Dark and Light

"What I know is this.  When one hungers for light it is only because one's knowledge of the dark is so deep."  Terry Tempest Williams

Master of my Fate

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
~ Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

Transformation

"To change, you must face the dragon of your appetites with another dragon: the life-energy of the soul" ~ Rumi

Change

"We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea.  We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice or proposals but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, lay aside their occupations and preoccupations and listen with attention to the voices speaking in their own center."  Henri Nouwen

Becoming Human

"It took me a long time to decide to become a human being, and look within my own flawed nature for salvation.   It took mistakes, dark nights of the soul, hard work and help from teachers and friends to fashion a spirituality that respected both my divinity and my humanity, my radiance and my shadow.   It took my own combination of religion and psychology, meditation and physical healing, mysticism and science to forge a path that felt genuine and effective."   Elizabeth Lesser

Dark Night of the Soul

"The most precious gift of your dark night might be the sheer edge and heft of your soul, your presence as a person of real substance."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"There is a smith in our soul who works the failures and successes of everyday life int eternal shapes that make us who we are.  It is not extraordinary, this dark place of heat and hammering, but rather an unspectacular scene of hard work.   You might think of your dark night as such a place and realize the importance of keeping it stoked and fired and dim.  Your job is to provide the setting and let the divine smith do his work."    Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"You sense in your body and in the fullness of your own emotion a great rupture in the world you have known, an irrevocable emptiness that is not just to be felt but completely absorbed if you are to go on.   A genuine dark night of the soul takes you to this crossroad place, this bardo place, where you have the opportunity, extremely hard won, to live in a different world."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"Things are not better, but you are in a different state.  Perhaps you are now where the Dark Night has been trying to take you for so long.   Now you are almost ready for a new life, and that is the purpose of bardo.  Slowly, a different kind of light begins to glow from inside you."  Thomas Moore

New Beginnings

"It can be helpful to distinguish between depression and the sense of existential emptying.  You are beyond emotion.  You are sensing your reality and your personhood.   The emptiness you sense may not be yours, not even personal.  It may the the vacuum of life.  You may be standing at the edge of your atmosphere, looking out on the empty space of your unknown world, as though you were in a space station looking out into the universe."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"The dark night may be a kind of dying.  It washes out a cluttered life.   Think of your dark night as a pruning of your tree of life."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"The traditional  rite of passage approach is to see life as a series of transformations in which you become a person with new capacities and talents.   Each of these steps might have it's own dark night.   To be a person means that you are always becoming, and a dark night is one sign that you are alive."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"The dark night itself is a kind of vessel that allows our putrefaction, the breaking apart of a life that once made sense but needed reviving."  Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"Your dark night is liminal, an in-between place, and that explains in part why it is so uncomfortable.   It is neither here nor there.   It seems to take you out of life rather than further into it.   It becomes difficult to find words to describe your experience, and you may hesitate to describe it to friends because people usually want good news.   They don't know what's going on.   Nobody around knows what is happening to you.   But something is taking place, some deep process dissolving you and remaking you into something new."   Thomas Moore

Transition

"People in transition often disregard their appearance.  You may have to allow this kind of transition in others.   When you're going through a significant change of life, your good habits may fall apart.  You may do things that distance you from your family and community.   The insanity of a dark night makes some people less civil and controlled, and yet, at the same time, they may be more present."  Thomas Moore

Depression vs. Dark Night

"Depression is a strong emotion, but a dark night is a slow transformation fueled by deep issues at work defining the very meaning of your life."   Thomas Moore

Depression vs. Dark Night

"One difference between depression and a dark night of the soul is that depression is a mood you endure and try to get through, while a dark night is a process in which your course soul is refined and your intelligence deepened.   How you imagine your ordeal makes all the difference."    Thomas Moore

Dark Night of the Soul

"A Dark Night of the Soul is dark because it doesn't give us any assurance that what is happening makes any sense and will ultimately be beneficial.  We can't understand what is happening to us."  Thomas Moore