The Night Has Eyes to Recognise Its Own

And there are countless examples of abundance in the universe.

Hello dear reader,

How are you this week? Have you danced?

Deborah Griscom Passmore watercolor album Pl.15 (1911) by Deborah Griscom Passmore (American, 1840–1911)

I remain underwater these days, submerged. I have used up my strength, it seems, and all that I have left is the simplest and smallest kind of quietness amidst the raging storm.

I close my eyes and retreat into myself, deep, deep into the darkness where nothing and nobody can find me, not even myself. It is safe and warm, and I wish to stay there. But life was not made to hide from.

There are days when I hum while making tea, and there are days when I dance as the sun strokes the palate of the world with its unapologetic grandeur of bright yellow and sleepy pink, weaving itself through darkness, its golden threads making things possible yet again.

I know I contain the sun, too. And I know I can spread myself through my own indigo blue and I can make it shine and pretty and taking the breath away, and with it everything else. The world was made to be free in.

I wanted to build a bird feeder and mount it to my window so I could share food and, in turn, be offered small instances of life-throbbing presence throughout my days—a transaction of life and love.

It is too late, I was told, they will not get used to it in time, it is getting warm already, even though it’s February. The world of gain thinks nothing of the little winged bodies I hoped to feed and be visited by.

I pour out from my bed into the sun at dawn like a seed from a bucket and I put on shoes and a jacket and I take my dog and take my face and lift it to the rising sun and I close my eyes and in those moments, I can hear the birds sing, their song offered to no one. A sense of freedom spreads through me like a golden thread, for I know I need no grasping and yet, I receive.

There are countless examples of abundance in the universe, I read. The stars, countless. The waves, innumerable. The sips of air through the mouth, into the lungs, along the veins and arteries, animating the body—unlimited, bound only by its last. If I tried, I could never count the many leaves on a single tree, let alone on the forest’s head. I brush my gaze through, and I feel rich.

Another thing that knows no limit, even if it brings us to ours, is love. Mine has been stretched these days to home within it terminal illness, old age with its merciless rights, un-friending, un-holding, un-familiarising, the many limitations posed against the deepest longings. The hands remain empty, even when they are convinced of their holding, when they believe in the contents of their tight embrace.

“You emanate a deep well of…sorrow?, longing?, grief? Feels calm and deep, maybe even full of love and peace, but … sorrowful,” I was told by a reader, turned new pen friend. My heart feels soaked through, I responded. "It made me sad, and I know it was not your intention when you said you can sense sorrow in my writing. I suppose it is true, and I cannot avoid it, since it emanates throughout. But I have tried to make my words uplifting and offering comfort.

Once, at a Vipassana meditation course, the teacher said that there was an ocean-depth of sorrow in my eyes, despite my young age, and that the pain residing in me would have to come out. I am doing the work to aid it in leaving my home, but it does not help that I feel both love and sorrow so deeply that it bends my being and my life at times. I know it is a gift, but it is one I sometimes wish to give away.”

But then I hum while making tea, and I dance as the sun rises, and all is love, I know it because I am it too, I can feel it, and this truth in me is the only thing capable of finding me deep, deep amidst my own darkness, into which I retreated, teaching me how to weave a golden cloth in which to wrap my shivering body, just like my grandma taught me to knit and I made a small square piece of nothing-similar-to-anything, and she told me it was wonderful as she knitted me the most beautiful sweater one could only dream of.

I have put a muffle on my love many times, and it held its hot hand on my mouth in turn. Mutually immobilised. It cannot flow if I do not let it. I try not to do it anymore, though at times I am scared of speaking it.

There are acts of love too, I know it, but I also know there is no greater courage and necessity than to admit one’s love to another, to the world, and to oneself, with the head lifted high, the eyes as open as the soul, spelling each word in careful steps as if the tongue were a theatre stage on which to perform the greatest of plays, in whichever language came to offer itself as a container for the uncontainable.

So I spell it out across the vastness of skies, the bright stars, the falling stars, Jupiter and Pluto, the supernovas, black holes—my language of choice. If you look up, you will know: there are countless examples of abundance in the universe.

Below, three poems that offer me shelter when one is needed:

Sweet Darkness by David Whyte:

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29 by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Beannacht/Blessing by John O’Donohue:

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

If you find warmth, comfort, inspiration, joy, motivation, or anything else of value in these letters and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a deeply valued patron by upgrading to a monthly or yearly subscription. This will also give you access to the full archive. If you have a financial restriction, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

This morning, I recorded my very first voiceover—perhaps you’ve already listened :) It is my Valentine’s gift to you—hopefully offering a more seamless way to experience my writing—and a gift of courage and grace to myself 🙏🏽 🤍

A question to you, dear reader:

What do your eyes see in the night?