Howdy, Darkness!

Depending upon your calendar, either today or tomorrow is the Winter Solstice.

In the northern hemisphere, the shortest day of the year. The fewest hours of the 24 with light. The longest night of the year.

All ways to say: the darkest.

To this, I am now bravely (for me) saying, "HOWDY, DARKNESS!"

Because for decades, what I have been doing instead is breathing a big sigh of relief on this day. I have shouted, "I MADE IT!" I have called my similarly-sad-about-darkness friends and shouted on the phone to them, "WE MADE IT!"

All of this in celebration of the fact that, from here on out, it gets lighter and lighter every day . . . until June 21, when we hit the longest, brightest day of the year.

Because I have dreaded the dark. To me, darkness feels like the opposite of everything I like: light, energy, movement. Those are things things with which I feel most comfortable and happy and at ease and in the zone.

But more and more, I have been thinking darkness gets a bad rap. More and more, I've been thinking I myself have been giving darkness a bad rap.

Life is not all about the light. Life is also about the shadows, the retreats, the stillness, the waiting, the blackboard with nothing yet written on it.

Life, all of our lives, are composed of both light and dark, and all the shades in between.

I am tired of battling with and being uncomfortable with the shadows. They are there. They serve a purpose. They have their own beauty and being and necessity. We all have our places where the shadows live.

Nothing is light all the time. Nothing is enthusiastic and kind all of the time. There are days and times when frustration, anger, sadness and feelings of total futility take over. We can sit with those feelings. We are big enough containers to hold them, to feel them and say, "I recognize your point of view."

Even the shadows need to be heard. The older I get, the less productive it feels to push voices down or put them away in boxes -- even if they are cranky (or worse). We can listen. We can choose with love how to treat them.

They are all parts of ourselves, and we all have them.

Weary, in the way this dark time of year so perfectly encapsulates, of pushing against. Wanting instead to embrace our wholeness -- that we are all whole people, composed of lights AND darknesses, and wanting us to stop feeling embarrassed or ashamed about it. Hoping more love and authenticity comes pouring forth out of the place where we accept this, instead of pushing it out of our consciousnesses. And especially, instead of thinking that others are dark, others are bad, others are evil (whatever that is, and I'm still not sure) and we are the ones who never are.

And so, dark places in life, I say thank you for all that you provide and teach and fill out in the world. Thank you for what we learn from you about ourselves and each other. Here's to more and more acceptance of the fullness of ourselves, with less shame and more truth.