The Light and the Dark

Sonnet #2

Oh, song of night, create outspoken day

And it shall spring from nothingness the way

That All-that-Is is only for its not.

For this we know, thought it is never taught,

That in sweet bloom, the fruit begins to rot,

The bubbling stew contained by metal pot,

And birds’ free flight informs our earthiness.

What’s more is more when something else is less,

And in some hurrying figure, stillness lies.

The largely laughing man hides infant’s cries.

Clean mountains draw from clustered dusty plain,

As sanity builds walls with the insane.

So sing! Spontaneous dream in unfelt, unknown night

Begins the world again; from dark flows light.

When there was only One, One chose to know Self, to know Being. That choice was of Love. The One, in that instant, was infinitely fragmented into the Many. And in all of the beingness of the Many there was the yes and the no, the right and the left, the up and the down.... the light and the dark. 

The light and the dark played together with great joy. Their love for each other knew no bounds and their devotion to each other was total. They knew themselves to be two parts of a whole so sacred that all of creation would hush to listen to the whispered rumour of its secrets. All of the world, in its seasons, its night and day, its highest heights and its deepest depths, danced to the song composed by the light and by the dark. A great being and becoming was engendered through the love that these two felt, each for the other and each for the Whole.

The light sang of choosing, of will and reaching out into the world. The darkness sang of being, of reception of all the world's gifts, of holding All within. Together, they sang a song of polarity, of yes and no, in perfect harmony and service, each to the other and each to the Whole.

The light saw the fruits of its willfulness in the world. It saw the clamour for more, for more, and always for more. It saw the strength of will used to enslave and oppress others. It held this with a terrible mourning cry forming in its core. The light saw so much that was so difficult to see. It suffered greatly through its sight and its knowing of what the will and the choosing had created.

The dark felt such compassion for the light. The dark held as much of the suffering of the light as it could. The dark, so receptive, so able to hold within itself these truths, these parts of the All, took more and more of this upon itself. And it did this because it loved the light with all of its being. It served the Whole and offered itself in this way over and over and over again, and always in love.

The dark took into itself so much that was of cruelty, of suffering, of fear and loathing, of hatred and vengeance and death. It did this as a great service to the light which it loved with All of itself. The light felt lighter and less encumbered by these things. It turned ever more toward the joy and the laughter, the spring flowers and the innocence of the children. It came to feel a revulsion toward the dark, holding as it did all of the pain and suffering and selfishness and willful cruelty of the world within its core.

The light forgot the incredible act of love that the dark had offered. The light forgot the suffering it had endured and the way that the dark had gently and consistently taken all of that suffering within itself, so as to ease and comfort the light. The light forgot the great love that the dark had for it. The light forgot that once it had also loved the dark as much as that. The light pulled away from the dark, first in simple reaction to the weight of the suffering that the dark held in service to the Whole, and later, in horror, revulsion and hatred of the dark. For if the dark held all of that within itself, surely it must be made of that! The dark must be cruel and fearful and filled with hate, since it held all of that within itself.

The dark continued, for century after century, for eon after eon, to hold these for the light. It continued to suffer and mourn. It did this in service to the light, so that the light could be all else, could be all that was not fear and hatred, pain and violence brought to the world. The light forgot its essential kinship with the dark. It repudiated its own essential nature. The light and the dark were so completely opposed to each other that it seemed that they could never come back into Wholeness, never embrace each other in love again.

Yet they can. And they must. And the time is now for this reunion to come to the world. And it begins within each one of us. And it changes all the world.

All the world is changed by the realization that the darkness loves the light, serves the light, holds All that it can for the light, so that the light can dance and play in joy. When the light accepts the incredible gift that the darkness has given over all of these centuries and eons, the darkness is redeemed. And wholeness is returned to the world.