Making the Divine Mind, Mine
by Sister Nariel, Contemplative Order of Anam Cara
Are You Afraid of the Dark? As the days grow shorter and the nights longer, many of us come face to face with the most common fear in humanity — our fear of the dark. The warmth of summer, replaced by chilly autumn wind, drives both man and beast into their shelters as the dark tide advances. As the light of sunshine is replaced by the glow of fireplaces and candles, shadows gather. Plato’s Cave allegory deals with just such conditions, and reveals to students one of the most profound truths that can be applied to this time of year and to our interior work towards balance and wholeness. What do we feel
viewer to see a happy, vibrant bluebird, they would not know what it was — nor would they connect that beautiful, colorful creature with the shadow image that they are The cave allegory describes convinced is a bird. They are, the set of circumstances in in short, two separate things. which we define things in our world. Drawing from the We are not so different. What experience of those who things in our world are we cannot face the really real, we convinced are the really real? find definitions are skewed How have we come to define towards the shadow images them? Do we feel that we that amass and prevail. While are inconsequential and of unable to turn and see, the no use? How do we know if shadows become the reality. we are seeing the reality or That big, black blob on the merely the shadow that we cave wall is a bird. We know have come to define as the it’s a bird because we’ve been reality? If we begin to ask told that it is a bird. A bird is ourselves these philosophical a big, black blob. Were the questions we may find that when darkness falls? What do we see as we gaze into the shadows both within and without? What is real? What is illusion?
Afraid continued on page 23 8
™• October 2011 • Volume 2