Next In-person walk: Saturday, December 13, 9-10 a.m.
Covenant Presbyterian Church back parking lot, 2222 at Mo-Pac, Austin
Next Zoom discussion: Saturday, December 13, 10:30 a.m. Central Time (U.S. and Canada) Zoom link
By Janet Davis
Walk In: Losing Our Lives by Moving Slowly into the Dark
A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark
Go slow
if you can.
Slower.
More slowly still.
Friendly dark
or fearsome,
this is no place
to break your neck
by rushing,
by running,
by crashing into
what you cannot see.
Then again,
it is true:
different darks
have different tasks,
and if you
have arrived here unawares,
if you have come
in peril
or in pain,
this might be no place
you should dawdle.
I do not know
what these shadows
ask of you,
what they might hold
that means you good
or ill.
It is not for me
to reckon
whether you should linger
or you should leave.
But this is what
I can ask for you:
That in the darkness
there be a blessing.
That in the shadows
there be a welcome.
That in the night
you be encompassed
by the Love that knows
your name.
Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
Questions
This time of year, darkness is ever-increasing around us. Can you name the “darknesses” (unknowns, sufferings, questions, fears, losses, changes, etc.) you are walking toward this season?
Are you willing to slow your pace and choose to enter more fully into darkness?
What hesitations do you encounter? What fears does darkness activate within you?
Can you imagine being accompanied by the Love that knows your name?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in the Liminal Darkness
Liminality and Certitude
Liminality and certitude are always
at odds with one another.
Anxiety thrums through the body, unmooring—
Pause.
Relax your shoulders, unfurl your hands. Try a deep cleansing breath.
Give yourself to the earth.
Let Mother gift herself to you.
Let your feet hit the soil,
remember the patterns of growth, the cycles of life.
Things bury deep. Things grow in the dark.
Things rise again.
All things transition.
In the radiance of dark, there is process:
the unfolding of mystery,
things words cannot articulate,
a threshold to freedom the mind cannot comprehend.
But the body feels,
the heart knows:
This is liminality.
The threshold of transition,
from death to life, from evening to morn,
from gestation to giving birth.
The unknown is a part of it all.”
Questions
The patterns of creation connect darkness and growth in so many ways: buried seeds, wombs, and roots to name a few! However, as the poet offers, to engage the wisdom of the darkness, we are often invited to first let go of certainty. What certainties are you being invited to release?
As you pause in the center, can you find a way to rest in this darkness? To welcome it as a liminal space, full of potential for meeting Mystery in new ways? Your breath might be a help.
What unknowns are you being invited to welcome? What darkness might God inhabit with you?
Walk Out: Saving our Lives by Walking the Road We Cannot See
Blessing for the Longest Night
All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.
It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.
So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.
You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.
This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.
So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see. This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.
Questions
Can you recall past journeys through dark times?
Where did comfort and guidance come from in those times when you had little light to see the road ahead?
What sustained you?
Truth be told, believing that we can see the road ahead is more illusion than reality (albeit an illusion we love!).
Does anything within you remember how to feel your way by memory or touch, the hand of a companion or the pull of the moon?
What practices help you access or remember the hope that you are walking toward dawn?