It’s a phrase that Joan Halifax atributes to St John of the Cross. He uses it to describe suffering, seeing it as a fortunate experience and one that takes us to a greater knowing of self. I paraphrase, trying to make these new concepts my own. I understand what he means. I walk into the dark these mornings not wanting to, but, when I get out there there is something like joy. That first smell of the morning air – what was it this morning? a warm, moist smell of beginning to rot leaves – and then there’s the wind on my face. Enlivened I am glad to be out. I move into the blackness, sometimes staying in it or sometimes lighting my way with my torch.
I think about the discomfort of my arthritis. For all its inconvenience and sometime pain, like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid I feel each step, and I am grateful. I still have my freedom to move. There are others who don’t. So yes, that is certainly my lucky dark. I heard the pipping of oystercatchers this morning andamid the crashing of the waves. I walked over the stragglings of seaweed. I strode through the harbour to the rattling sound of the boat riggings. Yellow squares of light peppered the dark. People were awake, like me. I am comforted by the thought. And then, climbing the hill into the Castle Park I caught the scent of the last dog roses. Gorgeous. Lucky indeed.
