Solstice: owning the dark and being the light

I've noticed as the days have grown shorter and the nights longer, that I find myself listening to more introspective music like Together by Matthew Halsall and spending more time alone feels particularly nourishing. I love the long morning meditations, short evening meditations, and any time I take during the day to just stop. So much of meditation is noticing the thoughts, allowing them to be there, and disengaging. Some days the mental stimulation is greater, perhaps a creative project starts making itself known, and the practice is more challenging. Some days it could be a fear thought trying to disengage me from peace. The practice is always to acknowledge, or own it, and let it go to the best of my ability, and not beat myself up if I don't succeed. The continuity of the practice over time has created a field that allows dark thoughts to come up, and the spaciousness to not take them so seriously.

Recent dark events, physically violent acts, the outrageous lies told by our leaders, the plundering of our economy and environment to benefit those who don't need it, the denial of basic human rights to our neighbors, watching our semblance of a democracy being dismantled before our eyes, and other things too numerous to mention, can certainly feed our collective fears. As someone who does not go around killing others, it is easy for me to project all that darkness onto someone who does, assuming myself and others to be innocent victims of the systemic darkness. And, I don't hide away and close my eyes to what is happening. I'm fascinated by watching, wondering how we will get ourselves out of the mess, and contributing where I can.

If awareness is observing humanity into and out of existence like thoughts, are these dark times just a part of our collective meditation? Are we coming into being in a more complete way? Or are we taking ourselves out? Perhaps humanity is going through a cathartic shedding of its violent skin, breaking its own heart, and allowing something new to be birthed. Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps this is just the truth of this moment in time. More people are connected than ever before in our history. More people are willing to speak out against violence against women, and our planet, and each other than ever before in the history of humanity. The light is breaking through, even in this time of darkness. It is traveling around our planet at the speed of our internet connections.