Dark and Light
There is a Darkness that is safe and life giving. This Darkness allows for the precious, vulnerable, secret things to grow protected, outside of the reach of judgment, naysayers and harsh conditions. It is the beginning of the birthing. Think cocoon, womb, and rich soil.
There is a Light that is warm and gently clarifying. Light that encourages everything it shines upon to reach toward the glorious. Its essence is softness, though it may sear through facades under a microscope. This Light reveals Life and growth and expansion as possibility. These are the dichotomies I’m in love with, exploring, and captured by as I move into deeper freedom and being.
But I have known a darkness that ensnares and isolates. Sticky, slimy, and feels impossible to get free of, wash away, and forget. A darkness that mocks me and mocks the beauty of life, death, life cycles by dangling a doorway of death in front of me with definitions of annihilation as my only option for relief. A darkness that isolates so thoroughly that I cannot see a speck of hope or hand to reach for.
I lived under a light that is harsh, glaring, exposing and blinding. A light that makes me want to run away from the shame of judgment and misunderstanding and misperceptions of my stories viewed in bits and pieces but not through the beauty of the Whole. There is a light that is called truth that harshly exposes my human frailty and condemns me to the kind of death that the sticky darkness offers. And in that harsh, “true” light, the ensnaring darkness seems my only place to hide. And annihilation my only rescue.
But there is another way. There is always another way. In the last few years of my journey out of religion and systems and dualism, back to the beauty of connection that my spirit has always “known,” I am coming to Life from the inside out.
Connection. Unconditional Love offered to me in the deep spaces, behind the walls in the pit of my sticky darkness where I hide from the harsh light of man made systems and thought. It began for me with the invitation to open to the possibility that the energy of Unconditional Love might be real and not just a fairy tale concept thrown around by religion. I could not dare to allow a human to be the first one into that sticky pit of despair. I had only known humans who threw around the concepts of love to be carrying the harsh light of their religious judgment, offering their inclusion when my behavior deemed me worthy.
In my isolation and desperation, I dared to invite Unconditional Love in as I sat in stillness nearly drowning in the sticky darkness. And everything began to change. Gradually, I felt into my connection to Spirit of Life and Love right in the middle of my slime and despair. I began to experience my Oneness with Creator in the center of my being. I could feel my heart coming alive under the intimate, honoring unveiling in the presence of the Source of Light. And I was given permission to be in this Darkness of the womb of my becoming.
Slowly, as the Light and Dark worked its magic in my broken and drowning soul, I found my heartbeat within my human body. I allowed my clay form to sink into the rhythms of the Earth. I began honoring all of the sensations of my sentient being as beautiful. I found them to be doorways into the depths of the mysteries of human form housing Divine Spirit. Oneness. It is magical after a lifetime of dualism. It is breathing after a lifetime of gasping for air. It is flowing after a lifetime of damming the river.
And now, I am learning to open to this kind of intimacy and connection within safe human relationships. I am challenged at every turn. Humans did not prove safe for me in my past. I’ll be in conversation and stories of old rattle their dancing bones at the window of my soul reminding me that running and hiding might be a safer option. But I want to know if Unconditional Love can be more than a Divine experience. And so I face the dancing bones and tune into my beating heart. The bones become still in the presence of my warm, breathing body staying present and moving to the music of the moment. I gently refuse the dancing bones to keep swaying to the haunting chords of my past.
And I am coming to believe that the connection and experience of intimacy between humans may be the deeper healing magic the planet is moving toward, longing for, needing. I believe it is why we are here in human form right now. Though I experienced a deep measure of healing in the sacred space of my interior world where Spirit and Flesh are inextricably woven together, I have entered a new season of learning Unconditional Love within the experience of my humanity. Dare I say this place is an even deeper healing than a human can experience in the solitude of our interior world with Divine Spirit alone? Yes. I will dare to say it. And once again, I’m in another glorious paradox of Life.
Light and Dark.
Spirit and Flesh.
Inseparable.
—– emie locke ——
8/28/18