Spring is here! Are you willing to receive the light?
“Receive the Light!” is the admonition for Spring given by Rudolf Steiner. It is exquisite grace to see how our souls and nature move together. Every year we are blessed with a season where our focus is on receiving light in nature and Light in our souls.
Do you here the whisper in nature and your soul…”The time has come to receive the Light!”
Look at the trees as they burst forth with their leaves. Leaves are receivers of light in nature. Here in North Carolina, this is my favorite time. I look at the no-longer-bare-but-not-yet-clothed branches of the trees and they havea rosy glow of joy. There is an eagerness to receive the light. For the trees, this is natural. The trees make no choice, put forth no willed effort to open up and come forth in the light. If only we could be like the trees.
You and I must make the choice and will the effort to receive the Light. When we do this so much new will be illuminated. Yes, NEW! We don’t need illumination to see what we already have seen. We need spiritual Light to enter into the darkness of the unseen and hidden in our souls and grow, transform, metamorphose. We need this growing spiritual Light to then see and develop new truths, new beauty, new goodness in our souls and the world.
At the Inner Equinox we need to meet both the darkness and the light with equanimity. We need both. Without the soul’s Winter, there will be no soul’s Spring. The first activity for receiving the Light is to reflect on the soul’s winter. What was it like to sink down to your inner roots? How accustomed to your inner darkness did you become. Did you avoid the darkness with a life of distractions? Did you get lost there in the dark tangle? Did you find an inner warmth or an inner chill? What other questions can you ask yourself.
Can you imagine inner Light? Imagine it small like a small flame that grows when you pay attention to it? Imagine it moving all around your soul illuminating? Follow the inner spring light. Does it purify and cleanup/cleanout? Does it stir up the possibility of growth in your heart? Are you anxious that if you follow the light, you will see something you are afraid to see or in receiving it you will grow in ways that feel like too much?
The Light of Inner Spring will never harm you with what it reveals. Do you want to receive this Inner Light? Are you ready? Please remember that Inner Light is sweet and simple and small when it enters your soul. It is not dramatic or traumatic. It is kind and wise. It is a lantern glowing in the heart of your spiritual companion. It can be helpful to see this Light as attached to a dimmer switch in your soul. You do not need to be blinded by this Inner Light. Use your dimmer switch.
Receiving the Light is done in solitude. It is your Spring solo path. You are walking toward the Shining Solstice one inner step at a time.
Inner Light reveals truth so it does challenge your sense of self. It comes in the moment and may not stick around for life. You may need to keep going back to the darkness of your soul to seek the light in new corners. Your spiritual companion’s wisdom may shine the light on your thoughts or your feelings. Perhaps you need to see a relationship that is clearly not working and the light reveals that it is time to let go. Maybe the light will take you to a new perception of a bad habit.
Steiner did not want us to think of light as only revealing spiritual realities and illuminations. Inner Light reveals our moral path in our contribution, our relationships, our well-being and our inner development. This is why the verb is receive!
There are thirteen weeks in a season. You can write down 13 questions (12 now as we are almost through the first week) about your relationship to receiving the light. Or thirteen ways you are resistant to Inner Light. Do you feel unworthy. I promise you that you are worthy. Write down 13 ways you are worthy of receiving Inner Light.
Each week contemplate one question, one resistance, or one state of worthiness. Each is an Inner Light. Spend a few minutes with this Inner Light. Do it once a week or three times a week. Design the process so you can do it. Always write down what comes to your soul. In writing it down you let go of the insight and can now be open to receive the next shining light. Be illuminated.
Though the work unfolds in your soul, you may find this deep Spring activity encouraged by working with a friend. Agree to have a conversation about your inner experiences each week. Shine light on each other through your listening, questioning and observing.
With each week’s inner attention the light will grow brighter and you willingness to receive it will grow stronger.
My Experience of Readiness to Receive the Light in my clients.
When I work with individuals in sacred conversations which take place over the phone, I keep this Spring admonition in my listening. Is she ready and willing to receive the light into her darkness? Sometimes the soul needs to thaw a bit as the suffering has frozen the sense of Self. I listen for the melting of the frozen pain. I hear it in her breathing and in the prosody of her voice. There comes that moment when the voice (more than the words) reveals there is a willingness to let the light illuminate the darkness. The rosy glow appears in her soul.
A Springtime spiritual irony: to receive the light you must be willing to be in the darkness. Spiritual light shines through the dark. After 30 years of walking with my clients as they journey into their darkness and a lifetime of seeking the light in my own darkness, I can assure you with my whole being, the light is there. If you need personal support in this, contact me.
Here is a short and sweet video about this spiritual irony as so wisely revealed in Emily Dickinson’s poem, We Grow Accustomed To The Dark
https://aeon.co/videos/then-fit-our-vision-to-the-dark-exploring-sight-with-emily-dickinson
When light is put away –
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –
A Moment – We uncertain step
For newness of the night –
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
And meet the Road – erect –
And so of larger – Darknesses –
Those Evenings of the Brain –
When not a Moon disclose a sign –
Or Star – come out – within –
The Bravest – grope a little –
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead –
But as they learn to see –
Either the Darkness alters –
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight –
And Life steps almost straight.
My Spring Wishes for You
Grow accustomed to your darkness, so you can receive the light.
Do the work.
Imagine Your Rosy Glow!
Living in the Southern Hemisphere?
If you live in the nature of the Southern Hemisphere and want to work with the Autumn Admonition: Be Aware of Evil, you can do some reversals. Look for darkness in the light rather than the light in the darkness. You might want to listen to the webinar I gave last month on the Inner Freedom of Grief. If you are willing to work with Inner Spring without the coherence of nature, then follow the suggestions in this post.
Send me your Inner Spring questions and imaginations. Email me.
