Walking towards the light . . .

I started this around Winters Solstice and as the Christmas season came and went the process of thought and clarity at the time was lost to finish this until recently.

From darkness comes light and from silence comes sound

For most people there is something a bit intimidating about darkness and silence. Be it a dark room that you hesitate to enter . . . for what awaits you is unknown or the stark silence of a long moment where sound is absent which I have found out in the wilds of an Alaskan adventure a time or two. Each of these brings with them their own feelings of apprehension.

In the midst of darkness and silence we cry out for light, for sound, for anything to break the emptiness of what we are experiencing. The ironic thing is that darkness and silence often weave in and out of our lives on a daily basis bringing both fear and peace. But that peace only comes when we know that the darkness and silence are not eternal, are not our destiny. We can appreciate what they bring when we know that light and sound will soon pierce their emptiness and fill our lives with something more.

I’m not sure why I am thinking on all of this as something in my mind is tossing this idea around and I’m just beginning to get some clarity to what I’m figuring out (although it is neither new nor profound but maybe more of a relearning from our past).

I think it is the beauty of a sunrise that captures so intently the starkness of the piercing of darkness by the light. From the blackest of black, the emptiness of night brings forth not just light but an abundance of color that begins at the horizon and spreads across the sky overcoming and once again conquering the darkness. The amazing thing from my vantage point is that without the darkness the sunrise would not be as spectacular, for light among light blends together and the brilliancy of it is lost within its equal.

But when contrasts of darkness and light meet in battle at the dawn, we see in those first few moments just how bright the light is in comparison to the darkness.

The same idea plays itself out with silence. Complete, utter silence can be overwhelming. The absence of “white noise” in our life can make one feel so lonely amongst the silence. It’s as if you are the only person living, yet you’re not even sure you are in fact living . . . because even the sound of your breath is silenced. And then in the midst of nothingness comes forth sound.

Even the sharp reeling of an alarm sounds harmonious in the stark nothingness. And yet if silence is intruded by a beautiful melody or one long perfect note, there is so much comfort and warmth in that sound. Rhythm can bring life and harmony into our lives. In the emptiness of silence a note . . . a melody . . . a song . . . brings with it the knowledge we are not alone.

And so from both light and sound come life, a beautiful bounty of life.

As our Alaskan winter comes to an end . . . as we go through an early ‘break up’ with this unusual warm up this week we are gaining both light each day (about 5 ½ minutes a day now) and the sounds (that crunching sound of ice and the splashing of water sprayed as you drive through the puddles) that come with the changes of the seasons in the arctic northland.

Soon the light will be constant again and the fish return to our waters that bring the great battles and the rights to stories galore. It is hard not to want to push the sun higher in the sky to make those fun times return NOW!

Fur Rondy awaits this weekend and Sunday many of us will proclaim our craziness with the first “Running with the Reindeer” in downtown Anchorage.

More to follow . . .

Ice

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