Yesterday I returned from a trip to the UK where I went on retreat with my beloved teacher and guru in Scotland and then took a road trip to the Highlands and a few days in London travelling with my mom. The picture above is from the top of Smoo Cave.

Today as I settle back into life in this time zone the full moon started this morning. This particular full moon is auspicious in that it honors the guru. Guru is a Sanskrit word that translates to “remover of darkness.”

As I travelled to the midnight sun where night and darkness were elusive I thought about the near constant companion of the sun as a symbol of the guru principle.

On retreat we worked intensively with The Renegade Method, which invites us to go towards the parts of ourselves that we may want to remain hidden in order to shine the light onto those aspects so they don’t continue to unconsciously run our lives. This is also a beautiful metaphor for the guru. They are the person, or people, who show you what is unconscious so you can wake up.

In my experience learning from a guru in order to remove the darkness we need to go towards it. The spiritual path is not all about sunshine, light and love. It is also about going directly and courageously towards what is hidden, repressed, suppressed and unconscious. The deeper I have gone into my own darkness, learned to love and embrace the parts of myself I want to avoid and learned to be radically honest about what is happening internally the more I have been able to access joy, gratitude, awe and true compassion.

It is a paradox in that the guru does in fact remove darkness, but they do that by bringing you into such deep intimacy with it it isn’t dark anymore. They show you how to surf and dive into the depths of your mind so there is no stone unturned and no place to hide. Like the midnight sun the guru keeps the lights on so everything is open, exposed, vulnerable and in the light. In the light of the guru’s rays I have learned to not fear or run from the darkness but to see it as one of my most beloved teachers.