I sometimes see people on social media use the term “lightworker”, apparently meaning someone working for the good of life and the planet.
I appreciate the intention of supporting life, but the term seems a bit off to me.
First, it seems to set people in that category – and people seem often to use it about themselves – apart from others. I am a lightworker and you are not. Why the separation? We are all in this together. Everything I see in you I know from myself. The world as it appears to me is me in a very real sense. It’s interpreted and labeled through images and words in my own mental field. It reflects back to me what I have in myself as a human being. And I am capacity for all of it, it’s all happening within and as what I am.
Also, it seems to separate light from darkness, and associate light with something good and darkness with something bad. Why this separation? Darkness is as beautiful as light. In physical darkness, there is rest for many animals and plants. There is sleep and dreams. During the dark night, there is rest. During the dark winter, there is rest. Seeds germinate and grow in the dark soil. The universe as we know it emerged from darkness and absence of light. In metaphorical darkness, we find that which we don’t want to see in ourselves, and that’s where – when we get to know these parts of us and include them more consciously in our life – we find a tremendous richness and nourishment for our life.
It seems that the term lightworker comes from a need to set a group of people, including oneself, apart from others. And a need to set light apart from dark. It seems to come out from an essentially dualistic view on the world, leaving out the larger wholeness it’s happening within and as.
And, of course, this too is reflecting who and what I am. I may not do it in this particular way, but I do it in other ways. For instance, as I write this, I put the “lightworker” people into one category and myself in another, and somewhere in me, I see “my own” category as a little better. And I notice that comes out of insecurity and fear. It’s a reaction to unmet and unloved fear in me. It’s a reaction to unexamined beliefs and assumptions.
As I wrote the sentence “It seems that the term…” and I looked at the need to set oneself apart through stories, the lyrics of the song I listened to said:
Beautiful people telling the stories….
– Like a Gypsy, Kojato
When we tell ourselves these stories, we make ourselves into the beautiful people set apart from the rest.