Dark Night of the Soul

Dark Night of the Soul


There is a liminal experience in most thinking peoples lives called a "Dark Night of the Soul' - a time when the self and soul leaves the path and wanders into a dark and frightening forest.

Who you thought you were, what you thought you were, all those things you believe and hold dear become inconsequential. Your intellect matters for nothing, and all your rationality cannot lead you back to the light. Ad as to your faith - well, you may be able to rigidly hold onto some sort of belief system, but this doesn't protect you either, because all those things you "believe" show themselves to be phantoms.

The dark night can be spawned by anything - and it can last for months, years, lifetimes. Mother Theresa, it is reported, spent her whole holy life in one long dark night of the soul.

We fall into this abyss for any number of reasons - though it seems frustrated love is often a catalyst. In my case, it certainly was. Yes, the dark night stands outside the broken heart, the limerant experience of "falling in love" or "losing love" or "wanting love" - these are human emotions - but the dark night is something far deeper and more profound, beyond simple emotions of love and loss. It is a matter of deep soul work, where the very essense of one's being seeks to make room to grow and become a more dominant force in one's life.

The dark night also differs from depression. Though the experience of sadness, hopelessness, despair is similiar, the dark night has a very different quality to it. You brood, you cry, you lose sleep and seek answers - yet there is a sense that this is happening on a more profound and mystical level. There is - in my case - a sense of 'coming together' in this great 'falling apart'.

Now, the trigger for my dark night is fading into the past. The man I thought I loved is not the man I thought I loved. Certainly my feelings and deep desire are changing into something akin to revulsion - a sad enough occurance by itself. However, this is not freeing me from this dark night, because the dark night is something far more primal.

Those peices of my soul and personality - my past selves who have been so desperately damaged by the withholding of love - piece by piece these 'selves' are being healed. Yet, this isnt quite enough to release me.

I am, however learning to love myself - on a more real and substantial level. I am embracing those things that I thought were ugly, unsophisticated, unlovable - and discovering that I was wrong all along - that I had been taught wrong, from people who sought to escape thier own dark nights by drowning themselves in drama and alchohol.

I would like to emerge from these woods now. I would like to wake up one morning with no more thoughts of my lost love, no more self obsessed brooding, none of this feeling of discomfort and dissatisfaction. I would like to be finished with these feelings of neediness and lonliness amd essential unhappiness.

But - apparently, this 'stuff' is necessary for my soul, and it is my soul, unformed and puer as it is, who is leading the show. My intellect, wisdom, personality cannot control this anymore than I can prevent my son from turning from a child into a boy. The only way to stop this growth is to attempt soul suicide - abd coming from a family of people who murdered thier own souls, I know both the price and the futility of such an attempt.

So - I wait. I listen to the inner workings. I brood and cry and attend to my life the best I can. I wait, trying - as best I can, with patience and love - surrendering to whatever comes up.

The next piece of work is discernement - the soulful and intellectual excersise of determining what is important to me, what my values truly are - what is it that I hold dear and believe deep in my spirit. My life is at its halfway mark, and how deeply and importantly I live is a matter of choice and clarity - my soul must do what my soul will do - but the choices I make now will either help or hinder it on its journey.

Though I am in a deep forest, a wet and subterranian place, I will light a lantern in the darkness, and step forward, step by step - and I will try to keep moving in spite of my fear of the dark, the unknown, or the beasts that lurk in the shadows. The only other choice is to sit in the dark cowering in fear. And of all the things I admire about myself my ability to be very brave is the one quality I am most proud of.