The Dark of the Year
By: Ayesha Foot
January, the cold dark time between the Winter Solstice and Imbolc;
traditionally a time to make resolutions, most of which are broken within days.
Perhaps we try to do too much at once - certainly I do. Although we are
sometimes blessed with Aha! momentswhen everything seems to fall into focus,
for the most part it is a question of one step at a time: each dawn a new
beginning, each sunset a letting go of what has been achieved as well as what
has been accomplished. Each New Moon gives an opportunity for a larger sense of
starting afresh. A favourite practice of mine is the Dhikr of the Dark Moon, a
letting go into the Divine until one becomes simply the drop in the ocean,
letting go, as Eckhart says, even of letting go.
In the garden, bulbs are busily growing under the snow. Some seeds actually need frost to germinate. I remember my family's surprise when I kept a tray of lavender seeds in the fridge for a month! We, too, actually need the darkness and the cold. When I wrote a poem on Darkness, two friends responded by sending me a the same quotation from Jung:
"One does not become enlightened by imagining light but by making the darkness conscious."
I am saddened that we are constantly reminded during the Advent season of the
need to reject darkness and turn towards the light. What do we mean by
darkness, and why are we so afraid of it? For me darkness is the unknown, a
fluid, chaotic potentiality where creativity begins, yet it is only very
recently that I have dared to begin my exploration of it. I suppose it began
for me when I came across The Hebraic Tongue Restored. In his rendering of the
Creation story from ancient Hebrew the word hoshech, normally translated as
darkness, suddenly took on an immense and exciting depth of meaning for me. It
is essentially a conflict of two opposing forces, a hardening, rigidifying,
densifying force and an inner movement towards expansion, a chaotic, disordered
movement out of harmony with its surroundings. Does this sound like stress? I
have certainly recognised it within myself, and within groups I have been
working with. I described it to a young physicist and he said, "But you have
just described a black hole!" According to Asimov, black holes give rise to
whole new universes. Certainly it is my experience that from this uncomfortable
conflict, creativity comes about in some mysterious way.
This word hoshech grabbed my imagination so strongly that I began to work with
other powerful phrases in the Sepher Berashith, and a cycle of five dances has
grown over the past three years. I find it interesting that women in particular
are deeply moved by this exploration of darkness, as if it is something we have
tended to deny.
Another aspect of darkness is the shadow, the unknown part of one's own being. In Desert Wisdom, Neil Douglas-Klotz gives a series of practices enabling one to begin the process of communion with one's inner voices, the depths of the self, the nephesh or subconscious soul. I have not seen these described elsewhere, and have found them very helpful, though I recognise I have years of work ahead.
But I would like the last word on darkness to be from Jesus:
...unless a human being returns
to that sameness with the cosmos
which feels like death--
the dark moist place of birthing,
the place where only flow and animating spirit,
only water and breathing,
only giving way and stirring exist--
...... That person cannot extend
to touch and feel at home in
the power and beauty of the Source.
Desert Wisdom, Neil Douglas-Klotz. Harper Collins 1995
Copyright © 1995 The International Communique Ltd