Big light. Big shadow.

by Kayce S. Hughlett

“The bigger the light, the larger the shadow.”

I don’t know about your life right now, but mine feels like the both/and of this human existence Is magnified to the max! Shadow and light. Blessings and depravity. Deep knowing and helplessness. Gratitude and grief. Methinks those Gemini twins are dancing both dirge and delight double time in the world.

While the state of the world, our bodies, our problems or joys can feel shockingly new each day or boringly mundane, I’ve noticed that when I slow down and pause, another both/and appears. Yes, I’ve been here before. Yes, it all is new.

To punctuate the points of slowing down and serendipity, I opened my own daily meditation book, As I Lay Pondering and there in print, in my own words, was the synthesis of what I’m wrestling with.

… My shadows were expanding and contracting even while my internal light steadily increased.

A seeker of the light will always have great shadows in their path. Shadow and light balance each other. This isn’t dissimilar to a simple gravity pendulum whereby after an initial push, the weight swings back and forth at a constant amplitude, balancing itself out. As our emotional pendulum moves far into sadness and lets go, it will swing to an equal degree of joy and back, again and again. So how do we live fully into joy and sorrow without getting whiplash from the ride?

If our eyes are open, we see not only the amazing beauty of the simplest pleasure, but also the great depth of pain that pervades the world. Perhaps the wisdom is in the expansion and contraction as we make room for both shadow and light.

I’m curious … where and how, or are you, feeling expansion and contraction, shadow and light, joy and sorrow these days? I hope you’ll leave a comment. Please.