Messages about light and darkness keep appearing in my inbox these days. This is the time of year when holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa celebrate light and often incorporate the light from candles.
And the winter solstice marks the longest night of the year, which means that it is as dark as it’s going to get, and more light is coming. Many of these messages imply that light is something we want more of and darkness is not.
The more life experiences I have, the more I’ve felt the presence of both the light and the darkness – it’s all about the both/and. Take for example when my husband, John, had major tonsil cancer surgery in September and spent one week in the hospital. Light and darkness were both abundant as I spent that week with him sleeping on a chair that converted into a narrow flat surface.
The night before John’s almost 10-hour surgery, I didn’t sleep very well. While I sat with our daughter, her boyfriend, and our son during the surgery, I remember saying, “I wonder when I’m going to have a good night sleep again.”
Much to my surprise, except for the first night, I slept very well in the hospital. In fact, one of the nurses said, “It’s usually the family members watching the patient sleep. But in your case, it’s your husband watching you sleep.”
Some of this I attribute to the constant buzzing noise in the background from the humidifier. It was white noise and even overshadowed some of the many nursing checks during the night. But most of it I attribute to something beyond words. There was a spiritual power that carried me through.
Each night as I laid down on the chair’s flat surface, I closed my eyes and envisioned myself being held in light in the shape of the vesica piscis – the intersection of two overlapping circles of equal size. From my studying, this intersection can represent the “both/and,” like the darkness and the light, the human and the divine, the material and the spiritual, etc. Being held in that space felt so comforting that I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly, even going back to sleep after being awakened for one reason or another.
The “both/and” of my sleep, helped me see the “both/and” throughout the days in the hospital. It was “a lot” of darkness in intensity and it was “a lot” in light and beauty in how John was cared for medically, and how our kids and other family and friends supported us through. It was “a lot” of darkness John was enduring and it was “a lot” of light in his healing and eventual good health.
As Bonnie Bostrom wrote, “In the midst of gathering darkness, light becomes more evident.” Light and darkness are both a part of being human. This holiday season is an opportunity to embrace them both. I wish you a meaningful time.
