On Darkness

Day 27 (Tuesday 27th December 2016)

27 - the number of studio albums released by David Bowie.

From 1967 to 2016 David Bowie was recognised as being at the 

vanguard of contemporary culture, not just for being an outstanding 

innovative musician but also as an artist, actor and designer. Bowie died 

on January 10 2016, after an 18 month battle with liver cancer. 

He released his last album, Black Star, on his 69th Birthday, 

it was released on 8 January 2016 ( 2 days before his death).

It is the extra Boxing Day holiday for many of us. I hope you are finding time to relax, recuperate and spend time with the people you love. I love the lady who has written today's post - Julie Drybrough. She is the founder and Managing Director of Fuchsia Blue Ltd. and is a woman of many talents - an organisational consultant, executive coach, facilitator, speaker, blogger (fuchsia blue blog) and dialogue guide - working with people and organisations to improve conversations, relationships and learning. She inspires people to follow her example and to do things with love.

I first met Julie via Twitter (her handle is @fuchsia_blue) and have subsequently grown to know her in real life. She is a feisty Scottish lass who has moved south to Manchester to live with the man she loves, although she can be found working both across the UK and around the globe. Another major love in her life is, Biba, the dog. She says it how she sees it, is creative, thoughtful, caring and great fun. She enjoys life to the full (be it literally climbing every mountain, photographing and sharing amazing vistas and unusual sights, partying with friends and trying what's available to expand her knowledge and experiences). Julie enhances the lives of many and it is a pleasure hosting her post today.

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On Darkness…..

2016?

What can I say?

In a year where all hell seems to have broken loose in the world, politically, socially, climatically and to be famous seemed to mean that Death had your name firmly in its sights, somehow personal reflections and seem inconsequential and unimportant.

And yet it is always at this time of year, in the darkest months at the point of solstice, that I most seem to need to stop, reflect, readjust, celebrate & consider. There can be peace in the gloom and the murk – a place to hide and be concealed and be… and it can be a scary place – darkness – a lonely place filled with terrors both imagined and real.

If I dwell on heart and heights and hopes – it is at this time of the year I seem to most acutely feel and acknowledge these.

I'm mostly irreligious... yet spiritual in my own way. If I err toward anything at this time of year is a sort of pseudo Pagany/Christiany sense of beginning and the need to appreciate that which is alive. I want to be moved by the tradition of carol singing. I want to feast and dance. I want to walk the dog in the bitter cold in barren woods near me and enjoy the green of holly against the brown sleeping ground. I want the warmth of the house to be welcoming after the cold outside. I want to understand my privilege at having a home, family, safety and not take that wholly for granted….

December in the northern hemisphere speaks to me of winter proper.

Things asleep yet to wake.

Long nights, which inevitably turn slowly toward the spring… turning points.

The dark banished with lights & fires as we strive to see and make beauty in the darkness.

The hope of light and the relief it brings.

Yule has its roots in the old-Nordic word ‘iul’ or the Anglo-Saxon ‘hweol’,
both meaning ‘wheel’, which points to the ever turning year
and natures cycle of life, death and rebirth.Add caption

The dark gap where loved ones, now gone, should be; the way those we love & care for lighten our lives.

I learned a few years ago how scared I was of the dark and how terrifying it is to be without a sense of light; the experience of profound loneliness and the way it hobbles and derails you… I tried, unsuccessfully, to run away from the dark, forcing positivity and trying to conjure light. But I was diminished and sad. I was afraid and alone. My capacity to create light for myself was tiny. 

Dale Grimshaw - street art, UK

My ability to fool myself was even smaller. It was only when I turned to others, asking for help to illuminate and when I began to face into the darkness - looked into my sadness and shame and fear, that things started to re-form.

So at this time of year – if you feel the melancholy or the loneliness or the sadness…. Just know that these are one part of the story – that even in the darkest moments there is the possibility of light. That you may need others to light your way, scary as that is… that it is only knowing the dark that allows us to appreciate the light.

I wish you and yours the very best for the season and for 2017 whether it be dark or light… and I pass on a gift that sticks with me at this time of year – David Whyte’s Sweet Darkness – in the hope you find some semblance of inspiration or understanding in the verse.

"SWEET DARKNESS"

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark 

where the night has eyes

to recognise its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home

tonight.The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

John Atkinson Grimshaw, oil painting UK, circa 1880

With Thanks to the Coal Dust

Day 47 (Saturday 16th January 2016)

47 AD, the year in which Vardanes I of Parthia (which later became known as Persia and
is now parts of both Iran and Iraq) was assassinated by his brother, Gotarzes, whilst out hunting.
Vardanes was praised by Tacitus for being a young and highly gifted ruler. During his reign he reimposed Parthian
control over the city of Seleucia on the Tigris. His brother claimed the throne after Vardanes death, but Gotarzes II
was cruel and debauched, resulting in the Parthians rebelling and petitioning for aid from Rome to
depose him - this area of the world has a tradition of civil war and unrest over the past millennium.

Today's deeply personal and powerful post is anonymous. Once you read it you will understand why. It has been published today at the author's request, as today is her 40th birthday. I am sure you join me in wishing her a happier and easier year ahead.

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The Context

I am forty today.  It’s a moment of sorts.  I drafted this blog in 2015, hoping the advent series would run until 16th January so I could write about the threshold of turning forty.  I drafted this blog to contain words about having courage to overcome fears, drawing strength from the love and support of family and friends, and daring to achieve our dreams as we live our lives.  I took that approach because 16th January 2016, in some sort of indescribable twist, was also the day I could tell everyone I was pregnant for the first time.

Except I’m not pregnant anymore.  

My miscarriage started on Christmas Eve and it was in a Holby City Christmas that my love and I found out that “there is no heartbeat”.  The complications that ensued resulted in emergency surgery which meant, even in the depths of what was A. Nightmare. we were able to prioritise.  Our minds turned to my health above everything else.  

That paragraph has taken me two weeks.  

It has taken me two weeks to find courage to write about something that is awful and common.  Common, yes.  But not common to me.  Common, yes.  But hidden away in rooms with two-seater sofas, a high backed chair and pastel coloured leaflets. Common, yes.  But so difficult that we don’t speak about it. Common, yes.  But if I tell others about it does that mean I am weak, not smart anymore, not hire-able?  I chose to rewrite this blog because as it turns out, it is still about overcoming fears, drawing strength from the love of family and friends and achieving our dreams.  

The Theme

Comets.  For me it’s about light.  The light we leave as trace in our connections with others, whether we are aware of it or not. It is also the light we turn to when we need it. Perhaps spiritually or perhaps quite literally.  When I walk in nature with the sun on my face, my shoulders don’t just drop, I become aware of them in a different way.  I am light without what I had been carrying with me.  In its absence it becomes noticeable.  In that light, as I walk, I can see more clearly, examine more accurately and understand differently.

Comet McNought, 2007

Coal dust.  For me it’s my family and my lineage.  My family are coal miners. One granddad was out on strike, whilst the other worked in HR for the National Coal Board.  One a steady and smart man, packed to the brim with a sense of fairness and family values, and the other exactly the same.  I picture a dense grey sparkling matter, as vast as space, that I lean in to when I need it.  A substance that accommodates me and that provides resilience.  It is a rebooting space to go to.  My personal Etch-a-Sketch.

The Point

It is the strength I find, in my moments in the light and the dark, that is carrying me now as I get used to being two people for a while.  The one that says “Yes, it was lovely thank you, very restful.  No, we never do much for New Year.  How was yours?” and the one that is woken by sweaty panic every morning because the anaesthetic isn’t quite out of my system and I don’t know where I am or what time of day it is.  I just know to breathe and it will become clear.

Some of the Moments

The sun on my face the first day I was babysat by my brother.  I found him to be a bit more lenient than my folks and my other half, so I made my escape. With my laces trailing I shuffled down the driveway to lean against the fencepost.  I tilted up like a sunflower. I let the sun pour over my face and I let myself cry.

The darkness in the night where the fear is high.  It’s a place where I don’t know what will happen to me. Even though I know none of us really do know. It is where vulnerability courses through me.  The hand I reach for holds me and keeps me steady.

The smiles I get from scanning Facebook.  At its best, it is a gentle Elvish nurturer, connecting me to my loved ones around the world.  At it’s worst, it is a game of demonic roulette, as it can conjure up images that close up my throat and squeeze out my lungs.  Painful and critical reminders that life is going on.

How relaxed I feel in my body when I dream of a holiday.  My mind palace is a different place to that of Holmes', and I like to go there a lot at the moment.  I spend time in a place where I am well and free and where I can make plans for some devilish fun.  Those times will come.

The voices of the women in the recovery room.  Gentle lady after gentle lady emerged from the fog to hold my hand, to share their words of connection; “I have been where you are”, they said, one after the other.  “Fruit and vegetables, and plenty of sunshine.” And when I cried, the lady that leaned in and whispered slowly in my ear “Breathe, long, and deep”. She stayed close to my ear and breathed with me for a while.

Some sort of conclusion

We control very little.  We are in an industry where we long for authenticity, for showing up, for openness, humanness, purpose and mindfulness.  Yet there are times when we need to know we don’t have to show up at all.  Times when we need the world to hold us and contain parts of us that we can’t contain for ourselves. We need our protected places to go to in solitude and with loved ones where there is strength in the light and the dark.  We can put a little bit of ourselves here and a little and different part of ourselves there.  For now, I choose to show up in words.  I understand in a new way what it is to say; “this writer has chosen to remain anonymous to protect their identity”.   There is a part of me that needs protecting on my 40th birthday. That is my trace today.  With thanks to the coal dust.

Anon.