There are days that I intend to shape my thoughts into words, to write a coherent post that is also logical and illuminating. But, I cannot do it. It is as if I have this primordial chaos in my head filled with a thousand intuitions that get jumbled; ideas that are confusing and contradictory with blurred thoughts that blow and whistle but say nothing. There I am, with a pen in my hand, or even the keyboard under my fingers and… nothing.
There is a full moon and today there will be a lunar eclipse. The darkness that obscures the light, the shadow that terrifies, the deafening silence that makes us uneasy. From the brightness of the full moon to the darkness of the eclipse, it is the metaphor of us and our emotions. Of our feeling that it is not stable or logical or even rational. We are not rational, whether we want to be or not.
The truth is that neither darkness nor silence is the void that scares us. We can interpret it like this because in the apnea of reasoning, no matter how agitating it is, there is no logical way to interpret it. And perhaps for this reason too we might be afraid or feel disoriented, shaken, destabilized. Neither silence nor darkness can be deciphered by a rational mind however agile it may be. Silence and darkness speak other languages. There are others. And what do we know about this “other”? What do we know about this “other” that still lives in us, next to reason, or maybe a little further down?
As I struggled to look for a logical thread in my thoughts, some of my anxious outbursts came back to me. In those moments there was always a guide who suggested that I stop and breathe. And my rationality struggling against the idea that this stillness, the silence, and the darkness could bring something good.
But what if it was just like that? If instead that it was as simple as listening to our breaths, it would be there that something could happen? Something that smells of this blessed “other”? That even if the Moon inevitably returns to shine because as it enters the shadow cone, it will return. Then, maybe, we can trust our own breathing and low tides (but feel free to call them emotions if you want), and we can learn to stay in that moment, only to return to shine our best light.
Life shows us different ways to trust our shadows in darkness and in silence. The star that brings us and up and down with its tides, our Moon, gives us opportunities and helps govern the feminine cycles and illuminates our emotions.
Whether we look directly at this eclipse or not and we can physically see its chromatic and luminous effects; whether we are afraid and more or less listening, it helps us to know that something or someone is inviting us to listen to the darkness, the silence, helping us to stand still and let it be. We are rest assured knowing that this invitation is for everyone, even those who cannot see it with their own eyes or hear with their ears and who do not walk on their legs along the mountain paths. No limits make us less human and Mankind have their roots on the ground, heads in the sky and heart and stomach somewhere in the middle.
This is the invitation to know that there is something different both within and all around us. Who knows of darkness, of silence, but perhaps who knows, of this rediscovered light.
Good eclipse, good breath, good pause.
Translated from the original by Sophia Boccard