Pushing Back Darkness

Light is pushing back the darkness, minute by minute. Since December 22, the Winter Solstice, our sunlight increases daily in increments of 2 to 3 minutes daily. By the middle of January, we will have an hour more daylight than dark.

A line from Mark Strands’ poem, “The Coming of the Light” … 

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves …

I read the introduction today to Mary Pipher’s book, A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence, which piqued my attention about chromotherapy. She doesn’t write about light therapy for healing properties per se, but she talks about how fascinated she is with light –

I am fascinated by every kind of light—sunrise and sunset, light sparkling in fountains,
and the light of celestial bodies. A prism anywhere makes my heart sing.

Mary Pipher

Reading Pipher’s words and about chromotherapy reminds me that Jesus is the Light of the World, and we are healed in Him. John writes of Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.” In the dark months of winter, it’s good to reflect on the light of Christ, how He pushes back the darkness and sets our hearts to singing!

An author I revisited, Rabbi Prager, writes, 

“We all have moments in which we are jolted out of our habitual anxiety, when we surrender control and let go of self-conscious judgments.  In those moments, we can just “be.”  We can feel refreshingly open, clear, and complete.  Our mental clutter and confusion fall away, and we remember with great joy our oneness with all that is.  At such moments, the whole universe dances inside us.”

Rabbi Prager, The Path of Blessing: Experiencing the Energy and Abundance of the Divine

In stillness the dancing … the light pushing back the darkness … 

How exquisite your love, O God!
    How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread
    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light,
    and you open our eyes to light.

~Peterson’s paraphrase from Psalm 36

You did it: you changed wild lament
    into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
    and decked me with wildflowers.
I’m about to burst with song;
    I can’t keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
    I can’t thank you enough.

~Peterson’s paraphrase from Psalm 30

The light of the world
darkness diminishing, I
burst forth with dancing.