Judith Shiner

Judith Shiner is a poet, teacher, psychotherapist and faciliator for Contemplative Writing Circles, including Women’s Circle of Elders. She has a book of poetry titled Waiting For Spring: Poems of Loss and Renewal, though it was published in 2013 it seems relevant to our world now.

To the Darkness

Only when the storm comes

roaring off the wild California coast

bringing its raging rain and wind

swirling around the edges of my fears

can I know the power

of the magnificent roots of the old oak tree

clinging like a net of tangled hair

twisted and knotted into the earth

wedded to the dark

holding the swaying branch-laden tree

firmly to its source.

Only then can I feel

and bow down to the darkness

to the fertile terrain

where life is held and nourished

Only then can I know

I depend on the darkness for light.

— Judith Shiner