Monday 4 November 2013

Embracing the darkness

Now that Samhain is behind us, we're officially into the dark half of the year.

In my small section of the world it's gotten really chilly in the past week. It's time for us to get out the hats, scarves, and gloves, and put away the lighter jackets in favour of the warmer ones. We've been having frosty mornings that turn into frosty afternoons, where warm drinks and hearty meals help to take the chill out. Although the time just "fell" back an hour, the fleeting light I get to experience at the end of my work day will continue to become more and more dark as the weeks go on, and instead of greeting the sun at the bus stop near my house every morning, I won't get to say hi to it until I get to work.

The dark half of the year is a time for introspection. When we can take a step back and do some inner work. While I think this is important for everyone to grow and evolve, I also think that stepping out into the darkness is equally important. Challenge yourself in some way during this time, and I think you'll find it can be quite rewarding.

The "group" that I work with recently discovered an unsettling presence at our regular outdoor ritual spot. Someone else has been using the same space as us, and while we are normally more than happy to share (as the more people that use the space the more energy that goes into it), whoever it was did not have kind intentions. This left us feeling very unsettled, anxious, and jittery, almost with a sour taste in our mouth.  While I understand not every ritual or working is going to be all love and light, this was beyond that. It was putrid, and it makes me wonder what the hell someone was doing that would leave something so disgusting behind. Not wanting to give our spot over to whoever was doing that, we fought fire with fire, in a manner of speaking, so that the space feels much lighter now. Hopefully it will be back to a more usable condition soon, but I can't help myself questioning what happened there. Maybe it's best not to question these things...but whatever it was, was ugly.

Embracing your dark side doesn't mean conjuring stuff you don't understand, or hexing someone that called you fat at work, but it doesn't mean being all love-y either. Pure white light is a reflection of all the colours where as darkness absorbs them all - to be able to understand the light you must also understand the dark. You can do something terrible with the best of intentions, but you can also do something amazing even though your intent might be ill seeded. Remember the balance of things and be safe as you delve into the unknown. There will always be a light to guide you, all you have to do is remember to light it.