We have to step into darkness if we want to see the stars.
Have you ever spent time examining something?
I’m not talking about smelling flowers & crap. I mean, really giving something a good, long stare. That surreal moment, when the world is a little blurry, but this thing is very, suddenly… clear, yet perplexing, mysterious, and so delicately intricate. You don’t even realize that you’re holding your breath until you pull away and the cacophony of life comes at a roaring crescendo like a 16-wheeler down your street. But in that sweet moment, you are suddenly hyper-aware of your lungs, the air, your heartbeat, and every single smell. That is the time I am writing about. Examining dew drops on a leaf in the early morning makes you think about things you might not normally think about, in ways you wouldn’t think about, and begins a gradual paradigm shift to steam roll everything you know. OR at least, you thought you knew.
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There is this awesomely simple children’s book on the value of diversity: The Crayon Box that Talked. It starts out with the crayons hating one another, until a little girl pulls them out and starts drawing a picture. When the picture is done, they see their worth and value tied to one another, not independently of each other. And At the very core of things, it is that simple, but at the very heart of things, it is rotted, so badly rotted and destroyed.
But it can be restored. And it begins with a slow-motion examination of things we already know.
Have you seen sand under a microscope at 250x magnification?
It makes me STFU.
I stop. I remember all the times I have furiously shaken my towels before packing them up at the beach. I remember the times I rinsed my feet of this pesky substance. I remember feeling pure frustration when tiny handfuls of sand would fall from my child’s sand toys, and onto the floor of the car. I remember the times I would reach into a miscellaneous bag, mid-December, rooting around for some long-lost object, only to pull my hand out- finger tips dusted with sand. And every time, sand was a nuisance, a source of heavy sighs, a reason for vacuuming again and yet another trip to the laundry mat.
But now, now that I’ve seen sand for what it really is… why, I’ve been furiously shaking, cleaning, vacuuming precious jewels to banish their presence from my tidy life. And I know it’s just sand, but now, I can’t shake the feeling of being so deeply wrong about something.
And I wonder- “what else am I wrong about?”
If you haven’t already put the pieces together- stopping to stare in wonderment- it forces us to do some things you wouldn’t normally do.
First of all, we stop. And not that we don’t normally stop for… say, ourselves- but to stop for something, someone else. Our attention is drawn and intensely focused.
But then we aren’t drifting down the Lazy River at some Splash Water Park in our mind’s vacation zone, we’re actually examining something. Thoughtful, consideration, questioning. The little picture and THE BIG PICTURE. There’s so much to consider. How did this go unnoticed for so long? How do these fit, coexist, weave and remain symbiotic without so much as a blink from anyone? How do I fit in? Where is my place in all of this? How can I treasure, share, protect this? Will my efforts be clumsy elephant trampling all over this beauty, or can I learn by watching, listening, sitting still?
And hopefully, that cup of knowledge begins to tip. It spills. Because we are truly recognizing the beginning, the edge of our limitations. Like walking from light, going darker and darker, until we begin to grope the walls, shuffle our feet, and call out for help… for understanding- because we know, this is beyond our limitations. And I think this is what it must mean, “Darkness is as Light” because it forces us to trust and let go of our knowledge, and maybe admit that we are so terribly wrong about some things.
And this is also where things get messy.
I always shudder whenever I come across the Japanese proverb, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” because my first impression of it is to squash creativity and difference. (I know that’s not true, and it can be used as a positive reinforcement to protect the bunch from a bad apple). But there is this ringing in my ears: homogeneous is easier than heterogeneous. If everything, everyone conforms, then no one is different, no one is singled out, no one is special. But the problem with that is that it just isn’t true in the way we want it to be true. Our differences work like patterns and colors woven and sewn together by our humanity. And though we are the same, we are all at once very different. And for some reason, we recoil when differences stray from the margins of normal, comfortable and acceptable.
So here we are, this mixed up jumble of who’s-its and what’s-its, and we don’t know how to make heads or tails, so we double down and do it anyway. We take a cursory glance at the outsides, and make judgments and decisions about the insides. We decide who is worthy of our precious wonderment, charity and grace, and who “should just know better”, “should just give a little more effort”, “should stop making excuses”, etc.
But we need to stop doubling down on our erroneous ways. Instead of going on our usual morning run, rushing past, crushing underfoot, we could slow, and examine. We could see the world differently than we see it now, and like the Crayon Box that Talked, we learn our values are not independent of one another, not in competition with one another- to see who is the winner of this human race.
But this isn’t a story-book existence. We have to be willing to feel uncomfortable, hear things we don’t want to hear, and see things we don’t want to see.
We have to change our paths and force our bodies and lives to gently collide and be pulled into their current to feel the water and their fear. We have to step into darkness if we want to see the stars.
If we can’t, we live as ghosts. Our world is one dimensional. It isn’t truth. It’s chaff. But if we can linger and listen. If we can watch with learning eyes and un-interrupting mouths, we can restore what has rotted. We can add value, not detract it.
There is another Japanese proverb that makes me shudder, but in a good way: “Bitter pills may have welcome effects.”
We want the welcome effects, but don’t want the Unfamiliar. the Unwelcome. to be Uncomfortable. We briskly walk away, but without that risk, how will we ever see our true value and potential? How will we be restored?
Our pain & hopes weave a tapestry of humanity that binds us together, regardless of our acknowledgement.
How much better would it be for all of us if we could go together, instead of alone? For what good is success, triumph and joy with no one to celebrate together? And how much deeper does pain cut with the knife of loneliness?
When I find myself stripping people down to nothing but a single definition- “homeless”, “deaf”, “bitch”, I go backwards in time with the thought, “This person had a mother” to bring me back down to reality, and then I realize, maybe he/she did not. And with those two leaks in the dam, the wall bursts with questions and possibilities, and my heart is flooded with the realization that I don’t know. I won’t know… unless I ask.
Who knows what beauty lies within if no one stops to look, to ask, to care?
Until we know darkness, we cannot know light. And until we stop and examine the grains of sand, the dew drops on leaves, and the pains and hopes in one another, we will hold onto a world of limitations and reject a life of possibilities.
Not The Time and Place 