The Balance of Light and Dark
An Equinox reminds us of the importance of balance. There is light and dark in all things and in all of us. To ignore one's own shadow is dangerous.
We are approaching a change of Season.
Summer is ending,
and Fall is about to begin.
To be precise,
the transition will happen at 6:30 a.m.
this Tuesday morning.
The light of day and the dark of night
will soon arrive at a perfect balance.
It sometimes takes a day or two
for all things to come together
and for the balance to be clearly visible,
but we have been watching
the gradual decrease in the hours of daylight
and the gradual increase
in the hours of nighttime.
I for one am fascinated
by these changes of the seasons.
It reminds us all of our place in the Universe
and in the world of nature.
The passage of time is clearly visible
with the apparently slow changes of the seasons.
Something else deep inside us
is being manifested by these changes.
Day and night are in balance,
and the light and dark in ourselves
are also in balance,
whether we like it or not.
In this case, light and dark
are not synonyms for good and evil.
It's more like illumination and shadow.
Life requires both.
Keeping those two realities in balance
is a life skill,
and it is something we are here to learn,
I believe.
If we hide from the light,
something is wrong.
If we pretend that there is no shadow within us,
something is equally wrong.
To hide from the light may simply mean
that we are too sensitive.
I've been experiencing some light sensitivity
in recent weeks.
It feels like a metaphor
of the things I'm talking about.
If we pretend that there is no shadow inside us,
we may be feeling ashamed
of something natural about ourselves.
Both the light and the shadow are vital
if we are to live full, balanced lives.
The world of nature is rich in reminders
about the best and most healthy way for us to live.
One giant reminder
about a healthy way for us to live
is all the smoke that has surrounded us
over most of the last week.
We cannot continue to do just as we please,
releasing unsustainable amounts
of greenhouse gases
if we are to have any hope
of living healthy lives.
The holy days of Earth based spirituality
like the Equinoxes and the Solstices
are also reminders of our relationship
with the rest of the cosmos,
and our celebration of them
is an important part of our spiritual lives.
As we are thinking of our spiritual lives
and our relationship
with the rest of the natural world
of which we are a part,
please remember that
when I speak of spirituality
I'm speaking of our breathing in and out
more than anything else.
Breathing in and out is especially important
for us all to be thinking about in these days
of fire and smoke in our part of the world.
Breathing in and out is important to consider
also because of the coronavirus that is causing
a world-wide pandemic of COVID-19.
With smoke and plague,
we simply cannot take breathing in and out,
our human spirituality,
for granted.
As we think of spirituality,
light and shadow are words we use
in metaphorical ways.
Light represents understanding, like enlightenment.
Shadow represents things that are hidden from view,
like mysteries.
Light and shadow involve something
much more than the metaphors
in our interesting times
Light and shadow are words
that we can use to describe
what we have been seeing
outside our windows
over the recent days.
Light has been subdued in the shadows of smoke.
This has been more visible reality than metaphor.
It's part of the warning
that I've been speaking about lately.
I hope and believe that it is not too late,
but nature is giving us more and more,
clearer and clearer, warnings
of what is to come,
if we don't make some serious changes
in the ways we are living
and relating to the world around us.
The simplest way to express
the reality in which we find ourselves
is to remember that the natural world
will use its amazing - even miraculous - resilience
to recover from damages that we may cause.
But we may not fare nearly so well.
Like the laws of physics,
the laws of nature are not debatable.
We cannot break those laws.
We can only break ourselves upon them.
Light and shadow take on
a much more urgent meaning
under such circumstances.
In our ordinary lives every day,
the meaning is just as important
even if it isn't quite so urgent.
The importance of keeping
the light and shadow in balance
can be seen as a deeply personal issue
as well as a matter of public policy.
The personal side is important, too.
The personal side impacts all our relationships.
Trying to pretend that there is no shadow, only light,
can lead us to consider ourselves much better
and much more important than we really are.
To recognize the shadow within ourselves
can lead us to be humble in our self understanding.
We all have elements of darkness
deep within ourselves,
and that is not a bad thing at all.
To use the language of Star Wars,
there is a light side of the Force,
and a dark side, too.
The two have to be kept in balance.
Without the balance,
the power of darkness
can seem to be overwhelming.
In fact,
sometimes the power of darkness
can seem to be far greater
than the power of light,
but in fact it is not more powerful.
The words from the first chapter
of the Gospel of John come to my mind,
"The light shines out in the darkness,
and the darkness did not take it down."
(my own translation)
It may not always have been seen this way,
but these words seem to me to show the balance
of light and shadow.
Without the darkness,
the light does not shine out nearly so brightly.
Without the light,
the darkness and all the beauty in it
cannot be seen.
If you have looked at the face of the moon,
even through a small telescope,
you can understand exactly what I mean.
There are mountains and valleys
on the surface of the moon,
and looking at those mountains and valleys
can give us the feeling
of looking at another world.
Yet looking at the brightness of a full moon,
we cannot see them well.
As the moon waxes and wanes,
shadows form and cause the mountains and valleys
to stand out in sharp relief.
To see the surface features of the moon
the best place to look
is along the boundary of light and shadow.
It's a wonderful metaphor
to understand the interplay of light and shadow
in our own lives every day.
In order to understand where we are
and what we are doing,
it is best to look at the boundary
of light and shadow.
The face we show to the world
is an important part of us,
but it is only a part.
Our inner life, where and how we see ourselves
is at least equally important.
Much of our inner life is hidden from everyone,
at times even from ourselves,
so darkness is a good description
for the deepest parts.
That is not a value judgment.
It is neither good nor bad.
Sometimes the best parts of ourselves
are hidden from us.
So we can understand ourselves best
by looking at the boundary regions,
where our inner life, our personal thoughts,
encounter the face we show to others.
This is not to ask us to reveal
what we find best to keep hidden.
It's simply a call to awareness.
If we want to understand ourselves better,
we can contemplate the interaction
of our self understanding
with our actions and words
in the world outside ourselves.
Keeping the balance
between our own inner and the outer worlds
is like nature's balancing of light and shadow
of day and night, summer and winter.
We can learn about ourselves
as we contemplate the natural world around us
because we are a part of that world.
With the approach of the Equinox,
we are reminded of the balance
within us and around us.
We need the light and we need the shadows
in order to understand and perceive ourselves
as we really are.
Amen.
Let it be.
So mote it be.
Blessed be!
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