Faith Over Fear

The darkest part of the year is here. In ancient times these were considered liminal days, time out of time days, in-between worlds days. In the darkest moments of our lives, we have a choice. When confronted with the great unknown of what lay before us and the bones of what lay behind, we have a choice. It’s easy to feel lost in the dark. Despairing. Afraid. Much harder to trust that even as we stumble on, blind to what may come, we are actually being held by that same darkness.

Like a seed nestled deep in soil or a baby enveloped safely still in the womb, we are held by something we cannot see — a process designed for us to emerge as the light that we are.

If you were a nineties kid like me, you might have had a pair of yin-yang earrings or a patch on your denim jacket or a sticker on your notebook. The ancient Taoist taiji symbol or, as we have come to know it in the west, the yin-yang (yang like long or strong or thong), is much more than a cool design however. It’s a calendar. (It’s also a portrait of the human body but that is for another post.) The thickest part of the dark side represents where we are now at the winter solstice. And right in the center of the darkness is the spark of light, the seed of YANG chi which will slowly grow until it reaches its fullness at the summer solstice. So then, this is a time when we honor the darkness, the yin, for all its fertile gifts while holding in our hands or in our hearts like it was a tiny, precious thing, the spark of light inside us, the knowing that we will be ok, the trust in the process.

In our darkest moment, we must hold in our hearts faith over fear.

A year ago, I lay my father’s ashes to rest in his homeland in the river of all rivers, the holy Ganga in Rishikesh, India. I felt lost. Despairing. Afraid. I held in my hands something so precious. And even with all my preparation and all the faith I had cultivated over my life, when the moment came, I was afraid. Everything I thought I knew dissolved. It was a small visitation with that great unknown which all of us will meet very personally in the end.

Our lives are such precious, tiny things.

According to Chinese Medicine, we are each born with a certain amount of life essence or jing. It’s like a battery pack that gets passed down from our parents. When the jing is depleted or the battery pack goes to zero, we die. Some schools of thought say our jing, once depleted, can never be replenished. Some say you can get a booster charge from practices like qi gong, tai chi & yoga. More importantly perhaps, is to focus on not depleting, more than necessary, the store of life essence that you already have. The winter season corresponds to the water element and the bladder & kidney meridians and organs. The kidneys are the keepers of our life essence.  So this season, this moment, is the perfect time to rest, replenish our resources and preserve our energy.  

Sometimes when I rest, I feel that I’m doing so for those who didn’t know how.  

My father arrived on American soil at the young age of twenty-one years old. The eldest son of his family, he carried with him a weight of responsibility I will never understand. He had one goal. One will. One impetus that directed the flow and direction of his life for the next six decades. Work Hard. And that he did. He was an excellent provider. A dedicated executive. An intelligent and incredibly stubborn man. A living embodiment of the American Dream. He didn’t have a choice but to make it, so he did.  That notion of stress and survival echoed throughout his whole life, long after he had retired.  And underneath it, something much more primal.

At the deepest level, the emotion that corresponds to the water element is fear.

Fear is not inherently a negative emotion.  On the contrary, it’s intelligent, alerting us to and pulling us away from danger.  The disharmony arises when the danger disappears and the fear remains, leaving us stuck in the vibrational pattern of old traumas. The water freezes. The river does not flow. Back pain. Kidney issues. Nervous System Disorders. Spinal Injury or degeneration. Adrenal Burnout. SI Joint Dysfunction. Chronic Fatigue. Neck Injury or Pain. Insomnia. Bladder Infections. These are just some of the ways that “frozen water” or disharmonies in the Kidney & Bladder meridians can manifest. I witnessed quite a few of those throughout and especially at the end of my father’s life.

The day before our puja, I took a bath in the Ganga.

I sat by the river’s edge for a long time taking in the dance of sunlight on the water, soaking in the blessings and offering my own. I watched the river move with both a wide current of power and complete ease. Water in perfect harmony. Will that is effortless because it is surrendered to something bigger. Surrendered to the flow of life. To the unknown. My prayer was that the holy river would carry my father home. That in the release of flesh and bone, his Soul would remember it was Light. And as I baptized myself I prayed that mine remember too.  

May we all find a way to surrender to the mysterious flow of life.  

To have faith over fear.  

And find light in the darkness