Dark­ness is almost always regarded as threat­en­ing. Blind­ness – the absence of sight, spir­itu­al dark­ness – the absence of know­ledge, the dark­en­ing of con­scious­ness – the oppos­ite of enlight­en­ment, and yet a shad­ow exists only where there is light…

The wan­ing light reaches its low point and lingers there for a while. You might think the low point is merely a single marked point, but in truth the low point lasts three days, and the rolling down, the stay­ing below and the push-off all take place alike in dark­ness. The low point rules the day that comes before it, and the one that fol­lows after, but its rule reaches no fur­ther than an arm's length, it reaches no earli­er and no later, it has no real power.

And yet now everything with­draws, falls silent, wraps itself in dark­ness and cold. The Sun rolls down to the foot of the solar slope, and there it rests. The low point is the point farthest from the peak of the zenith, the deep­est-lying point, the out­er­most swing away from the full­ness of light, that is, the greatest dis­tance meas­ured from full­ness, the absence of full­ness, but we could also say, the full­ness of absence. Yet the time of light is not run­ning out but filling up, for the low point is also a point of rest, a place from which one can push off. So this out­er­most swing is at the same time the start­ing point of the return, and one truly knows which path leads upwards when he is down below, far down below.

The low point is an extreme, but not the end of the line. The low point, the state of rest, is the neces­sary oppos­ite pole to the peak. What is mak­ing ready in the dark? Gloom, a deep­er dull­ness? Mists and shad­ows? Final ruin, anni­hil­a­tion, the last flick­er­ing out? Is end­less depth born from the labour of dark­ness? You know well that it is not so. The time of gloom is spent, the fate of dark­ness is ful­filled, and from the embers slum­ber­ing beneath the ash the flame flares up once more. No, do not believe it, it is not from dark­ness that light is born. Neg­a­tion may always be more pop­u­lar than affirm­a­tion, yet it is not dark­ness that is the source of light.

How­ever far the Sun draws away from the full­ness of light, from mid­sum­mer right down to the harshest, darkest days of winter, it is from this very point, the farthest and darkest, that it sets out again on its vic­tori­ous way back. The farthest swing, meas­ured from the full­ness of light, becomes the start­ing point of the jour­ney back. ‘The begin­ning of the return, then, is that which is most incom­plete, and its end that which is most com­plete,’ asserts Pro­clus, and we are inclined to put our trust in his words. We hope, in spite of the dark­ness.

Trivi­al it may be, yet the example of the candle is worth recall­ing. In its pre­par­at­ory state, cap­able of all things, the candle is white, cool, waxy, life­less. But it holds with­in it not only the wick, which, like a guid­ing thread, forms its hid­den treas­ure. More than this lies hid­den in the candle. With­in the candle's mat­ter lies the prom­ise of light. The wax over­comes itself, through its self-sac­ri­fice its solid mass turns liquid, and it gives birth to a far high­er octave of itself, to light. Light comes out of dull mat­ter, fire – out of earth. All that the candle was is anni­hil­ated, trans­muted, in its mat­ter and in its spir­it alike. Mat­ter becomes light, and spir­it, the prom­ise of light, becomes real­ity, light itself. Alchemy? A quantum leap? A meta­morph­os­is of tran­sub­stan­ti­ation? Or an example for you: to become light, wholly?!

A fright­en­ing pro­spect or the one holy call­ing… What remains of the candle? Only a scrap of charred wick, per­haps a drop or two of con­gealed wax. Like the pearl-rel­ics that remain after the crema­tion of Buddhist lamas, or the sac­rum that does not crumble to dust.

And what remains once the candle has burnt down? The dark­ness may well return, but its robe is torn now, its strength battered. It will never again be as strong as it was before. Even in the dark the prom­ise of light remains. Low point for three days – high point for an etern­ity.