A Dance with Darkness: Celebrating the Winter Solstice
Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
Long nights invite a retreat into one’s inner world, into the soft and tender places for which the glare and noise of ordinary life are too harsh. The stars become visible, no longer concealed by the sun, and in our interior sky, the sweetest and most delicate truths reveal themselves.
Night is the time when the eye of Shiva is open, when Kali draws her veil over the world and all her children, when Brahma dreams the universe anew, when Krishna dances with the gopis or disappears alone with Radha. It is the time when conventional knowing is obscured, and a more subtle, more intimate vision unfolds.
“What all beings consider as day is night of ignorance for the wise, and what all creatures see as night is the day for the introspective sage.” (Bhagavad Gita, 2.69)
Dancing with the Dark and Beautiful One
The great mystery at the center of existence calls to you, like the black hole in the middle of the galaxy, yet veils of unknowing lie between the curious seeker and object of desire. To approach that inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, you must be willing to enter darkness and obscurity without fear.
To be nothing and know nothing, to want nothing, to perceive without any overlay of name and concept; to find within yourself that zero point in which life itself bursts into existence.
The mind balks and digs in its heels at the edge of the abyss, but for the soul, there is nothing sweeter.
It is this illuminating darkness, this meeting with the Beloved in a secret space beyond thought and form, that St. John of the Cross describes in The Dark Night of the Soul:
“O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that has united
The lover with His beloved
And changed her into her love.”
This darkness is not oblivion but the heart of the world, unknowable through ordinary faculties. It is a forgetfulness that is at once revelation, a nothingness that is so full and alive that it refuses to be confined within any understanding.
Krishna is sometimes called Shyamasundar, “dark and beautiful.” So tantalizing is our Beloved, always dancing just out of reach! He is incomprehensible, yet it is impossible to turn your eyes away.
The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. However much you might burn to know the truth directly, would you ever trade that mystery for something that could be explained and described?
Joining the dance with the dark and beautiful One, you will never see more than one step ahead. Try to anticipate His movements, and you fall flat. Try to grab for Him, and He slips away, leaving you with only trees and the moon for company.
So close your eyes. Do not fear, do not hesitate. Step into the darkness, forgetting the contours of the world, and now you are flying. Now you are dancing in Him, through Him, life pouring into life.
The Silent Grace of Being
This darkest day of the year is a natural time for introspection. Quiet winter days call for letting go of the frantic activity that all too often dominates our lives, being content instead with simplicity and rest.
For being, rather than doing.
Very little actually needs to be done, despite what our busy-bee monkey minds might tell us. Existence goes on peacefully existing, no matter what we achieve or fail to accomplish, no matter our projects, goals, ambitions, or disappointments.
The earth goes on turning, showing one side to the sun and then the other.
Mountains are wearing down and sediment is hardening into new stone. Rain clouds form and disperse. The continents are moving, slowly. The sun is burning through its lifespan, even more slowly. Sea turtles are hatching and crawling toward the sea, and birds eat some of them, and others make it to splash into the waves.
What do all our grand ideas and plans have to say about any of this?
Only the silent grace of being, the eternity of Now, is vast enough to contain a drop of infinity.
Naveen is a Hridaya teacher and a frequent contributor to our blog. You can read all of her posts here.
