Mindfulness: Of Light and Shadow
Raised in a family that didn’t celebrate Christmas, I got to experience this season by looking through rows of deliciously frosted holiday windows. Sparkling, beautiful, and hopeful: That’s what I saw (and only that), through a child’s eyes.
Taking in only the pretty parts at first, when I was a little older I started to take in more around the faith, hope and compassion that all the brightness and lifted voices seemed to be about.
And then I started to wonder why such wealth of spirit couldn’t stretch beyond December into all time.
It can. Maybe not in all the same forms, with all the same rituals, feasts, glitter, and seasonal sounds. But in a different way. In the way that has less to do with specific, end-of-year rituals and gift exchanges, and more to do with the loving intention that fuel so many of them.
How was your December this year? If like mine, there were moments that held brilliance and joy, and other times when lights seemed to dim, and darkness snuck in for a little while. Neither cancelled out the other. They took turns, just like they always do, every month of every year.
Also, there were gifts — some wrapped in paper, some not.
Moving into this new year, how do you wish to embrace December’s gifts? By mindfully touching into what lies below the surface of our chosen celebrations, we can connect with an inner heart space that seeds joy and light, alongside the flickering shadows of sadness, anger, and fear. And we can learn to embrace the necessity of all of them, in their turn.
Mindfulness means being present, with kind intention, with both darkness and light, each playing its seminal role in sustaining life. Click here for a two-part guided practice, for which you can draw on your own December experience to explore ways of gently embracing light / shadow, joy / sorrow.
The first part invites turning toward, acknowledging, and offering caring presence to a ‘shadow’ moment, or difficulty from a recent season. Once felt, allowed, and embraced with kindness, we can learn to accept our shadow experiences as fluctuating and necessary parts of life.
The second half of this practice begins with mindfully letting go, then exploring a moment of “light”. The invitation is to investigate what feels most resonant about a recent experience of joy, awe, contentment, or peace.
This practice is offered as a guidance toward the inner mind-heart-light that’s available, through mindful awareness, to all of us, always — alongside, and only a breath or two away from, each season’s shadows.