Question for Alana: Alana can you share some insight about what is referred to as “The Dark Side” of who we are.
Should we try and distance ourselves from having dark thoughts, or thinking of bad things?
Sometimes I try to be positive, but I find dark thoughts start to creep in, and I feel like I can’t move forward and make decisions. I don’t know if it is fear, or if I have a dark side that wants to keep me from realizing success.
What is Our Dark Side?
Alana’s Answer: Thank you for bringing forth this thought full and wonderful question.
Let’s begin by asking a few more questions. Let’s ponder:
What does the dark side have to do with who we are?
Essentially what is the dark side?
What does the dark side of our nature lead us to within ourselves?
By asking these questions we might presuppose that we are split; that we have a light side, and that we have a dark side — two distinct halves.
The Illusion of Dark & Light
The truth of this question is that it is an illusion that we are split, that the light side is good, whole, and bright, while the dark side is gloomy, controlling, bad, and even evil.
When you go to the essence of darkness and lightness you will find they are co-creative energies and they exist without polarity. The part of us that senses polarity comes from the mental reasoning that takes place through sensing and identifying them as separate.
The true distinction is that they are interdependently blended. You cannot have light if you do not have darkness. You cannot have darkness if you do not have light. But, this does not equate to a polarity that pushes against each other. One is not more important than the other. What a distinction invites is that they are aspects of each another expressing wholeness. Within light, you find darkness, and within darkness you find light.
Even if you were to ask the darkest, most densely identified aspect to travel to its core, it would also find light. And if you were to ask the lightest, most radiating essence where its power lies, it would find it contained darkness. Sort of like how an infinity symbol dances yet is interconnected
Therefore, when we go into one’s so called “dark side” perhaps we might enter a space that you could equate to the womb. Or perhaps, another metaphor would be going into the soil or the dirt where things grow. Another example is the winter solstice, where we experience the shortest day of the year.
The Well of Creativity
Now let’s speak more of creativity dear one–when you think of the dark side, think of it like a well where information is stored. It is not the information, but it is the space that contains it. Therefore the darkness is where creativity thrives and is birthed, because, from emptiness all things manifest.
It is the space that contains the nutrients. It holds the resource essences that fuel manifestation when a spark of knowledge is ignited. So without the darkness we would not have light, and without the light we would not have darkness, because they are co-creative aspects within each other.
The Nature of Judgment
Another consideration to think about is how the mind’s mental process has the tendency to want to judge. But I would not necessary say that darkness is judgment. That would be like saying our mind is dark.
Instead I would say that judgment has a deeper intention to gather more information, or light if we truly listen. And I would say by going into darkness you’ll find the space in which you can begin to uncover and discover what is there for you from which to create.
When a being becomes balanced in life–full and aware–it is much like walking on an edge. Here you able to embrace both dark and light by allowing them to be available, present, balanced, and in synthesis. Then, knowledge, and wisdom can be imparted to fuel creativity.
So dear one, embracing the dark side does not mean being bad, or evil, or living only in the state of your judgments. It means you are allowing your state to go deep into the well of existence where creativity begins and where the imagination is stored awaiting to birth creation. It is where dreams are created. In darkness you find the stored fuel, which wants to be combined with the resources of your heart — wisdom and light — to ignite creativity and gather, of course, love.
Thank you for this great question.
Thank you for your inspirational responses, I am always eager to read them, blessings Maria.
Thank you Maria for your feedback! In another dialogue with Alana she talks about living on the edge .. or a state where we can embrace the resourcefulness of both the light and the dark. Maybe that will be another posting!
I liked your writing on darkness and light. It reminds me of the yin/yang symbol. My taiji teacher says that yin becomes yang and yang becomes yin and in taiji martial arts, its the turning of the joint. But it applies to all in that darkness becomes light and light becomes darkness when it reaches the small spot in each that is the turnover point. I was fascinated with this article.
Dina, when I was posting this article I almost added an image of a ying yan symbol because I feel it represents the same wisdom. Thanks for sharing!