I speak that which I wish I needn't, let slip quiet truths that carry burdens unimaginable. I whisper out soft axioms and lace them with apology, with a slow nod from a heavy head, a swollen tongue from the poison it carries, I do so to warn you, to alert you like canary in cage to be lowered into your depths, I do so to remind you. All will not be well, not always, and the shadow is coming, the chaos it wears like cloak billows out behind it, before it, swirling like tornado of pitch and fury. All will not be well, says I with forlorn lips, the shadows will find you. There is no hiding from darkness, it is a creature inevitable, a predator to the prey of us.
I must tell you this gently, and cross fingers it does not frighten you away.
The truths hardest to swallow are those we already know, those we bury in ourselves and paint over with half-truths and delusion. Life is suffering, says Buddha, happiness an eternally fleeting thing. This is a truth universal, though we try to forget. Adversity is a fact of existence, and this human experience is decorated with obstacles and setbacks, with the quicksands and swamps of despair, and it matters not the money we make, the things we own, the station we are born into, eventually the darkness comes for us all.
Still, I say, yet, I offer up, this is not all, this is not the end to this story. Perhaps I will be Prometheus, perhaps I will scale the mountain and steal the fire from the gods that hoard it, perhaps I will give it to you and worry not of the consequences of my betrayal. Perhaps this fire is another truth, one held from us to trap us into the spirals of sorrow, perhaps what I’ll steal is a reminder, a single bit of shine, perhaps I will give you light. Here, I say with head bowed low before you, here, and open my lips to form these words:
There is light. There is light. There is so much light.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to endure, but what of thriving? What of celebration? What of carving more from the thick night that comes, and comes, and envelops all things? How do we navigate the moments that sink us into the ruts of our days, how do we move forward with legs leaden with dread and worry, depression and fear? How do we find the light when all around us is dark?
It’s with compassion we must begin and we must gift it to ourselves. We must be gentle with our aching, judge it not and refuse to compare with anyone else, anywhere else. We hurt uniquely, our eyes adjust to the shadow at different speeds, in different ways, and this is the way of things. What others sail through might capsize our boats, what anchors others to the lightless floor of some black ocean, might feel featherweight and helium to another, there is no wrong way.
We must begin simply, with loving ourselves, with the grace of understanding and acknowledgement that the shadows will find us, that there is no hiding from darkness. We must accept this, and allow ourselves the indignity of time to do so. Only then, only when we’ve truly understood that there is no fighting this reality, can we begin to explore it, can we transform from defensive to discovering, and search the dark for cracks of light. I promise you, it is there, I come as Prometheus to remind you this, to show you the light held in open palms, and I offer this liver to the eagles as payment. Hold it now, hide it in your chests until you’re strong enough to rise, then come, then find me, then set me free. Heracles, I will call you, and name you savior then.
To become what we will become we must embrace what we have been. Each journey of self-discovery begins here, the acceptance of things we cannot shift, cannot wish away. Understanding the shadows of our lives as creatures inevitable and merciless is the start of this growth. We must realize our helplessness to hold back the hurricane of discontent, of sorrow, of loss. We must see this as it is, a sea rising despite our efforts, honest and best.
Then, we must share in this acceptance, we must use our hands for reaching to others lost in the mire. We must hold one another up when their legs give way to the gravity pulling them down, as darkness is such a dense thing, a black hole pulling from all sides. We must take turns in our strength, we must rest when we are tired, we must be patient when we stumble. More than all things, perhaps, we must seek, we must seek, and we must never stop searching for the shine.
It’s there, I promise you this, hiding behind the veil of nothing that comes like a fog and settles the same. It’s there, just above it, just beyond it, steady and enduring and waiting for us to pierce through that membrane to grasp at it again.
If you cannot find your way through, if you know not the strength to plunge your hand into the black tar that surrounds you, scream out, and we will find you, I will find you. If you lose your way, lost and stumbling and blind, call to us, and do not stop shouting until you feel my fingers inside yours. I will give you light, all of mine, over and again, until your closed eyes see red and fill your vision with a warmth you have forgotten.
Share this when you are ready, be the hands that reach, for only those that have been held know the ways to hold. Be the fire thief that risks an eternity of torture to warm others, be the refusal to allow yourself, to allow others, to live in darkness.
In the darkest moments, there will always be light, and if you cannot find it, I will give it to you.
I will give you light.
Shadows will find you,
there’s no hiding from darkness.
I will give you light.
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