…and there was Light.”

I used to not enjoy mornings very much. I still sometimes have a hard time getting out of bed, especially in the darkness of winter, but there’s something about the quiet before the world wakes up that is so peaceful. There’s a space between dreams and wakefulness that invites itself to creative thinking, before we have to engage with the external world. I like my thoughts in this space, but they’re usually pretty hard to get down on paper.

I’ve been thinking more about light in general these days, which can mean many things to people. Physical light, but also joy, happiness, understanding and an appreciation for Life. Gratitude. Sometimes I struggle with this, getting drawn down into the heaviness of the emotional body, especially when I was younger. It’s interesting to look back at how much of a contrast has lived inside of me; light & dark, matter and spirit, yin and yang, heaven and earth, each pulling in their own direction. I’ve been able to find a much better balance as I’ve got older, able to work through and release a lot of what has been weighing me down, but also to understand it in a different light. But we all have our days, of course.

I’m learning more about what it means to really ‘let the light in’, to let love in, and not armour myself to it, which is easier said than done. My mind is often light, able to make sense and ‘rise above’ things, yet it’s my heart that can feel heavy, which in TCM relates to our grief / relationship to joy. Something my dear friend said to me, which I’ll never forget, is, “you can’t keep digging deeper expecting to find the light.” What I interpret this to mean is that, we can’t keep focusing on trauma or the darker parts of life, because the more we do, the bigger it gets and the less of the good we see. Though i do believe it’s needed to a point, to understand where we’ve been, if we focus too long we can miss the joy, happiness and magic of life. As much as one exists, so does the other, which only depends on what we choose to look at. And if we turn around, we’ll notice that the sun was shining on us all along, while we were too busy focusing on our own shadow. And I think I’m finally learning how to turn around.

I’m not sure why it seems easier to be negative sometimes, to get weighed down by life, but this phrase popped into my head years ago as well that I still try to hold to, which is “transformation through joy.” Often the idea of transformation can have a heavier feeling to it, I know a lot of mine has been, but I’m learning to open more to the idea that the opposite can exist as well, even if I don’t feel it. That lightness can find its way into my heart as well, and not just my thinking mind.

Knowing that the sun is starting to come back in a few days with the Winter Solstice definitely helps. I miss the sun in the morning, so I think I’ll need to seek out more of it this coming year and really saturate myself in light, in more ways than one.

Gordon.