With no other Light than the one that burns in your Heart…
There are rare occurrences throughout the human story that unite our focus and spiritual growth so powerfully as a challenge like this one.
The Covid-19 pandemic has presented the global human family with what we might call a “dark night of the soul”. A dark night of the soul is a dissolution of illusions. It is a time in which we are challenged to clear our attachments to that which is not in alignment with our divine truth so that we may unite in a higher calling.
Healing, unification, compassion, and love for all: these are now and always our highest calling. And in this time of pandemic, the intelligent forces of our soul-based unity are challenging us to uplift these values among our priorities; breaking down the things in our lives that do not support them.
No matter what is going in your life, you have the power to answer that call. The simple act of holding faith through these changes dissolves the sway of fear and uncertainty. Your hope lends strength to those who are pouring their energy into healing this virus. Your love is lighting the way into a better and more compassionate tomorrow.
When a dark night of the human soul descends upon our world, miracles occur. For in such times, there often remains “no other light than the one that burns in your heart”. According to the Angels, the light in your heart is God itself—the light of the ultimate truth—the force through which all things are created.
Go within and breathe your focus into your inner light. What does it illuminate for you? What creative energy might it pour into this world? You are an instrument of healing light and truth now and always, beloved friend. The divine enfolds and beckons you in literally every moment of your existence.
In these times of powerful change, I have found light in the poetry of Saint Juan de la Cruz. I invite you to absorb and contemplate these beautiful, comforting words. And perhaps, in this time in which there may be “no other light than the one that burns in your heart”, you too will be reunited with “sheer grace”—with the presence of the divine “beloved”. Allow, if you will, this poem become your prayer; your reminder that literally all paths lead back to divine love:
One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
— ah, the sheer grace! —
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
— ah, the sheer grace! —
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
— him I knew so well —
there in a place where no one appeared.
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.
Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
– Juan de la Cruz, 1577