Dark Side

 

You say you must learn

to embrace your dark side.

But why did you need to take sides?

Darkness is not the absence of light.

Darkness is the womb of light.

 

Be the sparkling vortex of creation,

a thousand-armed whirler,

spun from the blackness in your core.

That is where the Mother is.

 

Let a swarthy Madonna be your breath.

Then you won't need any rule but wonder.

Just for a little while, sorrow and joy

will drink from the same grail of tears -

 

the cup you've been holding too long  

between your ribs, and polishing 

too carefully. What was full 

must spill and get chipped.

 

Mother Raven, with those fire-flecked 

feathers, will carry no sun in her beak

to dip in the chalice of your heart, 

but a porcelain zero, the new moon,

brimmed with the swirling  

splendor of emptiness,  

portal to the uncreated.

 

Now listen to evening fall.

Hear darkness come with all its stars,

those bells un-struck yet ringing, 

and beyond their far faint music,

the final beauty, silence.

 

Hark beyond hearing

and cleanse the mind of thought, 

of time, of the need to awaken,

for the grace of the present moment
illuminates your bones from inside.

 

What was that troubled dream?

What was that world swept away

by this breath?