Follow the Star

Dark Journey

“One thing that comes out in myths, for example, is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.”

Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)

Joseph Campbell was the most influential voice of our time for tying the human community together through stories and myths. He educated us about certain themes that reverberate over time and space, from culture to culture, again and again. One of those themes is the light that comes out of darkness.

Today is the Winter Solstice, the longest day of darkness in the northern hemisphere, and as we know, it will be followed by the celebration of Christmas next week. The story of the birth of Jesus begins with the light of a very bright star. That star alerted the people of the day that something momentous was to occur. Those were dark times for the Hebrews—a decree had gone out from their Roman overlord, Caesar, that every person must travel to their ancestral home to be counted in a census. Joseph and Mary traveled about eighty miles on foot and donkey; she, in her last month of pregnancy. It was a dark and dangerous week-long journey. But there was that star, whose brightness showed the way.

In his poem, In A Dark Time, Theodore Roethke, wrote:

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;

I hear my echo in the echoing wood—

a lord of nature, weeping to a tree.

I live between the heron and the wren;

Breasts of hill, and serpent's den...”

As human beings, we often find our brightest light during our darkest moments. We relate to the darkness and to the light because we experience both. We are well acquainted with the dangers lurking along that dark road during our own unpredictable life journey. And we know the Christ light that shines through that darkness, both within and without, to guide us safely to our destination.

Happy Solstice, everybody. Let the light begin!

                                                          In the Spirit,

                                                               Jane