INTERFAITH SPECTRUM MAGAZINE Vol. 1, Issue 1: Winter 2010 |
Honoring the Darkness – the Gifts of Winter Return to Main Menu
Sharon Gervasoni, OUnI
Traditional Chinese medicine, which is based on close observation of the energies of the seasons of the
year, characterizes winter as a time of inwardness. For example, the blossoms of trees in spring in
summer become fruit, which drops to the ground, or flies away like the whirlybirds of the maples, holding
seeds within. Through the autumn, trees withdraw sap from their leaves, back into their trunks and roots
and cores. After the trees have dropped their leaves, they stand with no externally visible signs of life.
Seeds lay on the ground, holding their potential within and awaiting the conditions—rain, longer days and
greater warmth—that will signal them to sprout. In short, the trees have turned deeply inward, into a period
that resembles hibernation, just as some animals hibernate in the extended darkness of winter.
Darkness is naturally part of the spiritual life as well. The “dark night of the soul” appears in many of the
wisdom traditions of humanity: Jesus’ struggle with Satan during his forty days in the desert; Jacob
wrestling through the night with an angel and earning the name Israel (“struggler with G-d”); the demon
Mara taunting and challenging Gautama as he sat beneath the bodhi tree on the night he would become the
Buddha (the awakened one); the ancient Greek myth of Persephone’s descent into the underworld,
kidnapped by the lord of that realm, and the winter on earth that resulted from her mother Demeter’s grief
at losing her. These stories paint a picture of a common human experience: feeling assailed by the dark
aspects of life, and questioning our spiritual foundation and our sense that life has meaning.
Perhaps the wisdom we glean from the dark time of the year can teach us, who are not Buddhas or
Christed Ones, about embracing the dark as well as the light times of our lives. The Buddha defeated Mara
by touching the earth, claiming his human birthright as part of, not separate from, Nature. The first “noble
truth” the Buddha taught after emerging from his dark night was that a human life contains many
experiences—illness, grieving, loss, aging, death—that we would prefer it did not include, and which we
experience as “suffering.” Just as nightfall will come and winter will come, we cannot in a full life avoid all
dark times. Some are relatively small disappointments and losses of daily life. Some are larger, and some
can shake us to our foundations.
The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh counsels us to “look deeply” at the world, teaching that the dharma—the
spiritual truth of the nature of reality—is observable around us if we look closely. A flower, really seen,
contains within it the sun that warmed it, the cloud that dropped rain on it, the earth that gave it a place to
root and that will be its resting place in death, and the seeds of its rebirth—it teaches the interbeing of all
that is. The familiar yin /yang symbol of Taoism shows a full circle, bisected into half light and half dark,
with a small seed of dark within the light half, and of light within the dark half. Observing nature, and
listening deeply to humanity’s wisdom traditions, we learn that darkness is an integral part of the full cycle
of nature, every day, and over the course of the year.
I have come to see the dark times of our lives as the “soul-making” times. We cannot experience our
wholeness if we refuse to acknowledge the darkness that is unavoidably part of human life. Rather, we
must find a way to be in relationship to the darkness, as well as the beauty and light of life. The
importance of this relationship to the quality of our lives is emphasized by the current Dalai Lama: "We can
let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we
can let them soften us, and make us kinder—we always have the choice." The process of finding a way
into that relationship invariably involves the “dark night of the soul.”
A recent personal experience of a dark night occurred shortly after I graduated from interfaith seminary in
2008. I wasn’t sure what I believed about the nature of the divine, I wasn’t sure what I was going to “do” as
an interfaith minister, yet I believed I “should” know the answer to both of these questions. This period
was painful, isolating, confusing, and seemed interminable. And in retrospect, as with previous such
periods in my life, I would not have missed it for the world (I can more easily say, from the far shore of the
experience). I came through my “dark night” with a more integrated knowing of my spiritual ground, and
an understanding that some of the questions I had struggled with were not the right ones for me.
During my own dark time, I tried hard to resist the desire to flee the experience, and tried to be present
with my whole experience. I tried to forgive myself when I sometimes forgot to use the tools at my
disposal—walking the labyrinth, journaling, meditation—to remember my connection to the Mystery, and
when I sometimes forgot to seek the help of friends. Companions who witness and support us in this time,
a spiritual director, a wise friend, a mature spiritual community, can be the lifeline that lets us set our
experience in a bigger perspective and helps us not rush an organic process that wants to unfold in
mythic time-outside-time.
Participating in a ritual can bring into the open hidden thoughts and fears and provide a safe space in
which to face them. One common ritual in the Wiccan tradition celebrates the “fruitful darkness” of the
winter solstice by planting seeds, honoring the reality that they must go down into the earth before they
can sprout, and that the sprouting takes time—the seedling will only grow at the pace a seedling will grow,
it cannot be hurried. This ritual may be followed by the kindling of candles, a reminder during the darkness
that the light will return, just as day always follows night.
When those we love are grieving, we can honor their grief by being willing to be present with them where
they are, not insisting in our words or attitude that they be positive, look on the bright side, or “get over it”.
Of course, grief can harden into depression, and anyone suffering from a medical condition requires
immediate help. But not all sadness is depression. Sometimes our dark times are the voice of our soul,
calling us into the fruitful darkness to rest, like a seedpod (or Persephone) underground, gather our
resources and place our spiritual lives on a new footing, in the fullness of time.
Rev. Sharon Gervasoni, J.D., OUnI, graduated from The New Seminary and was ordained as an Interfaith
Minister in 2008 . She is a hospice volunteer, Reiki master, and pledger to the Order of Universal
Interfaith/Interspirituality where she has been ordained as an Interfaith-Interspiritual Cleric and Minister.
She has also taken the vows of the Universal Order of Sannyasa. She lives in the Washington, D.C.
metropolitan area and can be reached through her website www.manypathshome.com.
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