A return to the dark is also a return to our origins. Most of us were conceived in the dark, lived our first nine months in the dark, and were from all eternity in the dark heart of the Godhead that preceded the creation of fire and light.
The dark mystery of the Godhead calls us all to dare the dark—just as the light of God invites us into history and into the light.
Part of darkness is the absence of words and images and the presence of silence. Silence beckons us from the dark. “What preceded the Word?” asks the poet and potter M. C. Richards. Silence and the receptivity that listening to silence brings about.
The poet Rilke wrote: “Being silent. Who keeps innerly silent, touches the roots of speech.”
The inner journey of silence and darkness that is the Via Negativa invites us to enter the shadow, the hidden or covered-up parts of ourselves and our society. In doing so, we confront the cover-up that often accompanies evil in self or society.
“It is part of an unjust society to cover up the pain of its victims,” notes theologian Dorothy Soelle.
Letting go of cover-up and denial allows one to actually enter into the darkness that pain is all about. Since both despair and apathy arise from the cover-up of anger, this journey of letting go is also one of going deeper than the despair, apathy, bitterness, and cynicism that can create such resentment in our souls and society.
Such despair and cynicism are very much alive and well in our day and are trumpeted on social and mainstream media.
We all undergo what the mystics call the “dark night of the soul” because we are all mystics and we undergo deep darkness some of which is positive and some of which is negative. Entering the dark constitutes a necessary part of the journey beyond despair and numbing.
Joanna Macy writes: “Experience the pain. Let us not fear its impact on ourselves or others. We will not shatter for we are not objects that can break.” Darkness is deeply communitarian: “We are in grief together,” she tells us. When the heart is broken, compassion can begin to flow through it.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth, p. 20.
Also see Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 140f.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: “Grieving Woman.” Photo by x1klima on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Have you learned, are you learning, to dare the dark? Do you think society around us is also learning this hard lesson? What lessons does it teach you, both positive and negative?
Recommended Reading
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
7 thoughts on “More Gifts from Winter, Advent and the Return of the Dark”
Matthew, This morning you tell us that “A return to the dark is also a return to our origins. Most of us were conceived in the dark, lived our first nine months in the dark, and were from all eternity in the dark heart of the Godhead that preceded the creation of fire and light.” The First Law of Thermodynamics states that “energy cannot be created or destroyed,” and if we “were from all eternity in the dark heart of the Godhead that preceded the creation of fire and light,” then in a sense we’ve been from all eternity in God–so, are we not created and come to be destroyed? That is a question for you Matthew. You say, “Part of darkness is the absence of words and images and the presence of silence.” For me silence and the receptivity that listening requires, is my meditation–to simply listen–to a person’s story, to a bird, to the wind, or to the silence. Then you speak of silence as “cover up”–The inner journey of silence that is the Via Negativa invites us to enter the “covered-up” parts of ourselves and our society. In doing so, we confront the cover-up that often accompanies evil in self or society. Letting go of cover-up and denial allows one to actually enter into the darkness that pain is all about–both physical and emotional–Joanna Macy writes: “Experience the pain. Let us not fear its impact on ourselves or others,” for “we are in grief together.” And the Via Negativa tells us to do all of this by letting the pain be, and letting it go.
The other night I had a dream about the sacred power of the dark Goddess, through the image of Sheela Na Gig. This archetype of the Cosmic Mother is universal, revealing both her creative and destructive energies, in relationship to shadow work. When I researched the long history of Sheela Na Gig I began to see how the patriarchal Christian religion inparticular, feared the sacred power of this dark Mother, due to a lack of understanding how to engage with this powerfully transforming energy of death and change that leads to new birth. What unfolded, evolved and emerged from this was the genocide of the Sacredness of the Feminine, the Goddess, the essence and presence of the Cosmic Mother, leading to the oppression, suppression and fragmention of this within the individual and collective soul of humanity; as well as our interconnections, interrelationships and interdependence with our Earth Mother.
Ceremonially engaging with both the Cosmic and Earth Mother in their diverse expressions and manifestations, were deemed inparticular by the Christian patriarchal religion as pagan and evil. The dark atrocities throughout humanities history from this genocidal fear, are the sacred wounds that need to be healed. Some of the mystics and prophets within the Christian religion understood this and pursued this shadow work, which can be of assistance to others, in traversing this laberynth of the dark night of the soul.
Jeanette, Today you say: “The other night I had a dream about the sacred power of the dark Goddess, through the image of Sheela Na Gig… When I researched the long history of Sheela Na Gig I began to see how the patriarchal Christian religion in particular, feared the sacred power of this dark Mother, due to a lack of understanding how to engage with this powerfully transforming energy of death and change that leads to new birth.” Not only did patriarchy fear the dark Mother, but they believed that demons fear it too, and so Sheela Na Gigs are found on many old churches as are gargoyles, which were meant to scare evil spirits away. Also there is a relationship between the Sheela Na Gig figures and the Green Man on old churches. The Green Man showed the growth of plant life and thus life in general, and the Sheelas showed birthing with her unignorable portal of life.
To contemplate Great Mystery is to pierce (if only slightly) the dark cloud of unknowing. It is a worthy pursuit of an ordinary, simple life lived. }:- a.m.
Thank you Matthew and the DM team for the enclosed video on the Shadow and the importance of awareness of our personal and societal shadows on the intimate relationship of both on our soul/humanitarian spiritual evolutions… The YouTube subscription channel ‘Eternalised’ seems to have several good teaching videos on the analytical psychology of Carl Jung. I was an auditor student for one year at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland which led to my 40yr. career as a clinical social worker. My intuition of his studies of the archetypes as being spiritual in nature, especially the True Self archetype, and importance towards self-understanding on our human spiritual journeys has been a significant part of my spiritual journey and career. Since retirement, I’ve also had more of a chance to continue studying the universal spiritual traditions of the mystics and more in depth, my own contemplative spiritual journey. I also appreciate the wholistic and universal interspirituality tradition of Creation Spirituality, and Matthew’s lifetime studies and contributions towards this tradition.
🔥💜🌎🙏
Thank you for your always helpful comments. I too appreciate Matthew’s work. And thank you for your work in service to others.
Addendum: Hitler and the people of Germany (Naziism) is the most dangerous recent historical example (just approx. ~85 yrs. ago) of the potentially toxic interrelationship of the personal shadow and the societal shadow. Even more recently prevalent in US society we’re under the toxic influence of the MAGA movement endangering our democracy.