I couldn't sleep last night ... I went to bed too early, had time to have several good dreams and woke up at 2:00 a.m. with all kinds of ideas going through my head for the flower garden and raised gardens for vegetables and an idea for a trellis ...
I got up, grabbed a good book and went in the living room where I was treated to moonlight bright enough to seem like day! I didn't turn the lamp on, but instead, I basked in the moonlight ... looking outside and watching for the deer ...
I saw two little one at the middle feeder ... but only because there shadows were visible and sometimes not ... as they moved through the moonlight. It was like watching two ghosts come into view and then, fade again ... and then reappearing a few feet down the path ... I smiled ...
And realized I was looking at a metaphor of my life ...
Everyone loves to think they have a "sunny" disposition ... living "the brighter side of life" ... with BRILLIANT sunshine oozing through their life ... But none of us is ever thrilled when our life suddenly turns dark ... Things aren't so easy ... We can't really see very clearly ... Our depth perception is almost useless in the shadows ... The rules have changed. The same place that felt so sure, now feels uncertain and full of obstacles ...
But it's only in the dark that we can appreciate the beauty of the moonlight! The dark is where the stars are most visible and the lightning bugs fly! The dark is where ghostly figures on the path ahead are really two deer ...
And we could have missed it all if we had skipped the dark!
But it's only in the dark that we can appreciate the beauty of the moonlight! The dark is where the stars are most visible and the lightning bugs fly! The dark is where ghostly figures on the path ahead are really two deer ...
And we could have missed it all if we had skipped the dark!
I smiled again at the magic in the moonlit woods, snuggled into my favorite chair and picked up the book my son asked me to read. This is what I read:
In our willingness to turn our attention towards the shadow in our own hearts and lives, we find an integrity that is true and unshakable. An ethical life is not a state of sanctuary that we arrive at, but a verb; we discover genuine integrity in those significant moments when we follow the pathway of ending harm and sorrow rather than causing it ...
We learn to pause with mindfulness and care in the moments of such patterns so we can come to understand them and no longer be imprisoned by them. We welcome our shadow and demons and learn to befriend them, to explore all their textures and forms, and find a way of being in which they no longer compel us ...
Through learning to find peace and balance within them, rather than avoiding, suppressing, or denying them, we will find unshakable freedom. There is no spiritual path which is ethically neutral. A path of awakening is directed toward peace, openheartedness, compassion, and freedom. To treasure awakening is to treasure the end of sorrow and alienation in all forms, to bring an end of to the causes of sorrow ... A commitment to integrity enables us to be taught by the ordinary moments in our lives and to approach them with reverence.
Definitive moments of right and wrong are superceded by many more moments where we simply do not know. Moral certainty is possessed by those who have not looked deeply into the countless ambiguities of human life ... We do not always have the right answer but we accept that life asks of us a quality of compassion and understanding that is beyond the realm of right and wrong ... With empathy, we go beyond the boundaries of opinion and judgment, and sense what it might mean to live within the heart and life of the person before us.
I smiled again at the way life illustrated the very thing I was reading about ...
I remembered a poem that was written by my children's great, great grandfather, William Foster Hayes, I (Side note: There is now a William Foster Hayes, IV).
The poem goes like this:
When our way leads through the shadow
Let us always bear in mind
That the shadow owes it's being
To the light that shines behind
When whatever shade beclouds us
We may feel that all is right,
Indubitably knowing
That the shadow proves the light.
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