The Light of Sum Wah

There is a light that runs through every sacred story this planet has ever told.

It moves through the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

It moves through the gods of Greece and Rome — through Zeus and Aphrodite, Demeter, Pan, and Hermes — and through the halls of the North, where Thor and Loki live.

It moves through Ifá, through the Yoruba and Candomblé, through Ogun and Yemayá. It moves through Eshu, keeper of the crossroads, the embodiment of the dynamic relationship between choice, perception, responsibility, and consequence.

It moves through the spiritual systems of the South Pacific, through Wicca, through those who honor the earth and its magic, and through the eternal dance of feminine and masculine energy.

This is the Light of Sum Wah.

Within every one of these stories lives kernels of universal truths. The work in Sum Wah is to gather those truths and weave them into a life that is full, meaningful, and self-actualized.

The Light of Sum Wah is lived.

It is lived through the Five Gates.

It does not deny the eternal mystery — the Mover, the movers, the sacred sayings and allegory and the arrangement of worlds beyond our sight. It honors that no one owns the whole story, and it places our attention on what is ours to tend. Our story is a unique thread within the light.

Where do the traditions come from?

From the Light, speaking through us.

Human beings have reached for the Light in fear and in hope — for a good harvest, for safety in battle, for luck, and for love. And each time, we have rendered what we received in the only language we have: the language of this plane of existence. So, the infinite takes a human face. The boundless becomes a story of wheat fields and wars and longing.

Consider one who is uninitiated, standing before cuneiform, the Medu Neter, Aramaic, Pali or Sanskrit. Attempting to decipher lessons of a spiritual nature. They may come close. But without help from a knowledgeable adept they won't come close to touching the fullness of the meaning in these writing systems.

Islam teaches the same of the Qur'an. Its rendering into another language is called a transliteration, knowing that its essence can never be carried outside the language of its origin.

So it is with every tradition. Each one comes close. None is the Light itself.

The Light may exist beyond us…but

The Light is also us.

You are the thread that joins this life to the eternal mystery. When you understand this, you understand something certain: when you speak from your center, the Light is speaking. When you speak from inspiration, the Light is speaking. When you speak from your grounded self, the light speaks.

This teaching is a recognition to be arrived at, gate by gate, breath by breath.

The Light of Sum Wah beckons. It reaches into the farthest corners of existence and calls each listener to hear — and recognize their place within the light.

Whatever tradition has carried you here, honor it. Sum Wah asks you to surrender nothing true. It asks only that you live awake.