black

Black. Black. Black. Into the abyss of black… Is black even a color? Is it the absence of light or the saturation of all colors. I remember debating  this in art classes. As the end of the year approaches I feel the saturation of experiences and courage to explore this darkness. True darkness is a vacuum or a vortex, it is the polar opposite of expansive light. Yet one cannot exist without the other, so in essence they are the same energy, just different ends of it… or I dare to say, different perceptions of the same thing. As I breathe in and out, vacuum and expansion… it is simply breath.

With my breath I am aware of the delicate balance that I take for granted every day. The play of light and darkness is all around, a never ending game of one chasing the other… So where does this common fear of the dark come from? How is it that darkness can represent, bad, evil and death? As a vibration, black is slow and heavy carrying the weight of experience, bearing the burden of full saturation, constriction, and endless fear. As I look even closer, I realize where the bad/evil/death association comes from. It is the unknown, the mystery, the inexplicable that we often fear as darkness pulling us relentlessly into that vortex of humanity. The heavy gravity of not understanding suffering, pain, evil, and eventually death, is this fear. This fear is intrinsic to human nature, while at the opposite end of the same human experience is Light, love, Divinity, expansion, and most importantly, knowingness. We find comfort in knowing, understanding, seeing. We simply can’t see in the dark.

Or can we? The longer I sit or relax in the darkness, the more sensitive my senses become. I develop a new type of sight- inner vision, intuition. My sight is no longer gazing out into the known; instead it is focused within. Drawn in by the vacuum, into the inner world, less explored, less explainable. What lurks in here? Everything. Every experience, conscious or subconscious, this is my container, my human body. My secrets, my thoughts, and my fears can creep around like zombies. My hidden pain, suffering, and stuffed anger can fester in the corners. It is not always pretty to see what has been sucked in by my vacuum. Yet I know by looking at these things, I can understand them, and in understanding them, I fear them less and less… replacing unknown, with known. Replacing dark with light. This inner knowledge helps me understand the shadows in the external world… it helps me navigate through the global suffering with trust that this human world can be seen differently. Through the eyes of self-awareness or knowingness, which brings more and more light, darkness as fear does not exist.

Darkness has a new identity, without fear, it is actually a beautiful place of wonder and possibility. It is the birthing place of dreams, hopes, and desires. I am well aware of the choice I have… how to use this place? Is it a storage space for fear, or resting place for dreams before they are released into the world? As my breath releases… we shall see.