Paula D'Arcy

Like most people, I would prefer to escape deep loss and to avoid hard and challenging times. Yet the dark has given me gifts that are immeasurably deep. It was because I wrestled with the dark that I learned to see beyond what was happening on the surface of my life, and grew to understand that everything is more than it appears to be. In time I knew that the dark is not absent of light. Light moves within the dark at a great depth. With this realization came a glimpse of the inordinate beauty and power just beyond our sight.

Ancient storytellers observed that the sun makes a journey every night. To their eyes, the sun slipped out of sight in the western sky and descended into the dark earth or ocean, only to reappear far to the east at dawn. The old ones watched this daytime voyage of light across the sky. They understood that the sun’s light inspired the process of photosynthesis. It warmed the desert and opened the flowers. But at night, when the sun descended into the dark, they understood that even more was taking place. Do we make this same journey? Is that what this is all about?