Light does not come from light, but from darkness.

– Mircea Elilade

What if I looked at darkness as the place where my light begins?

I think part of me knew this when I chose my word for 2024. To have a more luminous life I’m going to have to be comfortable in the dark. Make friends with it. Celebrate it with art and new language, be intentional, making as much room for it as I do for the light that it brings me.

I dipped my toe in the water last week by listening to a conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor, author of The Treasures of Darkness and Learning to Walk in the Dark. She spoke of befriending the dark, challenging me to get curious about my “need” for light. It’s simple. In darkness I stop. An inability to see requires an immense amount of trust – something I lack these days.

I tend to equate darkness with being lost, out of control, unable to move forward. But what I’m learning is darkness just means I need to move more slowly. For example, I know from power outages or nights when my kids were sick, I can walk my entire house in the dark, if needed. And when I resist the urge to demonize the dark, I can recall some lovely moments where I couldn’t see anything, but felt everything. Slumber parties filled with giggles and fervently whispered secrets. Camping and seeing the night sky, sans city lights, for the first time. New love, when candlelight made everything more beautiful, even me.

Daytime and brightly lit spaces offer a lot of distractions, so I want to be careful that my quest for the luminous doesn’t become yet another diversion – bright and shiny things that obstruct and entertain, instead of instruct and fulfill. I’m beginning to believe the more comfortable I become with darkness, the more light I will perceive. I hope you’ll bear with me as my eyes adjust and I find my way.