Golden Strand of Truth

In 2004, my husband and I took classes together at a local community college to better our prospects in life.  At the time, we were taking both logic & philosophy, physics, anthropology, and advanced algebra.  We were also taking several random trips through the back-roads of rural New Mexico.  On one trip in particular, we were driving from Albuquerque, to Santa Fe, to Los Alamos, to Jemez Springs, Jemez Pueblo, San Ysidro, Zia Pueblo, and back around again to Albuquerque.  It was fall, and the aspens were golden as we drove through the Baca making our way towards Battleship Rock.    We had been talking about the idea of God being the number line, and black and white or light and dark were the negative and positive numbers – all relevant to mathematics – the universal language.

As we drove through some of the most beautiful landscapes that New Mexico has to offer, our minds began to drift towards understanding and naming the factors that are true for everyone – across nations, cultures, beliefs; it transcends and connects all things.  We called it, “the Golden Strand of Truth”.  Our goal in this discussion was to find aspects that were universally true throughout.  Something in me said out loud, “If you connect to the Golden Strand of Truth, you have access to all information that flows through everything.”

My mind then stretched out into the void – as if I was a creature that could see all of creation, watching stars form and die as they burst into supernovas or are pulled so deep inside of themselves they create a black hole to another dimension eventually creating a cosmic dance of stars.  This phrase came to mind; “in the beginning was darkness” followed by “then there was light”.  Light and Dark transcend both religion and science.  In other words, they are accepted concepts in both contexts.  Before the big bang, was darkness – or dark matter.  Then the big bang happened – creating the dimension that we now live in.  Light and Dark were the first two universal truths.  Stretching our brains, the next truths that came to our minds were Life and Death, followed by Change and Growth.  This was as far as we went in this particular discussion.

Eventually, throughout many other random road trips, we began to map out what the Universal Truths were teaching us.  Initially, we recognized that, as humans, we get to decide our relationship with all universal truths.  For example, Christianity had taught me that dark was bad, and light was good.  My grappling with logic and philosophy led to me realize that I could not accept the Christian belief that darkness was bad.

Throughout my life, I have had a very close relationship with darkness and the night.  As a child, when twilight approached, I would run through the neighborhood watching as the moon seemed to follow me everywhere – giggling around every corner and speaking to it as if it were a long-lost best friend.  My inability to accept darkness as bad ultimately led me to reading about pagan religions and eastern religions (one and the same actually).  I studied the roots of Greek Gods, Celtic Goddesses, Native American Animism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism.  I held these concepts as if they were true for me – recognizing that this was a choice.

Suddenly, in my own perception, the light and dark felt like two sides of the coin of existence.  The dark felt like a feminine presence to me.  Whereas the light, felt like a masculine one.  The dark held the womb of all creation and all possibilities.  The light was the impetus and created what we call “reality”.  I decided to own these relationships as my own perception and understanding of my lived relationship with light and dark.
I began holding my own truth of Goddess being the darkness, and God is the light.  I choose to believe that they are not trying to destroy each other (like God or Satan in Christianity).  Instead, they reach for each other infinitely.  They willingly and perpetually give themselves to each other.  It is this connection, undying love, and the willing destruction of each other that creates all of existence.  “All the colors!”  Their connection is not an intention to destroy, it is by nature, destructive because darkness cannot go where the light is and light cannot go where the darkness is.  However, in their sacrifice to each other, life, with its infinite variability, is born.

From my personal perspective – two sides of a coin exist for a reason.  It’s important for us to remember that without these two opposing sides, we would be unable to experience anything.  Nothing would make sense.  This is why I say, “embrace the horror”.  It is teaching us something.  What wisdom will we have gained when we overcome our current reality?  To cultivate this wisdom, we must listen to each other, and especially, to ourselves.  What are our own truths?