Light and Dark of our Times

In this very moment, I am inside of the Blue Hour. A quarter after seven in the morning. The twenty-fourth day of November. A Tuesday.

I turned off the stove light after pouring my second cup of coffee. And now, here I am with that cup and my dog, watching the world transition from night to day. Sage and I are witnessing the transformation from dark to light. There is no stopping it.

The light reveals a slight fog I had not known was there. A grey sky. The light also conceals some things I had been able to see previously. Distant headlights moving down the horizon. I suppose there is clarity in dark just as much as there is clarity in light.

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The last eight months have been tough. I have struggled. I have watched everyone I know and love struggle. Every single one of us is being touched by the same thing. If that doesn't make me feel connected to humanity, what does?

Lately I feel it is a perpetual midnight of a long, cold winter. But I am only certain that these times will turn. The dawn will break. There is no stopping it.

That dawn that will surely come, though I know not when, will reveal something like a warm spring morning with birds and bees and buds. Soft sunlight will illuminate all that had been quietly waiting in the shadows, including me. And I will see differently in the new light. I will be one of those that was able to bear witness to it all. One of those who watched the world move from a period of darkness back into one of light. And so will you.

Right now, though, right now, I am where I am. You are where you are. The world is where it is. It is easy to be caught in a sense of waiting. A limbo. Waiting for things to turn. Awaiting the transition. Awaiting some event that will make life a little easier, a little more convenient, a little more full. But this is essentially waiting for something other than what is. It is a resistance to what is. And what is is really all we have right now, or ever.

So in this dark hour, what are my headlights on the horizon? What are my stars? What can I see now that I wasn't able to see before this pandemic, and that I will no longer be able to see with the eventual dawn?

There is something here for us.