Dark and Light

"What I know is this.  When one hungers for light it is only because one's knowledge of the dark is so deep."  Terry Tempest Williams

Jihad

"The original meaning of the Muslim word "jihad" is to face one's own demons.  This is the holy war.  Without the ability to face our own demons, we often seek revenge rather than feel what is ours to feel.  For vengeance is a powerful distraction from accepting the legitimate suffering that arises from the wheel of life; an acceptance that can make kindred spirits us all, if we let it."  Mark Nepo

Dark Times

"Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am."
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Rilke

Second Chances

I love the dark hours of my being
In which my senses drop into sleep.
I have found in them as in old letters

My private life that is already
lived through and become wide
and powerful, now like legends.
Then I know that there
Is room in me for a second
Huge and timeless life.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Silence and Darkness

"Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the moon exposing the night. Behind darkness is our fear. Within silence our voice dwells. What is required from both is that we be still." -Terry Tempest Williams, from When Women Were Birds.

When was the last time you sang?

"We often underestimate the power of giving voice, bit it is real and sustaining.  It is the basis of all song.  It is at the heart of all hymns and matras.  And it works it's healing, not so much by being heard as by the fact that in giving voice to what is within, even through the softest whisper, we allow the world of spirit to soften our pain.  In this way, the smallest moan is in itself a lullaby.  In giving voice to what we feel, the darkest cry uttered with honesty can arrive at the holiest of songs."   Mark Nepo

Enemies

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" -- Martin Luther King, Jr

Darkness

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Rilke 

Hanneli's Wish

"May the integrity of Peace and Truth be celebrated.  May love and courage shine in your heart stronger than ever, and may you find within you the light of a thousand suns to blaze through whatever challenges you face in times ahead.

May you meet the suffering of the world with compassion, both for yourself and for others.

May you shatter your self-imposed limitations with fierce honesty and persistent love.

May you invite the demons to show their faces with the confidence of your inner strength, knowing there is no darkness you cannot face with love in your heart.   May you find yourself in many unexpected fields of wild flowers and circles of compassionate friends.  May you share laughter and tears with openness and freedom. 

May we recognize the heart of ourselves in the eyes of each we meet. 

May you follow your aspirations, your heart and your dreams more fully than ever before.   When you feel awkward, know you are walking your own edge and growth and healing are also present.  Deep breath....

Solutions

"Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between our apparently contradictory notions.  The notions will all be knocked from under our feet.  We shall see that there never was any problem.  And, more than one, that impression which I can't describe except by saying that it's like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness.  The sense that some shattering and disarming simplicity is the real answer."  C.S Lewis

MLK Only Love

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, 

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that. 
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

A Stong Heart

"A strong heart is not a heart that has a strong armor and a sword.  A strong heart is a happy heart.  A strong heart is a joyous heart.  It is heart that can dance when you are completely free.  Only when you have that openness can you see that darkness and not be absorbed by it, but you can absorb it.  Only when you have that joy and happiness can you go to the heart of darkness.  Sometimes the heart of darkness is Congo and sometimes the heart of darkness is inside you and you can accept it and it's with joy and happiness that you can actually dance with it and absorb it into you.

Get off the warrior's horse, take the armor off.  That's not how we're gonna win the fight.  We're gonna win the fight with our own joy and our own happiness and our own beauty.  To do that you need to walk the warrior's path of breaking your own silence and you'll have to have the courage and the resilience to do it. 

It's not about saving the world.  It's about saving us." Zalnab Salbi

Leadership

"I learned that leadership was not about the warrior journey only, but about showing vulnerability as well.  Only when I stepped forward and showed my vulnerability, I cannot tell you how many women came and told me their own story and broke their silence.  It's ok to show vulnerability because we are not perfect and actually our imperfection is the beautiful thing about us; our struggle; it's not necessarily an easy dance.  It's a wobbly dance sometimes

It's like a black stone (she points to her chest) that dissolved from me and became a crystal.  That's the physical feeling that I literally feel.  I can tell you all of this and not cry.  It is out of my system.  My demon is out of me, but it took me years.  It was quite a painful journey and it took quite another kind of courage.  The courage to speak our inner truth, the courage to break our inner silence, the courage to show our vulnerability, the courage to say something as simple as 'I'm not happy' .  Courage is not planned.  Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and just do it."  Zalnab Salbi

Shadow and Darkness

"When the sun disappears into the night, its light never dies. Our subconscius mind embraces what sunset represents in our lives. It is imperative that we attach ourselves to that notion firmly."   ~ Dodinsky

Darkness and Light

"Don't worry about being good.  Instead discover how both good and bad live within you.   Deeply accept the shadow even as you seek the light.  Believe in change.  Take full responsibility for  who you are and what you want.  And from such forthright wisdom your goodness with prevail and your kindness will blossom and your heart will heal."   Elizabeth Lesser

Shadow Work

"Deep psychological work brings us into the shadowy world of the unconscious, where quick fixes and straight paths do not exist, but we have to go into the hidden places in the psyche before coming into the light by making the darkness conscious."  Elizabeth Lesser

Individuality

"Whether he is wealthy or poor, the Rebel is really an emperor because he has broken the chains of society's repressive conditioning and opinions. He has formed himself by embracing all the colors of the rainbow, emerging from the dark and formless roots of his unconscious past and growing wings to fly into the sky. His very way of bei...ng is rebellious - not because he is fighting against anybody or anything, but because he has discovered his own true nature and is determined to live in accordance with it. The eagle is his spirit animal, a messenger between earth and sky. "    OSHO.

Waiting

"It takes a strong ego to hold the darkness, wait, hold the tension, wait, waiting for we know not what.  But if we can hold long enough, a tiny light is conceived in the dark unconscious, and if we can wait and hold, in it's own time it will be born into full radiance.  The ego then has to be loving enough to receive the gift and nourish it."  Marion Woodman

Twilight

"The twilight is a wonderful time.  And it mirrors and echos the twilight side of the heart, where the great thresholds are.   And one of the wonderful thresholds of the heart is the threshold between the light and the darkness.   It is the one in which the imagination lives.   And where the imagination meets the tenderness of the greatest presence of all, which is the presence of God."   John O' Donahue

Trials

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."  Persian Proverb