What has been take from us all and hurt so many over this past year surely cannot be understated. But what has been revealed in these difficult times has not only tested our mettle. We have also been invited to seek out what lies more deeply within our hearts and minds. It's not all light and surely not all joy. But that too is a point the universe never fails to make. What then do we do with all of that?
In body and soul we mean to live through these challenges, with our honest experiences of grief, and stay committed to all the love we seek. We may yet weep and bleed and howl more than we've bargained for and in ways we never expected but that is the Rudra, the Heart that seeks the Auspicious we call Siva. And that is what lies within each of us who breathe to love this strange gift of life.
"When He playfully began His Dance His twisted locks of hair whipped in frenzied ecstasy spraying the water of the Heavenly River in all directions,And with each drop appears an auspicious destination marked by His Presence:Surrounded is That Lord by forms of divine joy and the host of all embodied feelings: I delight in the One's Graceful Curved Foot."
---Kuñchitanghristava of Umāpatiśivācārya
To come face to face with all that is otherwise hidden is called Siva's Night, Sivaratri. What is otherwise hidden by darkness is revealed when darkness too is seen to offer its own strange light.
Sivaratri is another seam in the fabric of Being, a Time to create Maya rather than resolve or even puzzle choices. To invite ourselves to the Auspicious Darkness---the literal meaning of Sivaratri---is to turn time inside out and step into another side of one's self: it is chance and the risk we might take to opportune vulnerability.
Tonight we see the dark side of the dark side of moon and the day as night; we remember the forgotten and forget to remember; and so it is auspicious to sing into the otherwise prohibited dark hours, to be awake when otherwise you would sleep. Perchance to dream! Enjoy Sivaratri for the paradox it refuses to resolve and the embrace it offers without conditions.
