Discerning the Dark

A care package for the darkest days of the year.

Hi friends, as we approach the Winter Solstice - the longest night of the year - the dark invites us to pay attention. Read on for a little glimpse into my evolving and ambivalent relationship with the dark or scroll further down for two (dark) poems. Right at the end you’ll find a few ideas for simple ways to mark the Solstice. I hope there is a little something here that feels as though it’s just for you. Jen x

Image by Harmony Lawrence from Pixabay

Sometimes I think my dog, Teddy, is scared of the dark. He stands at the window and barks into the night. It’s not his usual high pitched yap but a low, gruff woof which I know means "I don't like it". Last year, when I hosted a ‘Welcoming the Dark’ retreat at home and we blew out all the candles, he whimpered until we turned the lights back on.

At other times Teddy seeks out the darkness. If we have guests over and things get noisy, he takes himself off into another, quieter room and curls up in the darkest place he can find - right in the middle of the rug, under the coffee table. When it's time for him to go to bed, he trots into his “room” (aka the downstairs loo) and waits for me to turn off the lights before he settles down to sleep.

I used to think this ambivalence about the dark was a sign that he is a typical, nervy poodle who lacks the understanding of the dark needed to feel secure. Now I wonder whether he understands the dark perfectly well or at least as well as me. What he knows - and I know - is that the dark is not one thing. It is scary and it is safe, it is a place of terrors and a place of rest.

The more I've pondered darkness, the more I've been compelled by its complexity. The dark is a tangle of memories and metaphors and it refuses to straighten itself out. I know because I’ve tried. Sometimes I still do. Mostly, though, I’ve given up trying to think my way through the dark. Instead, I move towards its mystery. I leave the lights off and simply experience it.

When I choose to experience darkness in this way it usually brings peace. I exhale into its embrace and rest. Sometimes, in the midst of that rest, the hidden things will begin to offer themselves. Buried emotions might surface or a question offer itself as an answer. In this inside-out space, it is easy to listen to my soul - and to the Presence I name God - not so much because things are clear but because I’m more willing to stay with uncertainty long enough for it to yield its own secret knowledge. These are my cloud of unknowing moments when I get a taste of what the 14th century writer was talking about.¹ I am loosened from the impulse to understand and can be intimate with the Mystery.

I try to remember that there can be peace in unknowing when, in the middle of the night, I wake and am suddenly plagued by all the unwanted thoughts I’ve run from all day. In the early hours of a wakeful night, the dark no longer feels like the meeting place between my soul and the Divine but a joyless place where I am tormented by my inner critic who weaponises all my anxieties and fears and is relentless in using them against me. I used to struggle through this torture while lying in bed but I’ve since learnt to get up, open the window and breathe in the night air. It also helps to see the friendly twinkle of the stars. If the thoughts are really oppressive, though, I have to turn on a light. The dark becomes a force dragging me under into despair; the light is my only way out. If I don’t, I will start to think about all the harmful things that have happened to me - and others - in the dark.

Like I said, the darkness isn't one thing.

Like Teddy, I have learnt a healthy ambivalence.

I say “learnt” because, years ago, when I started exploring the dark and realised how rich and necessary it is, I wanted to replace all negative associations with positive ones. Having reflected on the fullness of my encounters with and in the dark, I now think that the dark has many faces, some more appealing than others. Things grow in the dark and things are killed in the dark; there is peace in the dark and there is menace in the dark. As much as I agree with Barbara Brown Taylor that the dark has been excessively maligned,² the physical dark does have a frightening, threatening side - at least to those who ordinarily depend on their sense of sight for knowledge and security. It makes sense that darkness can be a metaphor for what is dangerous (and I don’t think BBT would disagree).

That said, I still wince at liturgies that are simplistic in their equation of light with goodness and dark with evil. Not only does that ignore the complexity in the Christian tradition’s approach to darkness (let’s not forget all the significant things that happen in the dark, not least, the resurrection) but it could be seen to imply untrue things about skin colour. I long for more nuanced liturgies that encourage a more playful approach to the imagery of light and dark. I wonder what we miss about ourselves and God when we stick too rigidly to one use of metaphor.

I also refuse to believe that it’s healthy to ignore even the darkness that does feel genuinely dangerous. I’m not convinced it’s good for us to endlessly run from what frightens us. I used to have recurring nightmares of being chased in the dark and what I learnt (I don’t know how) is that sometimes you have to stop running, turn around and act. When my daughter started to have the same nightmare, I taught her to do the same by encouraging her to re-enter the dream in her imagination and take charge of the story. “You could scream or fight or laugh at what’s been chasing you. Maybe even try making friends with it,” I told her, “You'll know what to do. Just stop running and trust you have what you need to handle it.”

Then again, maybe this isn’t always good advice. Maybe there really are times when we really ought to run from what frightens us - even in our dreams.

For a long time my favourite poem about darkness was Wendell Berry’s ‘To Know the Dark’. In just a few lines, this poem powerfully communicates the richness of the dark. If we are willing to “go without sight”, Berry tells us, we will discover that the dark, too, “blooms and sings”. I still love this poem and its encouragement to “go dark” but as my ambivalence about the dark has grown, so too has my desire for art that honours the slippery complexity of dark - both the physical dark and the metaphorical dark.

This week a Jan Richardson poem (or, more accurately, a poetic blessing) fell into my hands which seems to do just that. I love it for its refusal to define another person’s dark and, in particular, for its insight that “different darks have different tasks”. Richardson refuses to simplify the dark by reducing it to one thing or to decide for someone else whether they should linger or leave. The hope she expresses is not for any particular outcome but only that there may be a blessing in our encounter with dark and that throughout our encounter we may be encompassed by the Love that knows our name.

It seems significant to me that the blessing ends with the word ‘name’. During some of the most frightening experiences of darkness - physical and metaphorical - we feel we are losing our identity or even having it taken from us. Sometimes this is a violation, sometimes it’s a necessary place to pass through. Most of the time it’s probably a bit of both. Either way, I wonder what difference it would make to trust - even a little bit - that through all our unselfings we are encompassed by the Love that knows our names. That even when we no longer know ourselves, we are known.

Whatever losses, uncertainties, difficulties or challenges you have experienced - or are experiencing - this year, may these darkest nights bring you the wisdom you need to discern the tasks of your particular “darkness”. May there be hidden treasure in the shadows and may you draw comfort and courage from the knowledge that, even (or especially) in the dark, you are held by the Love that knows your name.

---

Poems

To Know the Dark

Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark

Jan Richardson

Go slow
if you can.
Slower.
More slowly still.
Friendly dark
or fearsome,
this is no place
to break your neck
by rushing,
by running,
by crashing into
what you cannot see.

Then again,
it is true:
different darks
have different tasks,
and if you
have arrived here unawares,
if you have come
in peril
or in pain,
this might be no place
you should dawdle.

I do not know
what these shadows
ask of you,
what they might hold
that means you good
or ill.
It is not for me
to reckon
whether you should linger
or you should leave.

But this is what
I can ask for you:

That in the darkness
there be a blessing.
That in the shadows
there be a welcome.
That in the night
you be encompassed
by the Love that knows
your name.

---

Marking the Winter Solstice

Did you know that the Winter Solstice is not always on 21st December?

It sometimes falls on 22nd December.

In fact, the Winter Solstice is not really a day at all but a specific moment in time when the Earth's axis is tilted the furthest away from the sun, causing the sun to be at its lowest point in the sky. After that moment, the sun begins to rise again but so slowly that it isn’t visible to the naked eye. For three days the sun appears to stand still, low in the sky, before beginning to rise higher each day until the Summer Solstice when it again appears to stand still for a few days before making its incremental descent. This apparent stilling of the sun is why these events are called solstices (sol is Latin for “sun” and sistere is Latin for “to stand still”).

The Solstice has been a source of wonder for millennia and there are many celebrations centred around this astronomical event, including the Germanic Yule and the Celtic Ablan Arthan. In ancient Rome the Solstice was celebrated on 25th December as the birthdate of the sun god, Sol Invictus. It’s no coincidence that this is the date we now celebrate Christmas: in the fourth century, as an attempt to Christianise existing celebrations, Constantine fixed the date of Jesus’ birth as 25th December.

Although the Winter Solstice is the darkest night of the year, most celebrations have traditionally centred on the return of light, rather than an honouring of the dark. Some traditions, such as ancient Germanic and Scandinavian traditions, held that the sun actually died during the Solstice and needed to be reborn. Many of their Solstice celebrations (for example, burning the yule log) were intended to assist that process. I realise that might seem primitive, ignorant or superstitious but perhaps it hints at the rich and intimate relationship our ancestors had with the cosmos. They might have lacked our scientific understanding of the workings of the universe but our ancestors had insight into the sacred bonds between all things, which quantum physics is only just beginning to perceive. And, although nature may not depend on human activity in quite the way our ancestors imagined, climate change shows us that there is a very high cost to dishonouring the reciprocal relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. Perhaps we would benefit from embracing rituals and mythology that stress our responsibility to stabilising the natural order...

There’s no right or wrong way to celebrate the Solstice and you may prefer to allow an awareness of the Solstice to enrichen your Christmas celebrations instead of introducing something else. If though, you’d like to mark the Solstice on the 21st (this year it happens at 9.19am GMT), here are a few simple ideas:

• Allow the stilling of the sun to still you and take a sacred pause. Find a pocket of time and practise being present to your breath.

• Explore your relationship with the darkness by leaving the lights off. Let the light fade until it’s completely dark, eat by candlelight, shower in the dark, step outside and look at the night sky. Notice how you feel and/or what shifts.

• Light a fire or candles to welcome back the sun.

• Go for a sunrise or sunset walk or become present to the shape and rhythm of the day by doing both!

• Notice what you are ready to release before we enter a new solar year. Create a simple ritual to express that. You could write it on a slip of paper and throw it in a fire or inwardly name it as you exhale.

• Offer gratitude for the light has been this year. Look back on photos of sun-soaked summer days and/or journal about bright moments.

• Reflect on this year’s dark times - not only the times of challenge, disappointment and loss but also the times of rest, nurturing and hidden growth. Where were the treasures in the dark? What did you learn?

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

1. The Cloud of Unknowing is a 14th century mystical text by an anonymous author that teaches contemplation by drawing on the Exodus 33 story of Moses meeting God in the darkness of a cloud. Like other mystics, the author talks about the need to move beyond understanding and feeling to encounter the mystery of God directly. “…prepare to remain in this darkness as long as you can,” the author advises, “always begging for him you love; for if you are ever to feel or see him...it must always be in this cloud and this darkness." The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works. Translated by A. C. Spearing. London: Penguin. 2001. pp. 22

2. Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark is, in my humble opinion, the best introduction to the complex richness of the dark, both physical and metaphorical. She writes accessibly and from her own experience while also engaging with theological, scientific and psychological texts. “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light,” she writes in the introduction, “things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.” Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor, London: Canterbury Press, 2015, p5