Meditations from the Street
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Winter's darkness reminds us of life at its end. The sun's light is hidden behind dark clouds and our life force slows. The winter wind can bring cold rains that strip the trees of leaves and fruit and chills us to the bone.

In the decay of a leaf we sense our own end. The morning newspaper verifies the perils of our human journey. The dark night of the soul is upon us.

For the many poor and homeless of the world, the dark night of the soul is not seasonal. Each and every day reflects the human face of their mortality. Sorrow is the spring at which they must drink. So often, we shrink from looking closely at this sorrow. But if we were to look deeply, we would find their sorrow is ours.

In acknowledging our own hidden pain and grief, we pull down the walls which divide heart from heart, man from man. Suddenly we see the face of the person on the street corner is our face.

The winter darkness is a meditation on our own passing. If we look deeply into its mirror, we can find our own soul, and, in realizing the sorrows, we are given new seeds for our journey. These seeds of love and compassion for all that live and suffer upon the Earth.

Understanding at a deep level that we all are on the same journey can free us to see the great beauty of the world. Life and death are then one movement, a grand song that allows us to "green and dying sing in our chains like the sea" as suggested by the poet Dylan Thomas.

Gazing into the darkness, we find the light within; it grows into new relationships with self and all of life.

Hand in hand, candle by candle, we can then touch, in a new way, our humanity and the world around us.

Such is the gift of winter darkness.

{Originally printed in the Marin Independent Journal, Christmas Day 1999}