Darkness

There are times when we feel gripped by the darker human emotions: fear, anxiety, grief, loneliness, anger, sadness, depression, or even despair. When we can’t shake off these feelings, we may experience a “dark night of the soul” where our spiritual resources fail us.

For some, this is experienced as the emptiness of God’s withdrawal; others may feel deeply affected by circumstances in our lives or in our world. While darkness can be a deep wellspring of creativity and growth, it is challenging when we are in the midst.

This page is a place for members to unburden our hearts anonymously and share with others.

Please treat one another’s concerns with kindness and respect. Thank you.


Comments

Darkness is not necessarily a cold tomb -- it can also be the welcome womb in which the new Light of Compassion is born...

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
~ 'Lord of the Rings' -Tolkien


Sweet Darkness, by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

You darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything-
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! -
powers and people-

and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Darkness ... is also part of my journey as a human being.
When darkness surrounds me, I am lost in a sea of confusion.
And I am so far gone into darkness that
I cannot see the Light.
And yet I know that Light is always shining within...and
this powerful thought is what keeps me trying over and over !

Levels:

Darkness ... The invisible you touch .....
Light ... The visible you see ....
.......