Tending Your Light…
“There is no amount of darkness that can extinguish the inner light. The important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us. The task is to control the environment within us.” —Joan D. Chittister
In a world that is so outward focused on “doing,” we can forget that sometimes the greatest gift we can give in service to others is personal time rekindling our inner light.
Sometimes tending our light looks like being in community with others and sometimes we recognize we need time alone in darkness to remember and nourish the light within.
This past Saturday, Poetry as Healer gave me the opportunity to witness people coming together to be fed by speakers (who were in turn fed by the audience), poetry, and each other. Their light (and mine) getting brighter as the day went on.
At the same time, there were some who intuitively knew they were best served by lunch on their own, going for a walk at breaks, or sitting quietly writing in their journal. And one person came in just before the afternoon sessions and quietly asked if she could pay a reduced fee to attend just one session. She knew what she needed, asked for it, and left afterwards fed by her experience.
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What do you need right now to tend to your inner light? Is it time in solitude walking or sitting among the stars? Is it time connecting and sharing with other like-hearted souls? Even if you can’t breakaway for an extended time to give yourself exactly what you want, can you create a mini version that gives you what you need?May you be guided to the self-care you need to keep your soul light burning bright.
Remember Your Light
“There is a light within each of us that can never be diminished or extinguished. It can only be obscured by forgetting who we are.”
—Deepak Chopra
Always a Light
“There is always a light within us that is free from all sorrow and grief, no matter how much we may be experiencing suffering.”
—Patanjali
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
