Hand-in-Hand

The March 2021 skies over Pine Island, near Ft. Myers, in Southwest Florida (winter home of this snowbird) demonstrate a very important fact: light is present within darkness.

During the past few weeks of “the season,” instead of the usual blue skies, the horizon was often dotted with dark, billowy, ominous-looking bumps of clouds with amazing streams of light simultaneously peeking out. Some clear, some bright, some pinkish-orange enough to resemble remnants of a dwindling campfire…. Those glowing embers that you only see late, late—late enough that you think you should give up and go to bed. Despite the chill, you are drawn to sit where you are as a witness to what is dying.

For the past three years I have been in a study group looking at the spiritual phenomena of light within the darkness.

I am attending and helping Zoom host a meditation retreat this week.

As I was doing walking meditation early, I saw a black stone on the sidewalk. I noticed it but did not pick it up. Continuing, about half a block up, also on the sidewalk, I found a white stone. Neither of these were located with anything similar nearby. Seeing the white stone, I looped back and also picked up the black one. Light in the darkness.

((Confession, this is an article scheduled for publication in May. But the time for me to share it with you is NOW.))

Every religion, Western and Eastern philosophy, and each individual artistic world view provides commentary on this subject of light in the darkness.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. Anne Frank

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. Og Mandino

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. Plato

Don’t fight darkness – bring the light, and darkness will disappear. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

In an audio presentation, Living and Dying, Ram Dass says about his work with people as they were dying: I watch some people who are able to open to the new stage and say, “Ah, so….” and those people don’t suffer. And then I watch somebody who looks at the shoes in the closet that they’ll never wear again and sits around feeling sorry because they can’t wear the shoes anymore. They’re holding onto the model of who they were a moment ago. A moment ago, they were somebody wearing those shoes, and now they are not wearing those shoes.

I have been wondering about a similar phenomenon related to the pandemic. It is undeniable that the coronavirus has brough considerable darkness. (Another of our friends passed the day I was writing this article, in Florida, and then a 42-year-old relative, father-of-five, in Michigan.)

Have you also been able to see the light this global pandemic has brought to you over this last year?

My online search of “benefits of the pandemic” produced a lot of evidence of light within the darkness. Reduction of the carbon foot print made every list I read. Improved health and cost-savings from less eating out and more home-cooked meals was another. Parents spending more time with children; partners having more time together; time for reflection and opportunity to reevaluate your life. Within each of these is both light and darkness.

It has been said about picking up a stick: you pick up both ends.

What Buddhism calls wisdom mind is the recognition that only light has ultimate reality. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, says you do not go into a room and look for a “dark” switch. The switch you are searching for is the “light” switch. Of course, with that switch you are either turning the light on or off….

Ram Dass wrote of a friend’s passing.

“Well, you know what I know. Probably I won’t see you again in this body, so, stay conscious.” And I left.

Her husband called me the next morning at 7:30, and said she died during the night.

And he said her dying was just like ink being poured into water. It was just expanding outward. He said, “I came away from her death with one of the deepest experiences of peace I’d ever had in my life.”

We are a collective witness to the dark and the light, to what is being born and what is dying.

Some individuals have hated working from home. Some students have been miserable with online schooling. Some of us have grown calmer, others catastrophically chaotic. Attitudes reflect the moment-by-moment position of the light switch.

Less and less frequently do I hear people yearning for things to get back to normal, but often people express specifics of what they are eager to resume. I made up a set of rules for “distant dominoes” with good friends that live down the street from us in Michigan and also winter on the same street in Florida.

While in Florida, the four of us drove across the state to receive our first (and second) vaccines. We expressed excitement to once again safely play dominoes by the original Basham house rules, sitting around a table touching the tiles. We agreed we will all likely needed a refresher….

This snowbird gleefully anticipated being able to meet our great-grandson, Jackson (born December 28), on our trek north. I could almost smell his baby breath. Almost feel the weight of him. Almost hear his coo….

*Note – It was exquisite!

Awareness of the collective “benefit” of our collective glee, relief, appreciation, and joy almost takes my breath away….

Just as those clouds on the Florida horizon revealed the truth of light within the darkness, we are a collective witness to the dying of what was and the collective welcoming of what is.

We have no need to fret over an unworn pair of shoes.

We can join together and blissfully walk barefoot hand-in-hand on the beach….