Ibulliance: Attending the Dark

I cross streets in winter in pursuit of sunlight, burn tapers at dinner each evening, coax fires in the hearth, take walks just before sunset when trees burn like matches. I try to find the light in everything.

On my schedule today is a note to write a report from our Ibu Fringe Road Adventure to Jordan—a trip scheduled for this past week; a trip shattered when the region descended into a mad and unthinkable darkness.

We didn't go. We stayed in our places and wondered along with the rest of the terror-struck world what we can possibly do as the earth trembles. I, a light-seeker, realize that there are times when all we can do is to stay awake through the unspeakable, lengthening night. It is not nothing, I think, training our attention on what breaks us open, on what is beyond our eyes to fathom, our ears to hear, on what we do not know how to change. Looking into the eyes of this anguish is something I can do.

When I bring my whole self to this kind of attention, I find myself in the company of countless others holding the world in their broken hearts. This is not helplessness. This is a circuit of compassion that can gather us in our humanity rather than divide us in our political furies.

I have no report to bring you from Jordan. I have only this—a solid presence with many, so many, of you in this Ibu community who mourn all the ways we are divided, all the ways we ravage each other and our earth, all the ways we descend into rancor and hate. That solid presence is real. And it is strong, I want to believe; strong against the temptations of helplessness and rage. I am leaning into that presence now, the vital circuit of compassion that is you, that is Ibu. Even as we sit in darkness. Even as we long for light.

 

All the Best,
SHW