More on Darkness: What does it means to 'not be able to see'?

I get a daily meditation in my email every morning from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation. Today's meditation was about seeing the way mystics see.  No pun intended, but it was an eye-opener for me!  Third-eye seeing is how mystics view the world. 

Rohr explains the three eyes through which a person might 'see'. I paraphrase here and encourage the reader to go to the source  The first eye seeing with our senses-sight and the awareness we have -the thought- as it is related to what we see through our actual sight.  The second eye Rohr says is the seeing through our reason, reflection and meditation. This takes what we see with our eyes to a 'deeper' level.  In my understanding it is gives us more knowledge about what we are 'seeing'. It may or may not result in a correct interpretation of what we think we see.  And the third eye seeing that mystics have cultivated  happens when there is this wondrous seeing that happens when as Rohr says " our heart space, our mind space and our body awareness are all simultaneously open and non resistant...a moment of deep inner connection (in The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See p.28).

How might we, as persons who dread the darkness (because we can not see with our sight), see? Certainly when I am in the 'I can't see' mode, I easily go to panic and fear. What I see or can't see is at best a distortion or it is not seeable because it is in darkness.  My heart is not open, it is closed in protection and survival mode. My mind is flooded only the idea 'of worse case scenario' , and my body is frozen with anxiety, or readying for fight or flight.  (Mostly for those with panic issues, the primary panic reaction is to freeze-followed at times by either actual flight or flight through dissociation.)

Now that I know there are more ways of seeing I can experiment with my relationship with darkness.  Bigger, broader, more inclusive and expansive ways of seeing are available to me.  I'm at the beginning of this learning curve-so I start first with the acknowledgement that what I 'see' or don't 'see' when I am in darkness may not be accurately thought about (interpreted) in my mind.  Am I willing to allow that possibility (I am opening my mind-just a crack)?  I insert the word 'Love' in the crack in my mind, so it does not snap shut. I put my focus on my heart, which might be racing at the moment, reinforcing the panic response.  I will say a mantra to my heart: "love... love...love" with each breath, helping the heart 'remember' love comes through it. I give my body permission to be very still, to listen to my mantra and to be still, but not needing to be frozen.  I THINK this is the process of the second eye: reason, meditation and reflection. I will do this practice tonight as I am in the darkness and let you know how it goes...

Darkness Awakens Our Panic (overwhelming anxiety/terror)

This weekend brought a culmination of a lot of darkness:  the scariness of Halloween, All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, The timing of the dark and new moon, and the time change, which plunges our late afternoon into the darkness of night. All this at one time is a shock to our beings-body, mind and emotions.  Bad timing, to have all this converge at one time-stirs up fears, dread and panic.  Many people I know dread the coming months: the short days, the early darkness and lack of light, barren landscape, holiday stresses and pressures, and for those of us in the northlands-the cold. One shared about the panic that overwhelms her with this darkness.  In asking the Creator of All that Is to care for her, this letter, prayer came forth.  I share it, because I know I have this 'panicked one' in me, too. Maybe you do as well. If so, may you know this Truth:

 

Dearest ____________:  (Dearest –because this letter is written to that dear one who is on the receiving end of the experience of panic, not the one doing the panicking.)

Panic attacks are a symptom of the ego* realizing it has absolutely no impact or ability to control what is external/outside of itself.  Darkness is one thing it is not possible to have control over, short of getting a really big spot light.  Even that option has limits to how much darkness it dispels, and ultimately  it just draws attention to the one holding the spotlight (us). For most of us that is worse than being in the dark. It is worse because the light is then focused on the parts of ourselves we don't really want others to see, or to acknowledge ourselves!

*Ego is an acronym for ‘Eclipsing God’s Oversight’ or ‘Eclipsing God’s Other’. Ego is also known as: local self/surface self/false self/mask.

 

Darkness is an invitation to experience the cost of Ego being in charge.  Like a child’s fear of the dark.  Out of the darkness come noises from that which cannot be seen. The child fears the noise (or silence) and the imagined, terrible source of the noise. We, too, have fright coming from things that cannot be seen (known). We too are terrified by the things we hear in our heads that cannot be confirmed or de-confirmed, and we live in fear/terror that our imagined ‘stuff’ might be true.  I have met only one person in all my years of working with others whose ‘stuff’ was as bad as they feared it might be.  In fact for this woman, her ‘stuff’ (what she had hidden in her inner darkness) was even worse than she imagined it could be. And yet, when she allowed herself to see with the EYES OF HER HEART-which is where real vision resides, she saw all the different facets of her hidden ‘stuff’.  This willingness to see allowed a Healing beyond her imagination and hope: Compassion, forgiveness, insight, personal transformation, a new ability to experience love. All this…and more became known and real to her. It is for everyone. That is a promise if a person is willing and begins to act from a place of being willing.  

There is a solution for all panic attacks.  However, the solution requires someone else be in charge, rather than who is currently running the life of the person experiencing the panic (or intolerable level of anxiety/ fear). That someone is whom I call the Divine One, and others call God, Higher Power, Creator, Love. This is a problem for most people because it requires an act of Faith.  Faith is acting even if we don't believe.  This is where the phrase ‘faith without action is dead’ or ‘Faith without action is nothing’ comes from.  Belief is not a requirement for Faith, but action is required if Faith is to have any chance to do her work.  Action and a willingness to act on Faith is the only invitation needed for healing change to occur.