To Know the Dark, A Winter Solstice Reflection

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Wendell Berry is an American farmer, writer, environmentalist, poet and general all around man who wishes all of us to calm down and explore what we don’t know. His very short poem ‘To know the dark’ has been often quoted. He writes: ​

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

He is inviting us, encouraging us, to a place of contemplation.

Contemplation is not about thinking about things as they are. It is about abandoning what we know about the way things are, and moving into a place where we don’t know anything.

To contemplate is to let go of what we know, and place ourselves in the open space of possibility.

We tend not to like to do that.

We like to bring our candles, the things we are certain are true. Sometimes we bring our flashlights and shine them into the faces of others. We might better put them on our own faces and let others see what is there to see.

To go into the dark without a light, is to go into a situation that has happened over and over again, and not bring anything with us that will give us the answer we already have.

This requires enormous humility, a great letting go of knowledge that is no longer helpful.

This is not an easy thing to do, and yet, it is paradoxically enormously enlightening. Enlightenment always comes in the dark. It is gifted to us and can be received no other way.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.