The following is written by Brieanna Lewis. I recently came across it on the Facebook group Soul Discovery. It seems like an appropriate piece to share as the old year ebbs and the new year dawns. . . . Wishing all my readers the very best for 2019.
In order to reach out your hand and lay it upon the brow of humanity, in order to give deeply of yourself and heal the wounds of the world, you must understand the darkness that crouches within.
Will you have the courage to see what it needs, this crying demon within yourself that begs for you to nurture it; that begs for you to help it to dissolve into the wholeness that it desires . . . the wholeness of self?
Sometimes it is necessary to close your eyes and slip into that place that craves manipulation, that place where you lock away your fury, greed and indescribable blood-thirst. Journey to the underworld of your soul because that is where you will be reborn.
In order for us to know light, we must know the dark; in order for us to know pleasure, we must know pain; in order for us to know creation, we must know destruction. In these final dogged days of winter, it is time to cut away the death bramble that clings to the soles of your spirit.
It is time to lance the wound and let the poison run out, so that new skin, new life, can form in its place; tougher this time and well-versed in the negativity that exists in the world, this thicker skin will protect you so that you can go and work your light.
There is no shame in watching the train-wreck that is your shadow. There is no shame in staring at the carnage, unable to look away from the horrors that can exist in a place where you thought you’d never find them.
Look into the fire and find the truth, rise from the ashes of your fear and walk again amongst the living, forever changed and with a sturdier stride. And when you have returned, when you have faced down the monsters of your own making, and when you have risen above the flames of your own self-destruction, then you will be able to lead.
You can be a lantern in the void for those who are following behind you, you can help them to see and to know and to learn. This is where you become the light; this is when you begin to shine.
But for now, let those black waves consume you. Let them topple you over; let them pull you down into the depths of yourself because you will surface.
Just when you think that you can’t handle the pressure or the isolation, just when you think that you have filled to your capacity and that you will burst, you will break free and that first breath will taste so sweet – as if you had never breathed before at all.'
~ Brieanna Lewis
See also the previous posts:
• For the New Year
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• The Role of Reevaluation in the Gay Man's Quest for Authenticity
• Wrestling With the Angel
• Affirming Our Essential Goodness
Images: Abdiel Jacobsen, a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. (Photographed by Ken Browar and Deborah Ory of the NYC Dance Project.)
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