I trust, you trust, we all trust… at least as long as the lights are on! Light provides a definite sense of security and safety. With light, we see. To see is to know. And knowing gives us a sense of being in control and therefore secure. What we don’t notice is that our need of light, of security is addictive. It is never enough. “If you put more lights for safety, very often and very quickly people will say, Oh, we don’t see enough, it’s not working, people are still being attacked, and we have problems and so we should put more light. And we’re going to go up and up and up. There is no limit, because the vision gets accustomed to that and we need more.” Bogard, Paul. The End of Night And therefore all our efforts go into keeping the lights shining brighter and brighter and avoid the darkness… so that we can continue to trust! But is that trust? Are we not fooling ourselves? Learning to trust can only happen when facing the darkness, not by avoiding it! To learn to trust, we will have to switch off the lights and welcome the darkness. And what do we notice then? That our assumptions that light and security go together as do darkness and danger are false. In fact, a growing number of towns and villages in US and Europe that have been experimenting turning off some of their lights after midnight have seen crime drop up to 50 percent. Light offers illusory security, just like money and power do. As we thought more light would protect us from crime and rape and burglary, we also thought more money, more power would protect us from suffering… But as we have just seen in the case of light, these assumptions are erroneous. The problem is that such false beliefs cost us a lot in terms of pollution, depletion of resources, social injustice, violence… For example, artificial light at night is connected with increased rates of cancer. “An increasing number of studies over the past two decades have made a compelling case for a link between light at night and cancer, especially hormone-influenced cancers such as breast and prostate.” Bogard, Paul. Artificial light at night also means the disruption of nocturnal wildlife. “While most of us are inside and asleep, outside the night world is wide awake with matings, migrations, pollinations, and feeding— in short, the basic happenings that keep world biodiversity alive. Light pollution threatens this biodiversity by forcing sudden change on habits and patterns.” Bogard, Paul. In short, our deep feelings of insecurity about darkness (literally and metaphorically) are at the root cause of our environmental as well as spiritual crisis... Crippled by our fear of dark, of the unknown, of the unseen, we have become insane... ready to rape the earth to light up our world, ready to inflict any amount of suffering on others to protect ourselves and feel secure… Let’s trust the darkness. Of course, there will be fear … not the fear that incapacitates... the fear that enlivens… “With all our lights we push away our fear, and by pushing away our fear, we are a little less alive.” Bogard, Paul. © Muriel Anamika
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Muriel facilitates Reconnection Circles in which through guided meditation, stories, rituals, art therapy exercises, we explore the healing qualities of nature, the forest, ocean, desert and mountain archetypes.
Read more... Soulscape Journeys. Using archetypes, images, metaphors of the natural world (landscapes, trees, animal totems, moon cycles, seasons…) as well as myths and stories from indigenous cultures around the world, we discover the Sacred Circle of Life and how our soul journeys are so amazingly embedded into it. Read More... .
Explore the Forest Soulscape... Reconnecting with the Forest is regaining our lost Oneness with the whole creation… Read More...
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