In the darkness, you accept the not knowing, not being able to see. Nothing can be predicted, and that's ok, that's the nature of the dark.
Light makes you feel as if you should know and be able to make sense of things. Light offers meaning, and sense and coherence, and when there is none… that's harder.
To be in darkness is to be hidden, protected from scrutiny. I fall softly. I fall a long way, I think, and after a while direction makes no sense because falling and floating and flying might be the same things anyway.
Everything matters, in the light. Everything is seen and significant. There is a relief in not mattering, letting go of significance. There is peace in it.
In the darkness, whether or not you are trying very hard is of no consequence. No one can tell. No one is looking. What grows here is different from what manifests in the light. Seeds and roots begin in darkness, in often irrational hope of warmth, light, sun and rain. From the dead places new life emerges. There must be soil and death and falling apart for there to be life.
Some of us are meant to be earthworms, deep in the process of breaking down so that new things can come into being. To be dirt is to enable flourishing.
I wrap the darkness around me, comforted by it. Perhaps this year, winter offers the luxury of hibernation. Let me crawl into some secret cave and forget, and be called to do nothing. Let me be held, and lost. There is bounty in not mattering, there is freedom in slipping away. To be the cub held by the body of the mother bear, not yet needing to know or think. To be warm, to be only a breath and a heartbeat.
Let me lie in the soil with the webs of fungi. Let me lie down with the bones of distant ancestors. Fold me into the history of soil and land.
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