Descend into the Loving Arms of the Night

Tender are the hunters

Tender is the night

-Jackson Browne

I have been having some wonderfully inspiring conversations over the last few days and a conversation I had last night got me thinking about one of my favorite subjects, that of descent and darkness.  The darkness is something that I have had a fear of for my whole life.  I always felt hunted in the darkness.

In my way of thinking, fears are not something to be conquered.  The language shouldn't be so aggressive.  Fears exist to illustrate something we cannot see in ourselves, which is why I believe the darkness is such a common fear and fitting symbol.  It takes a lot of bravery to look into the dark places within ourselves but these are often the most rewarding places to look.

I have worked to make an ally of the darkness and feel like I have made some progress.  In the western way of thinking, we are taught to strive for ascension.  To look outside the warm animal bodies we possess to some place in the sky where everything will be safe.  We were never meant to be safe and it is important to learn to accept this.  The only way to feel safe is to give yourself over to the wildness that is life.  If you need to feel comforted, take off your shoes, find a patch of nice unpaved ground and wiggle your toes around a bit.  Find both the physical (feet touching soil) and soulful connection to the truly bigger story that is life on Earth.  Descend into the depths and don't be afraid to look.  What you find, just may save your life.


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

The descent beckons
              as the ascent beckoned.                 
                               Memory is a kind      
of accomplishment,                          
              a sort of renewal
                               even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
              inhabited by hordes
                               heretofore unrealized,
of new kinds—
              since their movements
                               are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned).

No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
              formerly
                               unsuspected. A
world lost,
              a world unsuspected,
                               beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness     .

With evening, love wakens
              though its shadows
                               which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
              grow sleepy now and drop away
                               from desire     .

Love without shadows stirs now
              beginning to awaken
                               as night
advances.

The descent 
              made up of despairs
                               and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
                               which is a reversal
of despair.
              For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love,
              what we have lost in the anticipation—
                               a descent follows,
endless and indestructible     .

William Carlos Williams