light in the darkness: a collective healing project.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time: reading, writing, & dreaming everything I can about what it might mean to mourn, to grieve, and to heal. As I’ve moved through this year, it’s become increasingly apparent to me that many comrades—including myself—are still living in what I’ve starting, half-joking, to think of as the Long December 13th, an endless day-after the election. The moment at which our immediate hopes for a better life dissolved sealed around us like amber, an airless space in which it grows more and more difficult to breathe.
I think we need to heal.
I thought about what I wrote before the election—about how we were, and are, lights in the darkness for one another; and particularly, this passage:
In winter, we celebrate and call forth light in the darkness. During Hanukkah, the menorah is lit at sundown, and placed it in the window so that everybody might be reminded that miracles are possible—that things can be different. At Diwali and Kartika Purnima, buildings, trees, rivers, and homes are illuminated to symbolise the driving-back of darkness. The Christmas tradition speaks of the guiding star, the cosy stable, the wise and the wealthy called to there to exalt a child born into poverty and oppression. And many of the ancient monuments of north-western Europe, from Newgrange to Stonehenge, are constructed to amplify and revere the precise moment at which the sun pauses in its passage, refuses darkness, re-commits to light and warmth and life. These are radical moments. The courage of the candle-flame.
I thought, too, of my long project of learning from the many non-human natures with whom we share our lives, our worlds. As autumn deepens into winter, they draw inward; they shift into a restorative mode that makes the generative openness of summer possible. There’s a quietness, a sadness too, about winter. The trees let go of their leaves & turn towards the soil for nourishment. The birds are almost silent, the animals asleep. Could we learn from this, somehow? Could we draw inward, together? Could we gather and restore? Might it work? Is it worth a try?
I don’t know the answers to any of these questions—but I’m willing to find out. This is an invitation to you to join me in this exploration.
If you’re on the left and 2019/20 has you feeling lost, hurt, depressed, angry, bewildered, or anything else that you feel might benefit from a process of collective, comradely grieving & healing, please register your interest below, and I’ll update you soon.
Let’s be lights in the darkness for one another. We’re all we’ve got, and that’s so much.