Light It Up | A Black Forest Awakening

Before the light even touches the trail, I think of the Black Forest—that ancient stretch of evergreens in southwest Germany where dawn feels like a secret.

They say it got its name because the canopy is so thick that even at midday, sunlight barely reaches the forest floor. The shadows there aren’t empty; they’re alive with waiting.

It’s that same kind of darkness felt this morning—rich, deep, and full of unseen possibility. The air is cold, the world still. Standing at the edge of my own wild forest, knowing that the moment light breaks through, everything will change.

Something about that still-dark morning stillness tells me this is one of those waiting moments, too. The kind where your heart knows a light is coming and that changes everything.

The World Before

The hush of black before the birdsong is one of my favorite places. No morning hasserade or too-early alarm clock can break the magic of a moment when you step outside to join the Earth before she stirs.

You exhale, and your breath curls in the air. Somewhere in the stillness, a single songbird wakes and voices its first chirp of the day. To rise in sync with the sky feels like rising to sync with something ancient—something bigger than the thinking mind.

Ahead, my trail is swallowed by black. Soon, the trees divide and I look down into a deep ravine. Tight shadows, hanging branches, dense and quiet as the dark hums with possibility.

It’s then that I recall something Ram Dass said:

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“Once the light has entered, the door can never be closed again.”

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The idea of a light makes me flip the switch. The headlamp douses shadow in a beam of quiet purpose. It’s no great flood of light; it doesn’t try to pierce the whole forest. It simply lights my path.

Maybe that’s all light ever is.

Illumination Alley

The light hits a stone here, a root there, a curling switchback. Obstacles don’t disappear with illumination, but they’re easier to see. And once they have been seen, they are not exactly forgotten.

The same is true for wild awareness. Shine that light on your life, and the same magic happens. The more we see ourselves and our surroundings, the less we can unsee.

Then from the thickest dark, the tiny seeds of sunrise begin to slip through. A hint of light so faint you can almost miss it at first. A scrap of gold teases the horizon. Then more and more. Until light comes trickling in.

The forest stirs. Branches stretch from black to green. Fog drips from leaf to leaf and misty air begins to pulse with a low thrum of warmth.

Life, if you let it, is like that. When we notice our light, when we trust the path, when we follow the magnetic pull of our hopes and dreams, we wake up to the world all around us, one exquisite gleam at a time. At first it’s the outline, then the color, then the full shape of everything comes rushing into view.

You wake to the light of the tall trees, the little ones, the forest for more than just a forest, the trail for more than just a trail. Before we know it, there’s no door left to close, no path too rocky, no landscape too large to fill with light.

Once that crack in the darkness cracks, it cracks more and more until all of it glows awake.

Light Within

That light keeps glowing within, little fires of inner knowing that sometimes barely flicker and sometimes blaze so bright you can almost touch them. That’s the light I’m talking about.

The light that doesn’t need the sunrise or anyone else’s match to burn. The quiet knowing in your bones that whispers, go anyway.

If you do, it shifts. The forest comes to light. Branches wake. Birdsongs call. You realize you weren’t walking to the light, you were walking with it.

Light It Up

Some days, some moments in life, feel less Zen than this Black Forest before dawn. Cold, dark, and downright difficult to see through. Waiting for perfect vision is a fine way to never move at all.

So turn on the light. Any light. Shaky, flickering light is still light. Maybe it’s your passion or your purpose or maybe it’s as simple as walking out your door for a hike. Every time we point that beam at the world, we wake up another part of it.

Wild awareness isn’t the destination. It’s the doorway—an entry of light into moving awake.

And if need be, pro tip, kindly tell ourselves to get it together. Stop sleeping the light away.

Wake up. Step out. Light it up.

Cheers!

Kether

Spunky Mind

“At the center of your being

you have the answer;

you know who you are and

you know what you want.”

— Lao Tzu