Look to the Light

If only it were so simple. So carefree to move into this new year of possibilities without having to carry the weight of grief, inconsolable sadness, utter despair at the unfolding of so much loss, angst and fear from last year.

The human heart is wired to hope. To have faith, to believe. To endure, to move forward to find ways to keep searching for the light. Coping mechanisms are part of our psyche. Without them we would surely succumb to the horrors that life hurls at us. We would wither, and give up.

Tolkien’s quote fills my mind during these cold, sometimes bleak January days.

“No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must keep us from following the light unflinchingly”.

Another that resonates right now is from Robert Frost. A favorite poet whose words perpetually fill me with direction and worldly wisdom. and light.

“The only way out is through”.

Each day following the winter solstice, we gain a bit more daylight. A short month ago darkness descended here in our New Englad woodland by late afternoon. Already the light is returning and tho we have a lot farther to go before the summer solstice, daylight endures a few moments longer each passing day. In the deep of winter, light grows. It is all around us. We must continue to look for the light. It is how we find our way through.

Winter darkness heads unflilnchingly toward spring light. It is a natural journey. A pilgrimage from one season to the next. The darkness sits with itself among the bare, creaking trees and endures the bitter cold, the relentless howling winds, the ice, the snow, the shadows.

We in many ways do the same. We sit in the darkness, moving through it, looking for the light. The glow of candles, silent flickers of warmth. Logs burning in the fireplace deep into the longest, darkest nights. The lamp lit along the drive for a loved one returning home after a difficult day; its light reflected in drifts of snow. A lamp glowing in the window to guide one back home from a midnight walk in the woods. The moon and the stars unflinchingly, unfailingly fill the night sky.

The golden glow of sunrise and the smoulder of sunset.

I cannot presume to know how much sorrow others have had to face. How much loss, how much worry, how insurmountable life and its challenges has been and still is for so many. I can only speak for myself. And I can only say, in my single small voice, that Robert Frost and Tolkien are correct. We must look to the light unflinchingly and head toward it by going through. That is the only way out of the darkness.

And this I do know. Light is everywhere. We are surrounded by its ever present grace. We don’t have to look far to see it. But we do have to look…always.

Many Blessings…