In Praise of the Dark

                                                                                                                                                                                                          gratitude for the visual art by Maria Rikteryte

I bow to the dark womb
where all grow,
from which all receive
their nourishment,
and to which all return.

As long as we keep chasing
light out there,
afraid of the dark within,
we'll remain in exile,
bound by myriad confusions.

There is a question
with the power to liberate,
a question which if followed
all the way through,
with devotion and courage,
carves a pathway home.

“Who am I?
To whom,
or to what,
is this experience occurring?”

Here we find
that every idea of self
is an object of awareness.

Discover the subject.

To do so,
we have to be willing to admit
the entirety of our ignorance,
to become intimate
with all that we fear,
to forgive ourselves the suffering
caused by misidentification,
and dissolve entirely
into the void.

When we realize ourselves
as no-thing
we meet the greatest relief.
And when, as that no-thing,
we look out at the world,
we see ourselves
everywhere,
all being one at last.

In this love we know
that light is born in the dark,
movement in the unmoving,
sound in silence.

Here we are free to give
and include
all that we are.

~~Luke Anderson