Discerning light in the dark and dark in the light. This is the season where we can especially appreciate this way of living beyond opposites of light and dark, good and bad. We might think of them as an either/or proposition, but when we are free to the true balance of light and dark, it’s actually proportionate, a subtle slide, an infusion, one into the other. The coming of dawn in this winter moment of many-layered cloudiness is slow and barely discernible for a while. But there is a moment that comes when we can readily proclaim, “It’s dawn!” The frog in the rill beside the path mutters gently in the dim light of early morning. The progression is subtle, but sure.
This season of light in the darkness celebrates the whole subtle progression into birth…into the precious holiness of life. The sacred moment, the silent, the miraculous. Tonight, please light a candle, if you haven’t already, to express and affirm the commitment to the light of your life. What unseen forces bring you here to steady practice and bright awareness? Even if the mind does not seem bright all the time, that’s okay. Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before and the foot behind in walking. The vow to awaken carries us……faith in the Way carries us. Participating in the cacophonies of life, the lights of connection and wholeheartedness surely leads us to awakening into Buddha mind. Buddha mind is innate, outside of and beyond words, we need only to glimpse and meet our moment face to face. Blessed solstice.