In this incredible moment in time, where so many of us have been plunged into our own interior space, where at times it seems as though entire populations are moving through a dark night of the soul, I have been contemplating more deeply the nature of shadow and light.
In the light, we grow as we are, and become more of what we are. We flesh out the less developed aspects of the self, we extend and spiral into our length and breadth and begin to embody a more refined beauty, which is the unfolding expressing of our seed form.
And as we reach upward towards the sun, we claim our voice, a voice that was birthed inside of the darkness, and in the deep night hours of this miraculous initiation experience.
In the light, we do not have the same capacity to shift the deeper strata of our being, and to transmute, alchemize, and completely rebirth the self. This is not the nature of the experience of luminosity. The potentiality of this transformative experience is held within the beautiful domain of the shadow realm alone, and the reconciliations that must occur through a dark night of the soul.
In the darkness we have the opportunity to experience the inner alchemy of the spirit, which reveals to us an entire substratum of the self.
As a part of this revelation, we are often asked to move through ever deeper individual or ancestral corridors of shadow and profound suffering, which may generate the release of enormous grief, anger, and terror. This is why so many refuse to walk into the darkness. This experience alone is too much for so many, and they wait and ripen on the vine, sometimes spending entire lifetimes looking the other direction, avoiding that which would send them into disrepair.
But this experience is a necessary passage, and a vital release, which allows the human being to move through the great initiatory fire, and into the calm of a farther shore.
Like a seed planted within the dark of the earth, like an embryo in the cave of the womb, through the interior experience of our own psycho-spiritual shadow nature, through that which remains untilled and uncultivated, we possess the immense opportunity to reclaim our own soul vitality.
We can see this power referenced again and again through countless cultures, pointing to the deeper experience of mystery wisdom and initiatory rites-of-passage.
When we close our eyes and allow for the opportunity to move within, when we open to the interior portal and permit ourselves to be with what is, without judgement, the pure nature of this experience is one of immense transformation.
The whole of our being has the opportunity to move through a process not unlike the larva shapeshifting into a butterfly. This process, painful as it is, is one of radical change, and becomes the single greatest initiatory experience into the deeper castle of the spirit.
The great yogis of all ages sat inside the black caves of the Himalayas to facilitate this awakening.
Initiates in the Ancient Greek Mystery Schools were said to go underground into catacombs to enter into this rebirthing space.
The Knights in search of the Mystery of the Holy Grail, the symbol of spiritual awakening itself, were told to enter into the darkness of the forest, each through their own winding path, and to begin their great quest there ~ in the briars and in the roots of earthen shadow, so that the mystery of the forest of the self might reveal the secret of the rose.
Every single ritual initiation process asks us to move into the shadow, and become the luminary of our own journey. As we walk through the invisible pathways that inhabit these lands, we begin the process of seeing more fully the richness of our own being. Without embarking upon this interior path in the dark wilderness, we cannot experience the descent of the light, we cannot fully know the gift of the rise of the sun, and the bliss of dawn on a new world.
The darkness is the place of the great return, it is the movement closer into eternity, and the seed form of every human soul. It is the place where the deeper alchemy unfolds, and where the template for growth is established, where the greater destiny of the soul resides. If we never have the courage to enter through these dark gates, we can never retrieve our own greater destiny, and move to regenerate the divine blueprint that so many souls have yet to experience.
As seekers on the path, we must cultivate the courage to embrace the shadow, and move into the sacred womb space that may elicit such grief and terror. Within the cave of our own dark night, we move to shine the light of awareness through the vastness of this interior space.
The larger question for each seeker should be not whether we enter through these initiatory gates if the call is clearly heard ~ for this space is the prerequisite for the reclamation of the life of soul.
The questions must be around how we set ourselves up for the greatest victory, surrounded by those willing and divine beings, the Anam Cara of our life, as John O’Donohue has so beautifully defined through his monumental book ~ Soul Friend.
The Anam Cara will bear witness to these transformations, and will move to support us when we cannot support ourselves.
These are the friends that we need now.
All others should not be held so close.
For traveling into the darkness is the great work, showing us the road forward into an experience of illumination that is beyond our current comprehension. When we move through the dark valley, we fortify our spiritual life, coming to know our higher dimensions and potentiality, and we prepare ourselves for all that is to come.
Without this rebirth, without the courage to move into the dark forest path that is calling, then we will not be ready to birth the new consciousness that is asking so many of us to be born.
Awake!
Awake!
The time for silent slumber is over!
The Dark Night brings forth the New Earth.
Photo by Jeremy Frindel
