Marigold Path Grid Blog: Souls See Best In Darkness

November 1, 2006

(This is part of a group of blogs remembering on All Saints Day; you can find a full list of blogs participating here. This particular post was written a few weeks ago, but seems appropriate today still)

Our season of grieving deepened today as we learned one of our professors has begun her hospice journey. She has fought cancer valiantly and lived to see remission and the gift a new lease on life can bring. But the monster has fought back and her cancer has spread. She went home today with the help of hospice support.

It’s easier to speak of death as a journey when the one dying is old, when the one dying is a stranger, when the one dying is ready to go. Today death sounds more like a deep abyss I wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially not this friend.

In a book I’m reading for class, the author talked about how we’ve screwed up our symbols and thereby screwed up our reality. Darkness isn’t bad, he argued, it is necessary. It is in darkness that we rest, in darkness that we dream our deepest dreams, in darkness that we find
the strength to continue on.

It doesn’t seem such a big leap for me between darkness and death, so I am clinging to his words these days and hoping they are true even when I can’t believe, even when death, and darkness, seem like the ultimate evil. This is community isn’t it? Holding onto other people’s
faith when our own falls short.

It seems true that souls see best in darkness: see the dreams only imaginations allow to be possible; see the light shimmering in the darkness; see the spaces and quiet we so quickly evade in our lighted busyness. Perhaps our souls see best in death as well.

Posted in reflections by Sarah