December 2024 Dispatch: Jyoti, the light within.
Happy December, Galaxy! It’s been a wild November, and I’m not going to sugarcoat anything: I feel a lot of uncertainty about what’s in store for us in the next four years. In hindsight, it seems like much of the fall was a practice in waiting and seeing. It felt hard to plan for anything, because the potential outcomes of our presidential election seemed to set up two vastly different realities. Although I often talk about the practice of cognitive dissonance being worthwhile, sometimes holding two conflicting ideas together is just plain hard.
So when the election results rolled in, and the outcome felt devastating - it also, strangely, felt like a relief? Not quite, because I can’t feel good about how much vulnerable populations stand to lose in a Trump presidency. But at least I finally know where things stand, and coming to grips with reality allows me to take actionable first steps, and get really clear on how and where I want to send my energy.
The Wednesday After, early in November, I knew that our studio theme for December would be light. I love a b-side and an alternative take, and sometimes I think that the symbolism of light can be oversimplified and pretty cheesy. I love our yearly October jaunts into celebrating the shadow
But right now, it’s dark. Literally, and figuratively. There is so much I don’t know about the years to come, and in those moments, I really understand the powerful symbolism of light.
I think about how the Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist traditions of Diwali celebrate the triumph of good over evil, and light oil lamps in their homes, worship spaces, and workplaces.
I think about the pagan traditions of Yule and Korochun, where the dark Gods give over their power to the Gods of light, and bonfires are lit to ensure warmth to loved ones, and safe passage between the worlds.
I think about the Christian story of the Nativity, where the birth of Jesus took place in a dimly-lit stable, a defiant celebration of hope in the lowest of circumstances, in contrast to the looming violence of King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.
I think about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, when the Temple of Jerusalem was recovered and rededicated during the revolt of the Maccabees, and only one day’s worth of ritual oil remained. It kept the menorah lit for eight days, and in some traditions, the ceremonial light of the menorah is to be displayed outside, as a public display and reminder of the miracle.
And I think of the power of one small, warm light. Candles placed in the windows in Ireland sent the message that all were welcome if safe harbor was needed, and in times that Catholicism was repressed, that it was safe for a wandering priest to recite Mass there.
The Sanskrit term Jyoti translates as divine light. It can be the light that illuminates dark spaces and leads one away from illusion, to wisdom and full knowing. It can also be one’s inner radiance - and by the practices of yoga, we slowly remove all that obscures that brilliant inner light. In the Yoga Sutras, we learn that one of the paths to Samadhi is by way of focusing on that divine inner light.
So, back to The Wednesday After, in early November. I woke up, not sure of anything except that I wanted our studio space was going to be a candle in the window, so to speak. I posted a picture of one of our sweet star lights, promised to keep speaking up and speaking out about injustice, and said that I hoped our studio could provide safe harbor for people to gather in community, on that day, and as far into the future as I could possibly imagine. And while I do think that our studio symbolizes the fire that we all gather toward - the warmth and light that helps re-animate us and lights our way in dark times - I also think that each of us, as we come together, gets a chance to re-kindle our divine inner light.
We connect, lean into each other, and just like two candle wicks connecting to pass along a flame, we uncover and recover our own light within. Once it's lit, I hope we’ll carry it out into the world, to light up others we cross paths with. And light isn’t a scarce or finite resource. You can light hundreds of candles off of a single candle.
This all brings me to my favorite memory of Christmas in my childhood Lutheran church. When it came time to sing Silent Night, the sanctuary lights were dimmed, and eventually turned off, and a single candle was lit from the candles on the altar. We each had a small candle, and one by one, we lit our candle off of our neighbors candle, until the sanctuary glowed with the light of hundreds of small candles, lit one by one, neighbor to neighbor.
The hymn Silent Night, or Stille Nacht, was composed not for a blustery church pipe organ, but for guitar and voices only, after a flood had damaged the church organ. Sitting and singing about radiant beams from the holy face of a baby, backed by a single guitar, the holy space lit by candlelight: it was nothing short of magical. I think it’s a reminder that we can persist, through floods that damage organs, sieges and destroy temples, disappointing and potentially dangerous election outcomes, and more. But we have to stick together. And we have to share our light.
I hope you like this rendition of Silent Night as much as I do - this whole Christmas album is my favorite of all time, and listening to this song never fails to get the waterworks a-flowing. And as John Denver so sweetly and simply says at the end of the song: “Merry Christmas, you guys.”
What I’m Reading…
If you knew me in the pandemic, you knew that I was obsessed with two authors: Olga Torkarczuk and Thomas Mann. Tokarczuk’s book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones Of the Dead blew me away when I read it in 2020, and she went on to wow me again with Nobel Prize-winning historical fiction novel The Books of Jacob. My favorite Thomas Mann novella is Death in Venice, but when things went into lockdown, I knew that it was time to finally read The Magic Mountain, which I had been dancing around finishing for almost a decade. I read the final pages on the day I got my first Covid vaccine, actually, and I’ll never be able to separate the experience of the 2020 pandemic with being in the Sanatorium with Hans Castorp.
Imagine my excitement when I saw that Tokarczuk’s latest novel, The Empusium, is a work in counterpoint to Mann’s The Magic Mountain, with a hefty dose of horror/mystery. Then imagine my excitement when I received it as a birthday present just a few days ago. I’m already diving in and enjoying it, as I do all of her novels. If you have an opinion about Thomas Mann or Olga Tokarczuk, or are reading any fantastic books, drop me a line and tell me about it.
