How the Light Comes

By Jan Richardson
(from her 2015 book, Circle of Grace)

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.

What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out
what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

– Jan Richardson
From Circle of Grace: A Book of
Blessings for the Seasons
Wanton Gospeller Press, 2015

Related Off-site Link:
There’s a Light at the End of This Dark Year – Margaret Renkl (The New York Times, December 20, 2021).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Light Within
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• The Magi and Our Journey to God
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son
• Chadwick Boseman and That “Heavenly Light”
• Like the Sun
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Pamela Greenberg
• Mystics Full of Grace
• Christmas for Mystics
• Clarity and Hope: A Christmas Reflection

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.