Pause.

 

Go slow

if you can.

Slower.

More slowly still.

Friendly dark

or fearsome,

this is no place

to break your neck

by rushing,

by running,

by crashing into

what you cannot see.

 

Then again,

it is true:

different darks

have different tasks,

and if you

have arrived here unawares,

if you have come

in peril

or in pain,

this might be no place

you should dawdle.

 

I do not know

what these shadows

ask of you,

what they might hold

that means you good

or ill.

It is not for me

to reckon

whether you should linger

or you should leave.

 

But this is what

I can ask for you:

 

That in the darkness

there be a blessing.

That in the shadows

there be a welcome.

That in the night

you be encompassed

by the Love that knows

your name.

—Jan Richardson, A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark

 

“Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams:  there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke