A Dark Night Explored

I just finished "Dark Nights of the Soul" - 'A guide to find your way through life's ordeals' by Thomas Moore. What a book. I received it as a gift from my dear wife this past Christmas. She is such a great woman. She had watched me struggle through the second half of 2005 and thought of me immediately when she saw the book online. I have LOVED reading this book. It is one of the most bizarre, thought provoking, and challenging things I've ever read. And the timing of my reading of it was perfect.

From Beliefnet.com ... "Moore lived as a monk in a Catholic religious order for thirteen years. A former professor of psychology, he has a Ph.D. in religious studies, an M.A. in theology, and an M.A. in musicology."

In this book Moore explores the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul... something that is deeper and more mysterious than depression and as scary as anything one could possibly imagine.

From the book's jacket ... "Every human journey is filled with emotional tunnels... Society tends to view these "dark nights" in clinical terms as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. But Thomas Moore's [professional experience] has taught him that honoring these periods as incubation and opportunities to delve into the soul's deepest needs can provide healing and a new understanding of life's meaning."

My rating? 5 Thumbs Up! (out of 5, in case you are wondering)

Read more about the book...See, here is the thing. This very odd time of life that I'm in... when I share my heart on it with people, they do what comes naturally. They try to provide answers. They want to give solutions to the problem. They want to help me GET THROUGH IT. I don't blame them. I think that I've done the same thing in the past when I've seen people in a time of hurt. But this book gave me something new to consider:
"You do a disservice to yourself when you treat your feelings of despair and emptiness as deviations from the normal and healthy life you idealize. The dark times, too, like enlightenments and achievements, leave their mark and make you a person of insight and compassion."

I've always been a child of the light, to use metaphorical language. I've been the type who runs to good things... church, the bible, noble things, and the like. Have you read my poem Choose This? Well, I'm like the girl who goes off and gets married to find comfort. Its just how I've always been. Avoid the dark. At all costs. The light is good. And safe. And so when I entered in to this desperately Dark Night of the Soul I was so very scared. Scared of the unfamiliar darkness of it all. I felt guilty. I thought that I needed to get OUT of the darkness... the quicker the better. Another excerpt from the book:
"When people approve only of major tonalities, they become simplistic, not only in their thinking but in their very being. ... A mature person is complicated and has complex ideas and values. The minor tonality of a dark night adds a significant and valuable complexity to your personality and way of life."

So many of the folks I have talked with about my faith situation have offered my their best wishes, promises of prayer, and encouraging words. And I appreciate their intentions. But there is such an irrelevance in assurances of 'better days'. Particularly when set amongst ... well... here, let me just share with you what Moore says on the subject:
"Religion ... often avoids the dark by hiding behind platitudes and false assurances. Nothing is more irrelevant than feeble religious piousness in the face of stark, life-threatening darkness. Religion tends to sentimentalize the light and demonize the darkness. Religion easily becomes a defense and avoidance. Of course, this is not the real purpose of religion, and the religious traditions of the world, full of beautifully stated wisdom, are your best source of guidance in the dark. But there is real religion and there is the empty shell of religion. Know the difference. Your life is at stake."
And back on the topic of RUNNING AWAY FROM THE DARKNESS:
"Flight from the dark infantilizes your spirituality, because the dark nights of the sould are supposed to initiate you into spiritual adulthood."

Back to those well intentioned friends of mine.
"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 for your experience, and you may hesitate to describe it to friends because people usually want good news. They don't know what to do with a person in the dark." (and I might add... other than to pull and tug that person back in to the light.)

Moore is serious about his appreciation of the dark side of life. As a matter of fact he really provides a very odd take on the whole light and dark thing. Unlike the typical demonizing of the dark that occurs in most presentations of life ... he sentimentalizes it. At first, in ways that are fairly easily palatable, like this:
"... the point of staying in the dark is not to trick it into making you brilliant and germ-free, but to make you a more interesting person and to give you a more fascinating life. ... these goals may seem odd. But they are ultimately more humane. Rather than giving you a spotless, well-adjusted personality, they give you substance. You become a person worth knowing, worth listening to, and worth loving, in all of your dimensions."
A spotless, well-adjusted personality... yes, about those. I'm not sure they exist. But people of substance... I've met quite a few. They are rare, make no mistake about it. In this world of ours it is far more common to find people so anxious to hide their real selves because of the fact that who they are is entirely UN-germ-free, full of spots, and not very well-adjusted at all. And I don't mean all of YOU. I'm talking about myself here too. Instead of walking openly in our darkness... we hide it, somehow convincing ourselves that if it isn't shown in public, it doesn't exist. And then, we wonder why we hide it! Could it be that this false image of success, happiness, well-adjustedness that we put on display for all to see only strengthens the cycle of denial and fraudulent living?

Let me tell you something. There have been times that I have envied men dying of cancer. I've seen families endure horrible tragedies, and there has, on certain occasions, arisen in me a longing for what they have. People who have these dramatic, often painful life experiences upon them often gain such enormous clarity on life. Do you know what I'm talking about? Moore comments on the subject from another, less dramatic angle:
"Kearney ... says that catharsis 'stops us in our tracks, throws us off kilter, deworlds us.' To a person intent on getting somewhere, these are not appealing developments, but to the human soul it is important to get out of the busy life, to be dissuaded from familiar activities, and to step outside the paradigm that has become habitual and taken for granted. To be 'deworlded' means to have a rare opportunity to consider a different way of life. You can't renew life without stepping out of the pattern that is in place."
Thats what I'm talking about. There is something very desirous about the sort of thing that completely destroys your world in that it allows you, no... forces you, to look at things anew.

So far so good. You with us (me and Moore) so far? Well... this was the easy part. For at this point Moore begins to explain how in his practice as a therapist, he fights the typical expectation of clients for him "to be nurturing and supportive, and interested in their growth." Instead, he seeks "to represent the underworld mother faithfully" by honoring "the emptiness and the loss". Ok, I figured, he is just saying to allow yourself to experience the depths... to not run from them. He suggests experiencing, exploring, and even embracing the darkness. I can go with that.

Moore writes a great paragraph explaining where the dark night of the soul is found:
"At first there may be many complaints about the loss of meaning and the fear of being disconnected from life. But then we see stages in the descent. Fear turns to emptiness. There is nothing to talk about, nothing to understand. Silence becomes more familiar. Even dreams lose their liveliness. We discover that there is a place deeper than depression."

And though it is not the goal, Moore hints that there may indeed be a light at the end of the tunnel, while making it clear that there are no promises that you will come out smelling like a rose:
"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."

Back to the idea of living honestly, which had become a method of mine even before reading this book, Moore writes on the importance of it:
"To be in the dark and yet capable and forthright is itself rather ironical. The alternative is to pretend to be bright and carefree, when you know yourself to be solidly in the dark. What is needed is not pretense but complexity. You don't hide your suffering, you weave it tightly into the whole fabric of your life and personality."

And then Moore takes his appreciation of the dark further and further. He goes so far to say that he does not "want to be a solar hero battling mosters and racking up mighty accomplishments." And then he says, "I don't want to convince you that my way is best. I don't think it is." ??!?! What the hell does that mean? How on earth can you spend the most precious thing you have (your life) in a way that you admit that you don't even think is best? Here is where Moore and I part ways.

There are plenty of other points of his that I'm not able to accept. For when Moore encourages living honestly, exploring the darkness that life throws at you, and growing your soul... he applauds actions that I'm not comfortable with. He cites one a man turned woman by way of a sex changes as a modern day hero, somebody who was willing to buck the pressures of the world to follow his soul's calling. Moore values "worth being listened to" and heftiness of soul. He has great distain for any sort of "simple moralistic" evaluations or goals.
The problem when anybody begins to reason through that sort of thinking is that inevitably a line is drawn SOMEWHERE. And wherever that line is drawn, moralism is at play... creating a real, yet often time deeply hidden, contradiction. For example, Moore gives more than one hint that he believes sexual exploration, and even deviancy, is healthy for the soul. He gives a good, deep explanation of the how's and why's that I can track with ... but the problem is that his train of logic hits a brick wall when we come to his line in the sand. He seems to hint that being true to yourself is all important so long as it doesn't enter in to his definition of evil. Cross-dressing? Homosexuality? Sex change? S&M? Beastiality? No problem. But certainly Moore is against sex with children. And he doesn't encourage adultery. I just can't follow with this sort of pick and choose moral code. It is so subjective, ya know? How then do you tell the tribesmen who mutilate their thirteen year old girls as a rite of passage that what they are doing is wrong? You may say it hurts the girl... but how about when she WANTS it done? Its the whole relative truth thing. Just does not work for me.

I could go on and on. (As if I haven't already. hehe...) Great book. If you are ever in a dark night of the soul (or want to know what its like) and want your brain tweaked hard... pick this one up. You'll enjoy it.