The Way of Light

I think we have a lot of confusion about light. Jesus said he was the Light of the World; he tells us to be light. But what does that mean? 

We tend to make this duality about light and darkness—light is good; darkness is bad. 

This dualism subtly contributes to racism, our fear of mystery, murkiness, the mud and dark depths, our own Shadow sides, and even my fear of the eels (actual and metaphoric). And we can tend to over-glorify all things white and bright and clear and shiny.

But science is teaching us some pretty cool things about light these days. 

For one, we know we only see a narrow slice of the light that’s actually out there.

I heard someone refer to “dark light” once. There was very little context, so I don’t know what they meant by it, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I like the term. It sounds like an oxymoron, but I like it because it acknowledges that there can be light above or below our capacity to see it. Just because something is dark to us may not mean there isn’t any light there.

Second, what our eyes perceive as white light is actually all the colors. Good to remember.

Third, we now know that light is somehow both a particle (physical matter, a thing) and a wave (non-physical, motion). Just as we somehow, inextricably, are both physical and non-physical at the same time. We can’t separate ourselves. We’re just both. (Here’s a great simple-ish explanation of the science.)

Lastly, another thing we're learning about light is the way it moves.

We tend to think of light as a straight line—a beam, a ray. But there is no straight line. Light moves in waves. 

Waves that move a lot like our brain waves and frequencies of our emotions. You feel a little better, then a little worse, a little better, then a little worse. If you’re not paying close attention, it might imagine your feelings are just all over the place. But if you were to chart it out, it may look more like a wave.

When we are in a coherent, regulated state, our feelings will ebb and flow in a tolerable range, without getting too extreme or stuck anywhere. (Remember the window of tolerance?) 

It’s a lot like the way we expand when we inhale and contract when we exhale.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s actually the way it works when we’re healthy and healing. It’s not like it’s good to inhale and bad to exhale. We need to do both. Both are good when they are regular and balanced.

In a field called Somatic Experiencing, this wave motion with our emotions is called pendulation.

“This ebb and flow allows the polarities to gradually be integrated. It is the holding together of these polarities that facilitates deep integration and often an ‘alchemical’ transformation.” — Dr. Peter Levine

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,” Carl Jung wrote, “but by making the darkness conscious.”

It’s not about running away from the darkness, but rather, when we visit it or find ourselves there, non-anxiously, curiously, and compassionately bringing love and understanding to it.

I can’t say I understand the implications this has for God. But, I can see how it makes sense for us as fully human and fully divine beings that in our most integrated and healthy states, we are moving easily and fluidly up and down that scale of emotions all the time. 

Remember how the lower frequencies are just slower moving waves? What if that basically just means we are getting stuck in and moving slowly through the mud, essentially? And what if our erratic force/stress responses are more about our bodies trying to kind of mechanistically jump-start us to get moving again?

If our emotions really are frequencies and if they actually behave like light, then this map of light (below) gives us a really helpful look at how it might work.

Do you notice how the lowest, slowest moving, red frequencies of light have the smallest range? Try mimicking that ebb and flow with your breath for a few seconds. It feels like the stress state, doesn’t it? 

What happens if you try slowly following the waves of light up the rainbow scale by mimicking the patterns with your breath?

You’ll probably intentionally extend your inhale a little bit each time.

Do you notice how the highest frequencies have the greatest range? Deeper inhale, deeper exhale.

And do you see how that midpoint of the waves gradually rise, kind of unlocking higher and higher realms as we go? ...And always still oscillating.

I just wanted to share this image of light waves with you because it helps me to see a model of how it may work visually. I hope it helps you, too.

And I want to encourage you that you’re not “failing” when you find yourself back in the red/mud any more than you are “failing” when you exhale. It seems that life is full of cycling through all these feelings. You know, Jesus wept in grief, he was angry, he felt lonely, it’s not hard to imagine he even felt fear when he avoided dangerous places and begged God to “take the cup” of his crucifixion from him. All the feels. And he was counted as perfect.

I hope this path of light may help offer you a path to getting unstuck in the bottom range.

Maybe being a whole, healthy human just means we get to experience the full range of emotions with fluidity and an overall path of buoyancy as we release more and more.

NEXT UP:

Part 4: What Now?

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