Dear soul as we approach the light

What we refuse to own, we carry or bury or give to someone else. A little letter to self: Approach the light and discover your shadow follows and darkens. So, what to do? Ignore it? Run faster? The shadow grows and distorts. Soon it is long enough to cast darkness on those who would follow. (Addicted gurus. Cult leaders. Those who have risen to crash.) Stop. Be still. Gather your courage. Take five deep breaths. Turn around and face your anger and fear and shame. Yeah. All that. Crouch down, like a child at an ant hill. Notice how shadow gets smaller too. Surrender your thoughts of greatness, of arrival, of ascension. Sit and fill your hands with the dark earth. If you were to dig great handfuls of rage and terror and pain and throw it on others there would still be an endless supply. Sift through the dirt until you see it for what it is: quartz and feldspar and specks of leaves from a forest your people once called home. The earth where you crouch is fertilized by tears and shit. Lie down on it anyway. Dream. Dream that this soil extends forever, see everyone standing on the same dark ground. Feel how the light warms the earth. Feel how the light warms you. Put a handful of dirt into your pocket and practice tonglen as you stand. Light is not a place, or a finish line or a goal. Light is not going anywhere.