Light and Dark…

Darlings,

I love Halloween. It makes me feel comfortable to be in a costume I wear everyday.

Halloween is a mix of Celtic, Catholic, Roman and European religious rituals and folk traditions.

The day straddles the line between fall and winter, abundance and scarcity, life and death, celebration and superstition. It's a time when, mythically speaking, the dead return to earth and we wear costumes to ward off the roaming ghosts. It's also when the days grow shorter and the nights get colder. So, in celebration of this, Halloween and day light savings time just around the corner, we gather on our mats to and collectively intend to explore both the idea of light and dark.

When we look at our days, our tasks, our postures, can we look and feel the dark spaces fully, without fear, without masks and breath some light into that space? Can we conserve our energy and light by being energy efficient inwards and expend only the necessary energy outwards?
By this, I mean, for all those instances that might rattle you a moment, can you take pause and decide if it's worth expending energy, thoughts, feelings, words towards.
I always turn to the road in these kinds of analogies. Someone cuts you off in traffic.
Is it worth it to spend some of your hard earned energy reacting to that situation or would you rather conserve the energy and spend it on something you love, like your friends, your latest project or achieving your favorite yoga posture?

When I think about yoga, whether it's the literal form of laying down the mat and moving the body to a state of internal stillness, I think about all the energy it takes to create more energy.
We are actual, visible lights. You've heard before...'when he walks in, he light's up the room.'
We might not be GE bulbs but we all carry light and energy and we create it constantly and spend it constantly.

In our Halloween practice, let's work on producing that energy and being thoughtful on where we place it.

And, let's look really cute doing it in our costumes.

"The joy after a period of darkness and struggle is greater than

the peace of one who only basks in the light." JJ Dewey

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of

the light? ~Maurice Freehill

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare

that obscures. ~James Thurber

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our

own. ~Ben Sweetland

Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does

not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or

foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished. ~Michael

Strassfeld

Live in rooms full of light. ~Cornelius Celsus

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege

and our adventure to discover our own special light. ~Mary Dunbar

You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in. ~Arlo Guthrie

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror

that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when

the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is

revealed only if there is light from within. ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own

sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo

A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways

- by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he

will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~Plato

When you possess light within, you see it externally. ~Anaïs Nin

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand

into the light. ~Norman B. Rice

From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and

makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. ~Ralph

Waldo Emerson

When my heart is heavy, the sun helps make it light. ~Astrid Alauda

Love is not consolation. It is light. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and

enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~Blaise Pascal


Sunshine is my quest. ~Winston Churchill

We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or

her own light. ~Earl Nightingale

No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got

there first, and is waiting for it. ~Terry Pratchett

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation

is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light. ~Joseph

Campbell

I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the

darkness for it shows me the stars. Og Mandino

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have

put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark. Swami

Vivekananda

There are dark shadows on the earth, but it's lights are stronger in

the contrast. Charles Dickens

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the

light. - Helen Keller

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real

tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap

in the dark to our success. - Henry David Thoreau

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle - Walt Whitman

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act

without benefit of experience. - Henry Miller