The Dark Night of the Soul

Given that solitude presents many profound life-restoring gifts, it can feel paradoxical that it also engenders a sense of travelling a dark passage. But sacred mystics have consistently told us, from the time of St. John of the Cross in the 1500's, and long before, that such a passage through the darkness is essential to being able to come face-to-face with the unknown self living within us.

Solitude creates the conditions in which one can feel true emptiness: the kind of emptiness that is able to conceive truly new life within one. When there are no obligations of the day, no need to pick the kids up at 3, no responsibilities requiring action; no reflections from the expectations others have of who one is and how one behaves, thinks and feels; a surprising thing occurs: one experiences a deep - and oftentimes unnerving - sense of not knowing who one really is. It becomes apparent that our usual sense of self knowledge is rooted predominantly in these exact obligations and expectations coming from outside us. Without these we run into this essential lack of the security of our usual self image. And, mystics point out, holding oneself open to this particular emptiness is the "Dark Night of the Soul". 

In the mid-fourteenth century an anonymous author wrote the now classic essay, The Cloud of Unknowing, as an attempt to describe the process of opening oneself to a personal experience of the ultimate mysteries of life. Early on he states this principle: in the work of approaching the mystery "there is at the start but a darkness; there is, as it were, a cloud of unknowing." The author goes on to say that this darkness initially precludes both the powers of knowing and loving. "Be prepared, therefore, to remain in this darkness as long as must be…For if you are ever to feel...or to see [your true self], it will necessarily be within this cloud and within this darkness."

There is a long tradition in mysticism of going to the wilderness to fast in solitude in order to create this exact cloud of unknowing, of darkness. The empty time, the empty stomach, the emptying out of the world of concepts and identity - all serve to bring forth a face-to-face meeting with the unknown self. It is a process of great joy and pain.

It is a fundamental theme in mysticism that the light and dark are equal partners in all aspects of life. AE (George Russell), the early 20th centry Irish mystic poet, painter, philosopher and social activist, presents images of this principle in this poem:

The Gay

Those moon gilded dancers
Prankt like butterflies,
Theirs was such lovely folly
It stayed my rapt eyes:
But my heart that was pondering
Was sadly wise.

To be so lightened
What pain was left behind;
What fetters fallen gave them
Unto this airy mind:
What dark sins were pardoned;
What God was kind!

I with long anguish bought
Joy that was soon in flight;
And wondered what these paid
For years of young delight;
Ere they were born what tears
Through what long night.

All these gay cheeks, light feet,
Were telling over again,
But in a heavenly accent
A tale of ancient pain
That, the joy spent, must pass
To sorrow again.

I went into the wilderness
Of night to be alone,
Holding sorrow and joy
Hugged to my heart as one,
Lest they fly on those wild ways
And life be undone.

(VALE and other Poems, McMillan. 1931. p. 4)