Wise Hope
Cape Alava, Pacific Ocean, September 2014
December 21. The Winter Solstice. Encompassed in this 24-hour period is the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year. On this day, and those that arrive before and after it, people gather together, think of others, share food, and listen to music that is unheard during the other months of the year. This is a time that I love. It is mercifully quieter, a little bit slower, often filled with days of writing and reading. In a world that can feel to me too busy and too loud, I revel in the opportunity to step back and reflect.
Twenty-one years ago tonight, I was flying into Tromsø, Norway, for a five-week adventure in the far north. My wife Barbara had already been there a month, inspired to spend a winter above the Arctic Circle by a friend who lived in Tromsø. Ragnhild had told Barbara that the darkness was not how everyone imagined it. That there was a beauty inherent in the absence of light that few understood. That one had to experience the dark, winter world to really appreciate the time’s challenges as well as its treasures. During the next several weeks, we experienced both: a dogsledding trip, a stay in Kiruna, Sweden’s famed Ice Hotel, one night where the temperature fell to 40 degrees below zero (making the minus five degree room of the Ice Hotel seem positively balmy), and the spectacular appearance of the Northern Lights, a show I could watch only briefly as my face literally began to freeze in the two minutes I stood outside. Snow, ice, and a sun that played peek-a-boo with us along the southern horizon for about three hours a day formed the background to our experience that winter. Barbara loved it; she has spent several other winters in Scandinavia since. For myself, I’ve never felt quite the same about being cold. But the darkness? Oh, yes, it is a treasure indeed.
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Recently, I heard a quote by the civil rights activist and documentary filmmaker Valerie Kaur that has stayed with me: “The future is darkness. Is this the darkness of the tomb—or the darkness of the womb?” Valerie, along with several others, was speaking during a “Mind Our Democracy” webinar right before the midterm elections. This “movement in connection” group, begun in summer 2022 by psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach and others, came about in response to this year’s rollback of human rights by the Supreme Court. Valerie Kaur’s clever pairing of words poses a poignant question for all of us. Darkness is filled with treasures and challenges; how do we embrace the one and cope with the other?
These are not easy times we’re living through. There is so much uncertainty and many terrifying predictions about what our collective future will be. The need has never been greater for us all to work together. In early November, in addition to the Mind Our Democracy webinar, Tara Brach gave a talk on “Three Methods to Nurture Wise Hope.” I’ve written about hope before, and the idea that needing to feel hope could be too much of a distraction from simply doing the crucial work at hand. Yet, it seems unrealistic to think most of us could continue without some sense that what we do matters. Wise hope, Tara Brach explains, comes from an awakened heart; it’s rooted in being present. Wise hope reflects our deepest desires rather than the fleeting wants of our egos. This kind of hope, completely open to possibility, is the opposite of egoic hope, which is shaped from grasping and fear. Aspiring to love, attending to what is loved, and actively engaging on behalf of one’s heart are the methods for nurturing wise hope.
What does wise hope have to do with the winter solstice? I’m not entirely sure, but I can’t think of a better time of year for thinking about my heart’s deepest desires. Yesterday it snowed here and instantly the world grew more quiet. I walked in the nearby forest in the afternoon and later that evening around our neighborhood. There were no sounds of cars and only one other person out walking last night. The earth shares her messages of impermanence every single moment. On this Winter Solstice 2022, I am grateful for the darkness that feels a welcome comfort. I am grateful for the past and the memories that are mine alone as well as those I share with others. I am grateful for the weeks of dark descent to December 21, and for the time to be quiet and present.
