Emerging from the Darkness

We must fall before we rise again.

After a very busy ending to the last calendar year, I'm looking forward to some changes ahead, completed projects, open skies, new developments, and new adventures.

I started this venture of writing on Substack in mid-2022. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to more easily (and extensively) share my thoughts on a central platform that also allows for images, audio, and video.

I appreciate all of you that take the time to check in with my offerings here. I’ve fallen off my weekly posts over the past month due to family commitments (separating myself at this moment to find time to write) and jumping back into a home remodeling project that I began over 6 years ago (and had been on pause since then due to working and traveling so much). I’m looking to wrap that up soon with some help and move onto other projects, as well as getting back to writing for you here on this Substack.

I’m not big on new year’s resolutions, nor am I big into the idea of this being the beginning of the year. I see that it is relevant in that the sun has reversed course, standing still on the horizon for 4 days (solstice) before heading north again. This point has marked the beginning of “summer” for many traditional cultures in the northern hemisphere. Then “winter” begins at the summer solstice as the sun begins its southward descent along the horizon.

I have come to learn in my adult years that my ancestors observed a beginning as darkness. This resonates with me. Darkness evoking the great void of potentiality. The proverbial ‘blank slate’ from which cometh our deepest inspirations, fears, obstacles, creative prowess, demons, etc. You see, this is a mixture of all that is. It is not inherently”bad” or “good”. It just is.

This new beginning also occurs each day as the sun sets and darkness engulfs us taking us back into the womb. Earth’s landscape now serves as our womb while supplying us with all our sustenance, challenges, and inspiration. In this way, we may start each day anew. We have an opportunity to reaffirm what we have learned to be true and to lyse from our character all false conceptions of being. The Earth and all of Creation provide this opportunity for us on a daily basis.

We are also provided with opportunities for distraction and misdirection, challenging what we have learned and deepening our convictions. Through the faculty of discernment we can separate what is true, or relevant, from what is un-true, or irrelevant, toward our path of gathering knowledge and wisdom or development as a human being.

This phenomenon could be condensed into each breath. At the completion of an exhale, we descend into the dark depths of our being, emptying out all that we have taken in which no longer serves us on our journey through the breath. Then, suddenly, the inhalation emerges from the depths of that dark stillness, of its own accord, its own agency, through its own will to live and be a part of life, reaffirming not only its individuality but its interdependence with all of life by taking in of the same breath, same air, same ether of all the living beings which surround it.

In this way, we are continually renewed, recreated. This is the great mystery, or one may say, the core of the great mystery school teachings - Resurrection.

So, yes, this is one step along that path towards resurrection; to re-emerge from the ashes of our former life, renewed, risen, by the light and breath endowed to us by our Creator.

Looking back along the wheel of the year, we find the ‘descent into darkness’. This is where many of our ancestors once saw the end and beginning come to touch points along the wheel. As a cross-quarter day, Samhain was the time which this descent began as we decidedly moved into the underworld, or Other World. Here we are prepared for transformation by visiting not only our deceased ancestors, but our own subconscious, internal demons, allies, messengers, and our internal God Nature as well - that piece of ourselves that is directly connected to the creative spirit and wishes for us to grow into our greatest selves, however painful, however frightening, however it contradicts what we “think” we want or where we “should be”.

From the preparatory stage, we enter into the greatest depths of darkness, gathering our power, and preparing for the moment the sun is re-born and glory is restored upon the land once again.

So, yes, this is a renewal for all to see and experience, but as I see it, the process began as we made our descent into the darkness.

This is a similar concept, for example, to how spring begins with Imbolc in the beginning of February, not on the vernal equinox around March 20-22. This is a transitional period where winter is dispersing as spring is gathering its energy.

Thus we see that processes begin slowly, just as the seed germinates (yes, that word signifies the beginning of life, not a threat to life) below ground, out of sight, sending its stem (aka cotyledon) towards the light seeking to break ground (this, the inverse of our descent into darkness to gather our resources and once again spring to life, sparked by the rays of the sun).

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The modern ‘family version’ of the descent into darkness is often abridged or abbreviated. An adult caretaking children or fulfilling familial obligations often doesn’t have extensive time to explore these opportunities. But it is within chosen moments that one may go within, such as the moments before dawn, or the dark, cold of night beside a quiet fire, even if for only 10-15 minutes. This is the discipline of parenthood or of participating with the creative force.

Fortunately, I had the time this year to go into the depths for a few days alongside my wife. Venturing to the north, we encountered a “true winter” replete with freshly fallen, billowing snow, blanketing the canyon with nearly absolute quiet. Even better, we climbed the canyon and up a hillside to a natural hot spring, filling rock pools beneath pines and Doug firs, beside oaks and chokecherry, fallen spikenard and fresh watercress growing in the warm water.

A very special cave of warm water welcomes the pilgrim to enter its intimate space beneath the rock, looking out towards the snowy white canyon before you.

Here, the process of undoing takes place.

Through this undoing, a space is opened, a space is formed. This may serve as an invitation for creative energy to enter and manifest itself benevolently. This space may also allow for movement of stuck energy that has not felt the room to move, nor the invitation, thus compressing itself into the deeper recesses of our physical body and psyche.

This process of undoing is something I have become familiar with through my work with wild plants. Not only the invitation to do, but also the requirement to clear space before subsequent work can begin. When engaging with a wise entity, very specific, purposeful steps may be required in order to proceed in a sacred way, with integrity.

This is a subject I intend to go into more deeply in future posts (and books) as it deeply connects with my practice of bioregional herbalism.

For now, I wish you all warmth and love for yourself upon the emergence from the darkness. Challenges abound in our daily lives. May I stand as witness that our struggles are real to the extent that we feel them deep within. May the Light shine upon the darkness within ever more, such that we may feel lightness, enlightenment, and hope re-emerging.

I leave you with this poem from John O’Donohue, For Light.

For Light

by John O’Donohue

Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found word.

That is what the dark is for:

Minding the interior,

Nurturing the draw of growth

Through places where death

In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,

Let our eyes not be worn

By surfaces that shine

With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,

Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow

To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust

In minds claimed by empty light,

Where one-sided certainties

Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,

May our eyes have the kindness

And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds

Be equal to the oblique

Crevices and corners where

The mystery continues to dwell,

Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside

The dark house of suffering

That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost

That the severe noon-light

Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light

Would lighten our feet

Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight

Would illuminate treasure

In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found word.