on darkness

It’s been dark out there. Really dark.
      I start writing these blogs about three weeks in advance of their posting. Count it back. This blog, posted mid January, had its first writing within a day or two of winter solstice. Indeed, it was dark back then. Darker than it is now. Over the last couple of months two of my three daily walks with my Great Pyrenees, Lady, have been in the blackest of night. At my side in her thick white coat, my Lady has been a loyal and protective ghost.
      So today, I post a blog about about darkness.
      We celebrate the light. The celebration of light is a focus of many of the world’s religions: Dewali for the Hindus, the lighting of the candles at Hanukkah for the Jewish people, within the Christian religion the coming of the Christ as bringing light into the darkness.
      But why does darkness itself get a bad rap?
      Perhaps it takes the arts to help us to appreciate darkness for its beauty. In literature and cinema we use the word dark to characterize malevolent elements. In writing fiction, these darker elements propel the plot and give occasion for central characters to act with courage, grace and love. In An Incoming Tide, there are three faces of evil: a narcissist, a psychopath, and a pathetic but violent ne’er-do-well. Between them they wreak much harm on the other characters. As a reader, you identify with those other characters as they are impacted by these destructive personality types, realizing your own intention to bring the best of yourself into a sometimes difficult world.
      We can extend this characterization to music. I am conscious of musical elements of darkness as a composer of jazz music. There’s the sadness of the minor chords and the chaos of the dissonant ones. Indeed a common harmonic structure is named the devil’s interval. Strike those two notes together and a shiver goes up your spine, your mouth goes dry. That name, and the use of this chilling harmony in many genres of music, goes back hundreds of years.
      What transforms these dark elements into the pleasing quality of jazz is their resolution. A dissonant chord resolves very nicely into a minor chord. When that happens it doesn’t feel sad at all, but restful and reflective. The sadness of minor chords can resolve into their related majors, augmented nicely with other notes from the scale. That resolution provides a sense of peaceful wellbeing. As I work harmonic structures underneath my melody lines I shift my listener from the tension of the dissonant chaos into the repose of resolution and wellness.
      I come upon these creative ventures into darkness and light, in dissonance and resolution, after spending decades in the therapy room as a psychologist. The sadness of loss and the anxiety of chaos were an hourly occurrence there. Client stories were saturated with accounts of others treating them with mindless inconsideration, abusive self-indulgence, arrogant dismissal, destructive greed … pretty much the gamut of the darker sides of human nature. The residual emotional pain and confusion felt by my clients as they grappled with this darkness formed the foundation of our talks together.
      Then, together we would work to find resiliency, resolve and resolution.
​      Remember me mentioning Lady at the beginning of this blog? She came into our lives after being rescued, chained up in a backyard, apparently neglected. It took her a long time to realize she could trust us. From the beginning we saw signs of her having been abused; she still shies away from quick movement of feet, has trouble with men coming close.
    As a Great Pyrenees she carries breed characteristics of being protective, independent and stubborn. She is a big dog: we figure around 100 pounds of muscle strength. Lady’s behaviour around other dogs and strangers suggests that she was never properly socialized in her early years. Her past creates quite a challenge on the city walks I share with her and when visitors come into our home. Funny how all that is so similar to the clients that came into my office, client’s harmed in their childhood lives.
    For my part, I need to be the source of resolution for her, calming her and reassuring her that we are a team in meeting the vicissitudes of her life now. For her part, she is loyal and affectionate and goofy and claims her space as a family member in our home. After previously having Golden Retrievers and Border Collies, Lady has redefined for us what it means to have companionship with a dog. I particularly like the way that she first stares at me a while before responding to a command, apparently thinking over whether or not she will comply. Often she decides she won’t be bothered. But it is oh-so satisfying when she does come over to me after I’ve called her; she has thought about it, and decided that such would be okay with her.
    Back at the top, I described Lady as a loyal and protective ghost at my side walking through the dark of the mid-winter night. After writing the blog, I know that I am the same for her (although not dressed in a thick white fur coat as is she).
    We face the dark together: together like the characters in my fiction who find they can be motivated by higher values as they endure the darker sides of human nature; together like the listeners to my music who with me find resolution after the chaos of dissonant harmonies; together like the clients who had the courage to bring their stories of hurt and harm to my therapy office so we could together witness the miracle of healing.
    Together, like you and I are now in reading these words written at the darkest time of the year, finding within them companionship and hope.
 

Clickable links the to the previous blogs.

December 2023 - Note Perfect ... or not!
November 2023 - Just notes
October 2023 - About endings
​September 2023 - Sacred ground
​August 2023 - Are we there yet? 
​July 2023 - How smart is SMART? 
June 2023 - Only half there
May 2023 - Who gets to write the story?
April 2023 - Intersubjectivity. Hunh?
​​March 2023 - A disturbing trend 
February 2023 - About being in the middle
January 2023 - Can we have a little heart here please?
December 2022 - A story about story
November 2022 - Facing One's Fears
October 2022 - Transitional folk
September 2022 - Transitions
​August 2022 —At the other end of life's journey
July 2022—The problem with what emerges.
June 2022 — So who am I doing this for anyway?
May 2022 - Wait for it ... wait ... 
April 2022 — Someone called me a Nazi.
March 2022 — Shush! Don't tell anyone.
February 2022 — So does life imitate art? Well, maybe sometimes. 
January 2022 — The two most powerful lines in the book.
December 2021 — About time and being human.
November 2021 — Not a tidy little murder mystery
October 2021 — Flow versus focus. 
​September 2021 -- It's beautiful because it tells the truth. ​