Seeing in the dark
I’ve always been fascinated by the way my cats can find their way upstairs to my dormer bedroom in pitch darkness. There’s a tiny night light glowing in the downstairs bathroom that may give them a sliver of light as they make their way up the stairs. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how they will spend a few minutes playing with toys scattered on the bedroom floor before effortlessly making the jump up to my bed which in the wintertime, piled high with blankets, can seem like the one used in the Princess and the Pea.
Because of what might seem like supernatural eyesight, cats can see more in the dark than we ever will, no matter how much our pupils dilate. Especially in this moment in history, would that we all have a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum to help guide us.
A few weeks ago, my sister and I took a group night hike at Wildwood Metropark. As we crunched our way through melting ice and slush, the sky grew ever darker. The guide offered us headlamps, but we declined as the snow reflected whatever light was still available. I found myself leading the pack as I knew the path by heart, having hiked there for decades. Occasionally the guide would stop us to point out markers of winter slowly slipping into spring and even pointed up at the sky to bring our attention to the alignment of Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Mars. What a fascination to see that even in the midst of uncertainty down here on Earth, the planets in their infinite dance in space will occasionally align to remind us that we are but a speck in the bigger picture.
As springtime draws nearer and the days grow longer, it’s a paradox to get up every morning and witness the dark energy of what has been happening in our country and our world. When I researched THE LACE MAKERS in 2014 it nearly broke my spirit to read the horrors of how the Nazis gained power and how they wielded it in Germany and across Europe. I spent a day at The Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan and saw clothing with different colored triangles sewed upon them, each one demarking the reason a person was imprisoned. Subsequently, the main characters in THE LACE MAKERS were given red triangles, symbols of political prisoners, as they had hidden a Jewish family at their place of business.
It was horrifying to learn that the current administration recently posted a link on social media depicting an ad for the military that included the pink triangle seen in the image above. I’m left wondering how many other symbols of one the most morally corrupt times in world history will need to be unearthed before the time will come when all people see the light of day. Or will tunnel vision lead us even further down this path of darkness?
Before he died, Steve warned me about the imminent future that was coming. In the weeks before his death he often talked about how worried he was to leave me and his children and grandchildren in a world that was quickly changing…and not for the better. At the time I couldn’t see what he did, but Steve was always able to navigate the darkness much better than I ever could.
He was a Scorpio, born during the season when the nights lengthened, and darkness swallows the world. Long before I met him, Steve lived in darkness, much of it self-imposed, as he was an alcoholic and drug addict for most of his life. Shortly before his sixtieth birthday he chose to get sober and by the time he moved in next door, had been in recovery for two and half years.
During the seven years we were together, Steve and I consciously and unconsciously explored the darkness in ourselves and each other. Even though I had done a lot of healing in the decades before I met Steve, I had no idea that I had the capacity for the dark emotions that his shadowy moods and the behavior unleashed by his unhealed history invoked in me. Rage and grief and hopelessness cycled themselves through my psyche until in our second year together, I came across an updated myth of Persephone and Hades and realized we were reliving that story in present time.
The paradox of the myth is that Persephone eventually learns how to see in the dark, thanks to Hades and his intense devotion to her. And Hades learns how to be tender and loving, thanks to Persephone’s willingness to return to him year after year. As Steve and I evolved together, again and again our love story was tested by chaos, relentless outside forces that we could not control. In turn, Steve learned that his vulnerability was a strength, and I learned that to surrender to the unknown was an act of faith that more would be revealed in time. By the time Steve died it felt as if our roles had been reversed, with him surrendering to the mystery of death, and me realizing that if I remain open to whatever the present moment has to offer, the life I would have without him did not have to be like the one I lived before we met.
One of the crucial lessons of Scorpio season is not to search for the light in dark places, rather it’s to accept the darkness for what it is — in ourselves, in the world, in this cycle of time. That doesn’t mean we have to like it, but we can always find a way through it. Steve helped me see the darkness of reality so I could let go of the distorted images of what I was projecting onto the world. Only then could I ever see the undeniable truth in what was happening then — and now.
It is in being able to peer into our own dark places and shine a light on what has been unrecognized in ourselves that can we ever hope to change, grow and find our way forward. Perhaps the same is true with our systems of government, economics, and one-world reality. Darkness no longer needs to be a death sentence when you shine a light on it.
So, until this chaos cycle has run its course, I will both acknowledge the reality of what is happening and as Steve taught me, endeavor to persevere in what I can do to heal, evolve and play my part in the bigger picture, no matter how small. Like the planets in the night sky, when we align together, our collective energy can shift even the darkest moments in time.