Finding Light

She didn’t fear the darkness. It was an old familiar friend by now. She embraced it. She rolled in it. And when she came up for air, she realized that it clung to her more than she to it. So she began, one by one, to unwind the writhen tentacles around her arms, her legs, her hands, her neck, her face, her torso, until finally she reached the threads around her heart and her soul. Deep and long she searched until she found their roots. They were neatly woven into the fabric of her being. Gently, so as not to tear the surrounding tissue, she extricated them, inch by dark inch.

Until at last there remained a single, pulsing vein bound to her soul. This she realized, was the place of beginning, the heart of her dichotomy. In the blackness she saw the million dancing threads from across the spectrum of known and unknown light. There were colors for which she had no name. This is where her empathy, love, compassion, joy, guilt, grief, hope, dreams, wishes, secrets—everything that made her up resided. How could she pluck out the core of herself? It thrummed warmly in recognition, unspun part of itself from its hold, as if to say, “If you so wish it, I will go. I will leave, never to return.” There was no malice, no sadness, no regret, only acceptance and understanding. And in that instant, she had a glimpse of her full being. She reached out and coaxed the tendril back into the fabric of herself, turned, and left it to hum through the core of her for as long as life beat in her breast.

She lost nothing in beating back, removing the dark tendrils that once coldly wrapped around the rest of her. Yet they had all come from that single, beautiful thread, from her core. What then could she do? That gentle, thrumming cord hummed deep in her soul and she knew the answer.

“You may not always make the right choices, but you must try. You must not welcome the darkness so if you do not also welcome the light. But above all, seek balance and understand that balance also seeks you. Live and do not regret, if you can, because that only feeds the bad. And every now and then, garden your heart and garden your soul.”