“It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

What a timely fit for this beautiful, timeworn advice . . . on so many levels.

As we migrate into the darkest of seasons, it sometimes feels like we are also moving into the darkest of times. I won’t count the ways; anyone alive in the world today is only too aware of the myriad spheres of potentially catastrophic stuff coming down the pipe.

What to do? How to handle it all? What is expected of us?

I made a sign a couple of years ago, that I carried for a protest march. It reads: When the people lead, the leaders will follow. Whether or not you have noticed, this precise phenomenon is at work.

But it takes a whopping big bang to get our attention. If the lights are simply dimmed, we can ignore it for a while but when they go out we notice. This fall the lights went out. For a while I felt the darkness overwhelming, but recently I began to notice a direct and opposing response growing to counter this.

For purposes of clarity I will refer to forces that support the Earth as ‘the light’, and forces that work to destroy her efficient functioning, as ‘the darkness’.

The light was scattered, too random, moving in small circles. It needed a spark to galvanize it to become that force to penetrate darkness. Viola! A new leader shows up for the planet’s most powerful country. The world reverberates with shock waves, and a direct and equal reaction begins to coalesce. The light unites. It’s not happening overnight, but it is happening . . . on the ground. Organizations, cities, states – the unlikeliest bedfellows, are joining forces to lead for the light.

What an exciting time we chose to incarnate! Joanna Macy calls it The Great Turning. And the fact that we are here now indicates that we, all of us, are being asked to lead for the light. We do it in our own perfect, individual way, deepening community, practicing gratitude, requesting grace, experiencing compassion, sending blessings.

But here is the bottom line: We cannot fight darkness with more darkness. Imagine the folly of trying to push it away. Only light can do that. So we must all become light workers. Darkness, defined here as hate, fear, resistance, negativity of any kind, can only prevail as long as it is met with more of the same. That is the old paradigm.  What we resist persists.  The moment we shine the light of understanding, love, kindness and peace, the darkness diminishes and eventually disappears. It’s all inside out

Are you up for it? Are you in?

The longest night of the year is almost here.  Turn on your heart light! And let it sparkle and shine and light up the night this 2016 winter solstice. May it go on to shine the way to a New Earth that is just a breath away. The best is yet to come, dear friends. Be not afraid.

It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.