On this Solstice Day I am clearly recalling that as a child I had an unusually friendly relationship to darkness.
While many children fear the dark and what might be lurking I loved the darkness for a very specific reason. Let me explain.
In early elementary school I received a toy car dashboard for Christmas. It was designed to sit on your lap, and it had a steering wheel, a working horn, and flashing turn signals. I particularly loved those flashing turn signals. I would take my dashboard down into the basement, turn off all of the lights, and then steer my way down imaginary roads. I occasionally would honk my horn at something or someone. But I made a lot of turns, primarily so that I could use my turn signals. By going down into the dark basement, that context allowed me to clearly see the contrast of the darkness with the chosen flashing lights. My mother would ask me why I didn’t play with the car in my bedroom. I simply told her I preferred driving down in the cellar which I found to be a whole lot more fun.
As an adult I am navigating in a world of great darkness. It isn’t physical darkness per se. But a great darkness it is indeed. I do not feel fear this darkness. I wouldn’t say I prefer it by any means. But it is here and so I navigate it by making moment by moment choices for Light. I stay conscious in my steering. And I now have something the makers of my dashboard couldn’t have dreamed of.
I have a GPS.
I internally plug Divine Will into my God-Presencing-System, and then I listen and feel my way through the darkness mostly unafraid. I use the darkness as contrast for my own Light. I do not deny or seek to suppress the darkness. I simply steer by intuition, and use the Light to guide my way. I use the darkness, and it no longer uses me.
And so to the darkness I say: “you have no authority over me for I am using you as a way to shine brightly in this world.”
And so on this Solstice Day I thank my little boy for teaching me not to steer clear of but to steer consciously in.
