unknown familiar darkness

As I enter again this unknown familiar darkness

I pray for strength.

Strength to meet the faces of myself

that inhabit this space.

Those pieces of me

that haunt my living

in the light.

The pieces who try to grab back with a viciousness

the parts I have worked so hard to redeem.

There has been success in the dark.

Hard won battles,

fierce competition

have yielded softer gentler places;

places of deeper compassion,

wiser discerning,

more peaceful acceptance of life.

The light nourishes those pieces,

gives them life and roots

but entry back into their place of birth

always puts them at risk.

The outcome of the dark night battles

are never sure.

All hangs in the balance.

I have come to know

that angels dwell here too.

Ready at the whisper for help

to lend their love

to help tip the scales.

Some believe the darkness

belongs to the evil,

to the despicable,

to the hopeless,

to the forgotten.

True, they wander through the night

clutching at those whose memory of the light has faded.

They catch some now and then,

but not without a battle. T
This place at its end is the domain of the Holy One.

A sacred place of cleansing and new birth.

A holy place where all is made new.

Not a safe place,

not an easy place

but a place where all is possible

if we dare to engage ourselves

to own our shadows

to name our pain

to claim our wounds

and to be healed

and sent back out into the light

to recover and to love.

As I enter again this unknown familiar place

I pray for strength.