Finding The Balance

I’m sure, after the post I made about Supergirl a couple of years ago, it will come as no surprise to you that I’m a huge fan of Star Wars. With the digital release yesterday of The Last Jedi, I have it on the brain — specifically, the way the newest trilogy is appreciating true balance of light and dark, and the spectrum between.

Competing Narratives

I have struggled for most of my life with western culture’s dominant narrative of light equalling good and dark equalling evil. It’s an aspect of the great cosmic battle that we inherited from the Zoroastrians, and their influence on first Judaism and then Christianity. And I don’t deny that cosmic battles are steeped in our humanity, that we continue to tell these stories, to create these mythologies, because they feed something deep within us that we carry in our very essence.

But also for me, as a Unitarian Universalist who holds leanings towards earth-centered traditions, I know that the earth teaches us of a cosmology that is about cycles. One cannot have the rebirth of spring, coming soon to those of us in the northern hemisphere, without the dark of winter. One cannot reap the harvest of autumn, coming soon to those of us in the southern hemisphere, without the light of summer. The light and the dark define each other.

So in this time of approaching equinox, what does it mean for you to be in balance? How do you sense your movement across the spectrum between light and dark, knowing that both are necessary for true wholeness of mind, body and spirit?