When The Lights Went Out
A publication reinstated and its community restored
Yesterday, I wrote a piece about my experience with Illumination. I wrote about how it gave me hope and belonging, especially during this pandemic. I wrote about the connections forged and the friends made.
Below is that article:
On Sundays, I sit down and write a plan for the week. What I’m going to write, how much, and where that writing will ultimately end-up. It helps me stay focused, and I know what to publish each day. It takes away the guessing game. So, on Thursday evening, I went to publish my daily story for Illumination. and didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary.
But, when I logged in to submit my story, I was at a loss, because Illumination was gone. And because I had written the story with the Illumination community and readers in mind, I thought, “What am I going to do with this article now?” It had a specific purpose.
Without Illumination to bring together the legions of us who write to inspire, assist, and transform, I decided I would self-publish the piece. Because I still wanted the article to uplift others, in the vast Medium land, and specifically the Illumination community.
Then as I habitually went to read Illumination stories as I do in the evenings, while cooking dinner, I realized the biggest loss was a community had simply vanished. It felt bizarre.
One of my favorite things about Illumination is the opportunity to be creative and authentic while sharing a piece of your soul with like-minded individuals.
How would I find the works of authors such as Dr Mehmet Yildiz, KeepingItRealWithAnnick, Paul Myers MBA, George J. Ziogas, Trista Ainsworth, P.G. Barnett, Lori Brown, Gurpreet Dhariwal, Salam Khan, Kevin Buddaeus, Rasheed Hooda, Jessica Cote, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Erin King, Terry Mansfield, René Junge, Michele Thill, Dipti Pande, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Desiree Driesenaar, Livia Dabs, 🦄 Chris Hedges, Shin Jie Yong, Timothy Key, Mary Holden, Marcela Cruz-Gibbons, Bill Abbate, Ann K Frailey, Karen Madej 💛, John Ross, Tim Maudlin, Joe Luca, Indra Raj Pathak, Amy Marley, Henery X (long), Marlane Ainsworth, LauraRaduenz, Simona, Terri DelCampo-Nelson, John C Davis, and countless other wonderful writers I’d routinely read and connected with? What if I missed a name? Would that connection be lost?
So, I quickly started making a list of Illumination writers, so I wouldn’t lose contact with these new friends.
Because now it felt like the community was cast back out to the expansive Medium sea, instead of pulling into the Illumination harbor of community and companionship.
And although I wasn’t aware of the specifics of why Illumination was suspended, I knew the founder and community, operated from a place of honesty, trust, and support. So, I flew into my habitually supporting mode and did what I could to help and uplift others.
Then, I learned that Illumination and its founder had been reinstated. I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that the interconnectedness of us all had returned with a timeless and powerful word: community.
And so I’d like to share one of my favorite poems below.:
Some passages never really leave you once you hear them. This poem by Maya Angelou is one such metrical composition.
A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou
“We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear
When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it.”
With great love and gratitude, Aurora
