The Yew Tree and the Dark Night.
Yesterday I was meditating and the words “yew tree” suddenly came to my mind. I didn’t have any idea why this came to my mind. I don’t know anything about the yew tree; I did not even know what they look like. I later looked it up and read that it symbolizes eternal life, rebirth and resurrection. This amazed me as yesterday was Good Friday; the day Jesus supposedly died to resurrect three days later. And today, I was guided to write about the Dark Night of the Soul, as I sat to do some writing. I sat in silence after having written some and realized that today could be symbolized as the “Dark Night” as it was the day that Jesus would have been in the tomb, prior to rising into the light of new life/resurrection.
And so I am guided to write a bit about this… the Dark night of the Soul and resurrection. We are all called at different points of our lives, to die to a part of ourselves; this is the transformational process and we can either accept it or resist it, either way it comes…resisting it will only make it more difficult. This is how life is experienced… in cycles and this is one of them, that our Soul directs. While many focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection as a saving of their sins, I see this as a time to focus on Jesus’ example of dying to our small self, so that we can arise in the new life of Spirit. And while this choice is truly presented to us in each moment, there are periods of life that are painful and seem to last longer and this is the dark night of the soul. Yet when we surrender to it, as Jesus surrendered in the Garden of Gethsemane, we find that God/Spirit carries us beyond the pain that we experience momentarily (darkness) to the awakening of a new joy. There is such beauty in this. I realized further, that this is also the time of a full moon, which is known to be a potent time of surrendering, releasing what no longer serves us. I am aware of what needs to be let go in my life, and am focusing on this today and tomorrow. Not in sadness with the belief of sacrifice but with joy, knowing that letting go only serves to help me. A Course In Miracles tells us in the Development of Trust section, that there is a period that we go through in our spiritual journey, where we begin to realize this very thing; it states: “He can learn this (that it is impossible to be called upon to sacrifice your best interest) only as he actually does give up the valueless. Through this, he learns that where he anticipated grief, he finds a happy lightheartedness instead; where he thought something was asked of him, he finds a gift bestowed on him.”
We can trust this process, the process of surrendering, experiencing the darkness and arising to the newness of life. Trusting this and resting into it, is itself joy and it is this we all seek.
I would love to help you let go what is no longer serving you, so that you too can awaken to a new life. kelly@kellylewishealing.com
