitting on the bed with a headache and the realization that your left eye has begun twitching in protest.

Instead of remembering that I did all this on purpose, blew up my life, I have instead been acting quite surprised, flummoxed, and afraid. Running my hands along the walls of my days, searching for the drawer handles, frantically feeling around inside drawers for the flashlight, dropping f-bombs while I stub my toe on everything, hyperventilating, and cursing the fact that I have absolutely no idea where I keep the flashlight anymore...metaphorically speaking and quite literally.

As a kid growing up in a fundamentally religious house. The dark was something very much to be afraid of. It was serious business. It was where the demons lay waiting to crawl up into your soul at night. I used to try and hide myself deep between my waterbed mattress and the bed frame. I would pull the watery blobby mattress back from the corner of the wooden frame and scrunch my little body down between the two. It would then flop back and kind of press me into the corner. Which I thought would actually be good and sturdy in case of an attack. I would then cover myself with the blanket so that just my nose stuck out. Taking slow quiet breaths to endure the heat of the mattress and of course so as not to draw attention to myself. The demons could hear me if I took loud breaths ya know. I would whisper prayers and clench my eyes shut, sure that if I looked over into that corner I would see something staring back at me. I did not want to look into the dark. I wanted the lights on at all times.

Lights and answers at all times please. That is the way I have always preferred to be.

And so when a friend sent a conversation between Joan Sutherland Roshi a teacher in the Zen koan tradition and the Sit-Heads club (I just ordered her book last week by the way Through the Forests of Every Color if anyone has read it and wants to discuss! I should have it in a week), and she mentioned a term called endarkenment. I felt myself freeze. I quickly searched Joan Sutherland, endarkenment and found this lovely lovely video she shared about the radiance of endarkenment.

In it she speaks about the radiance of the dark. 

I would lie if I said I didn’t cry, sob actually, while watching the video. If you area also in place of deep not knowing, this is fair warning, you may also collapse into tears but it will feel better in the end. I promise.

After I cleaned myself up, splashed some water on my face I sat and noticed how I’d been feeling the past few weeks. There was an acute inability to slow down (perhaps also due to the self sabotaging coffee I have been drinking every morning. I can’t metabolize caffeine. I am in denial about this). Everything was a push or a pull, nothing was a let’s sit quietly for a moment. I had become angry at the questions. I only wanted certainty. I judged myself for the lack of it. And I was in a panic about it all. All of the things that I thought I was certain about, didn’t feel true in my body anymore; my brain was searing, smoking, working overtime to try and come up with a true thing that felt right…immediately.

So I asked my partner to take the kids. I realized I hadn’t been truly alone with nothing to take care of in weeks. I moved my body in very weird ways to music I loved, which made the dog nervous, which made me laugh. I did some push ups and sat myself down and closed my eyes. I closed my eyes and listened.

I could only do it for five minutes but it was a start.

Because man, it’s so hard to remember that the dark is a place of resting, of dreaming, of allowing, of being. That when the questions are roaring I don’t have to do anything really….except perhaps pull the blanket off my head, squeeze out from the nook I’ve been hiding in, take a deep breath, and stare into the dark.

Maybe as Joan would say the universe will come fetch me…maybe it only finds us in the dark places…maybe that’s where there is room for the good, mysterious, surprising stuff to come find us...in a dreaming place. Not a thinking ,wide awake, sun shining certain place.

My left eye is still twitching, I am still a bit frantic, but I am going to remember to close my eyes, reach my hands out, and not look so hard…