The OffSpring of Darkness: Trusting the Lesser Light

Mom, tell me again, about my birth.

It’s one of the stories I often ask my mom to retell. She shares it the same way with the same details each time, as if reading from a page in a book. You were overdue. You were supposed to be born in August, not September. She usually chuckles to herself; I can feel her smiling through the phone. Her first pregnancy had resulted in an emergency c-section; my older brother being born prematurely. And her third and final pregnancy, with twins, was also a c-section. They finally decided to get you out. I guess that’s why you were so chunky.

—

I have had to intentionally intensify my seeking of support over the last three weeks. I returned from a weekend in Philly on Easter Day, a colorful, uplifting and invigorating weekend—only to be met, unexpectedly, with a constant cascade of jolting events. When I approached the door to the healing space on Saturday, April 6th, I was greeted with a violating image. The window had been broken and the door was slightly ajar—a brick laid on the other side. I went to two places in my mind, triggered into remembering the tragic loss of my dad’s fiancée in 1999, but then, at the opposite extreme, feeling affirmed. What I was seeing, matched the intensity of how I’d felt. I too felt cracked open; like the shards of glass, I too felt scattered about. What is happening, I cried to myself.

—

The womb of a female, the uterus, is the place that provides a haven for a baby to grow and develop. The placenta, through the umbilical cord, provides oxygen and nourishment to support the baby until birth. All of this takes place, under the cover of darkness. All of this takes place within the confines of the lesser light, under an abiding trust in the inherent intelligence and capacity of the mother’s body. As I was running yesterday, at Rock Creek Park, I was led to see how much I had grown under the cover of darkness over the course of my life. I began to make contact with moments in my life when I’d felt like I was being attacked, seasons when it felt like my world was both caving in and becoming undone. I remembered the question a student from the University of Maryland College Park asked me on Wednesday: how have you been able to grow and thrive being a person of color and as someone with so many other differences?

—

I was returning from playing basketball in the back alley. I was in my head, going over how to properly do a layup. Do I throw the ball in the hoop with the same hand that I push or jump off with? Is the idea that I should hit the backboard to force the ball into the hoop? What I did know, is that it was much harder to do a layup from the left side of the court. Darrien, you got a second? Yes, I responded, forcing a smile. It was my new neighbor. I wanted to show you something, since I noticed you’re a plant lover. Meaning, he noticed the two days it took for me to get all of my plants in my new place. I stopped fumbling for my keys to open the back gate and made may way over through his alley entrance towards what revealed to be a garden. So, look at this. This boaz daffodil just opened up today. Would you believe I bought this bulb in the spring of July ‘21 and planted it in the fall of July ‘21. This is the first time it has emerged. I couldn’t believe it. The flower was beyond words, but it was the story that moved me most. After all that time, this was the year to bloom, I said after a minute passed. He added, I do find it amazing and it gives me some small delight; all of this time I was thinking I got screwed in my bulb purchase. I mean, I did buy 5 of them. But I’ll take my small joys where and how I can. And be appreciatively positive.

—

I’d been diligently walking the streets of D.C. My eyes attracted to everything blooming. My nose following the alluring smells of roses, gardenias, and hyacinths. The trees, standing tall and assuredly, bustling with greenery again—their bare disguise of winter finally gone. Above the ground this is the story each of them told; this is what the eye could see and what the mind could understand. But I knew it not to be the full story. I knew spring to also be a time when things needed to break in order to open up. I knew that below the surface, in the darkness of the soil, was where the true offering of spring was being made.

How have you been able to grow and thrive being a person of color and as someone with so many other differences?

They finally decided to get you out. I guess that’s why you were so chunky.

Would you believe I bought this bulb in the spring of July ‘21 and planted it in the fall of July ‘21. This is the first time it has emerged.

We are being asked to trust the lesser light. We are being asked to trust those moments and seasons when we are being called back into the womb, a dark sacred space. We are being urged to trust the soil in which we have been planted, recognizing the difference between being planted and buried. Even on the darkest of nights, there is still a moon that sleeps in the sky. Whether its full or a thinly sliced crescent—in its stillness, it still shines. The moon is our nightlight, our lesser light, our guide and hope towards birthing a fuller version of ourself. And while this process is not always pretty, it’s always beautiful in the end.

—

I awoke today to an old, but familiar feeling. The darkness, the moon that had been cast over me for three weeks, was gone. I heard the birds singing, as I laid in bed, but today it felt like I was hearing them for the first time. And, I was. Under Mother Moon, supported by Mother Earth, I had given birth to another version of me.

After I moved through my morning routine, a thought occurred: I wonder if those other four flowers bloomed? Eagerly, I slid on my reeboks and favorite cardigan; I raced through the backyard and into the alley. On my tippy toes I peeked over into my neighbor’s yard. There they were: four yellow boaz daffodils swaying, expectantly, in the center of the garden.

After all that time, this was the year to bloom.