Meeting Meaning in the Dark
“All things consist of carrying to term and then giving birth. To allow the completion of every impression, every germ of a feeling deep within, in darkness, beyond words, in the realm of instinct unattainable by logic, to await humbly and patiently the hour of the descent of a new clarity: that alone is to live one’s art, in the realm of the understanding as in that of creativity.”
Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet
I recently moved into a double wide perched on a hill overlooking the Yellowstone River in rural Montana. I gave up an apartment in a city with a housing shortage in exchange for a five month lease and don’t have a plan for what comes next. It’s intense and scary, especially as the world seems to be coming apart. I don’t fully know why I did it yet - something to do with Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and a growing sense that it’s time to check in with the fierce mirror of solitude.
When Madison asked me if I’d be interested in offering a course with her, I was fired up on five days of Soulcraft work in the woods and feeling clear and strong. My soul really likes to make spontaneous decisions when I’ve been loyal in tending it. So, I didn’t think too hard and simply said yes. Now, two months later, after the strain of moving while having Covid, as we’re perched on the edge of what’s feeling like a wild, melty, confusing winter, I find myself living in a question mark. Part of me wants to call her and ask “wtf are we doing?” And then I smile and realize that’s what this whole course is about. Collectively, we are being asked to embody radical unknowing as we come to terms with ever-darkening days.
But if, when we really look at the predicament of our planet, we don’t know where to go or what to do, how do we navigate our lives?
Increasingly, I’m learning to trust what Rilke calls “the descent of a new clarity.” To me, this is what soul is, and over the past decade of stumbling around in the dark and leaping off the next cliff life brings me to, I’ve come to what I can only call “Meaning.” It’s the place I yearn for and avoid; the butterflies in my belly that get me to say yes to big invitations and the aching, bleeding, unblunted recognition of the ways I’m part of killing the earth.
I’m learning that Meaning is not a game, or a passing interest, or a figment of my imagination. It feels like the center of everything, like the most-me I ever am. Being in relationship with Meaning feels like trying to court a giant. It’s bigger than me. It’s sensitive and picky and fickle; if I stop paying attention to this intelligence, it stops paying attention to me. Meeting Meaning takes courage because it will eat everything that isn’t real. And for many of us in this culture, much of what tumbles around our trying minds is radically unrelated to Life.
If you’re reading this, you probably know what poet William Stafford calls “the golden thread.” That’s the glowing, intuitive feeling that seems to be implicated in Meaning. It’s the step we know we have to take, the words that have to leave our mouths, the relationship that has to end. It’s that place where you just know. For me, right now, it is the simple clarity that I needed to say yes to moving out to a little house without knowing why. Like Rilke says, the why descends on its own terms.
As we look toward the winter and the darkness both seasonal and social, we’re wondering what meeting Meaning might...well, mean for each of us, now. What beings or becomings are waiting for our devoted attention? What hidden valley or solitary pine tree just down the road has been patiently hoping we will wander their way? What are dreams speaking to us in these cold long nights? We’ve each got something real to give the earth, each other, and ourselves, and it’s urgent that we do.
So if you feel inspired, if you sense something waiting to be found just past what’s visible. Together, on the darkest night of each month of winter, we’ll meet to drop into the mysteries of being alive at this time. As the poet Theodore Rothke said, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” So come join us and let’s see what we can see.
And if you have any questions, please reach out to wild@remembering-earth.com