Lessons from the dark ⛰
The darkest days are upon us and it seems like we’re allll feeling it.
We can complain about it (which is admittedly really helpful sometimes 😅), or we can see it as the seasons of nature reflecting to us what’s inside.
I often turn to music in these days to keep me company, and there’s one song in particular that’s been hitting home for me this week.
It’s called The Missing Piece (listen here).
The haunting yet deeply reflective lyrics remind me that, especially during the darkest days, spiritual bypassing and only “connecting to the light” isn’t the key. It’s in the dark, through the dark, with the dark that we remember.
The darkness, much like the cave of the womb, holds a life-giving or rebirth quality… if we’re willing to sit with it. Be with it.
And don’t get me wrong, I still believe it’s wildly helpful and regulating to connect to the joy, the good, the glimmers, to micro-moments that feel resourceful. Actually, it’s especially helpful to be sure that we have those pieces as anchors, or perhaps flashlights, keeping us steady as we move through the dark. But the dark often shows us what’s been aching to be witnessed. To be felt, processed, moved through.
There’s a lyric in the song that really strikes a chord:
“I’m not in heaven I’m buried in earth, look down”
To me, it represents a metaphor. That we can’t avoid or bypass what the dark is trying to teach us by leaving our bodies, dissociating, or fearing anything that is not exclusively “high-vibe”. When we avoid the descent, we often end up with more emotional residue, unmet and unprocessed pieces, waiting for us the next time the dark arrives. The invitation isn’t to escape upward, but to look down. To root into the body, to meet what’s been lingering in the soil of our inner world.
The dark doesn’t need to be daunting. It can be beautifully illuminating… like that Joseph Campbell quote says “the cave you fear holds the treasure you seek” 💎