The Dark Night of the Soul

III.

In that happy night,

In secret, seen of none,

Seeing nought myself,

Without other light or guide

Save that which in my heart was burning.

- St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

How can we seek to understand that which feels unfathomable to us? When all that we have

known and worked so hard to create or cultivate suddenly appears different, or has altogether

been wrecked asunder? Whether externally, in the form of our outer world objects of work,

family, relationships; or in the lesser known passageways and rooms of our inner world, filled

with their odd twists and turns, becoming only liminally known through strange dreams, curious

physical aliments, and other unconscious creations.

I would like to speak to a concept that perhaps allows for a small handhold in the midst of these

dire seasons; the dark night of the soul.

It is my hope to shed some light on this idea and to note that such experiences are not entirely

new or unique to us as individuals; to acknowledge that the deeply felt sensations which

typically accompany a dark night of the soul can be found throughout our human heritage; in

film, in poetry, in writing, in art, and overall within ourselves.

This concept appears to have first entered our more familiar lexicon by virtue of the works of the

Spanish mystic ‘St. John of the Cross’, whose writings at that time focused primarily on the

elements of a spiritual crisis. Paradoxically, St. John of the Cross viewed this period of

dissolution and the threat of deconstruction as a positive occurrence and to be viewed as a

necessary step in allowing one’s soul to come forward anew.

Metaphorically speaking the dark night of the soul has been demonstrated by a journey to the

underworld; the entering of a cave; a sojourn through a desert. The traveller is confronted with

the alarming realization that the tools or perspectives or beliefs that they had relied on no longer

serve them in this strange new environment. Robert Johnson describes this moment as being

profoundly terrifying to our ego consciousness, going so far as to compare the event to a kind of

death; this experience “appears to be death when viewed from the perspective of the

ego...viewed by the ego as nothing but total disaster. And death it is! The ego loses its

supremacy and goes through a short time of violent suffering.” Johnson, (1991).

If one were to proceed from a Jungian perspective, there one will find the notion that when such

a catastrophe occurs, not only are all the bridges into the past broken, but there seems to be no

way forward into the future. (CW 13 #216) Using an alchemical metaphor, one could view the

notion of darkness as being related to elements of destruction or a tearing down of

assumptions; Eric Neumann speaks to the alchemical operation of Nigredo, meaning “the

breakdown of distinction and forms, of all that is known and certain.” Neumann, (1959).

In the 2004 film ‘I Heart Huckabees’, we follow a pair of existential detectives who place great

emphasis on the main character’s process of ‘dismantling’, leading towards the film’s narrative

climax, where we see the character of Catarine repeating the phrase “creation, destruction,

creation, destruction; such phrasing could be seen as associated with the alchemical mantra of

Solve et Coagula or dissolve and coagulate.

Furthermore, when considering a more contemplative or spiritual perspective regarding this idea

of things breaking down, one inevitably arrives at the writings of the renowned Buddhist teacher

Pema Chodron, who reminds us that things fall apart, and come together:

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to

pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved.

They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s

just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for

grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” Chodron, Pema, (1997).

For this writer, the very concept of psychotherapy has its origins in this idea of ‘a room for all of

this to happen’, where all our variety of experiences from the loss of ‘the known’ may be brought

forward and be recognized, perhaps for the first time.

If this resonated with you, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Support is here when you are ready. To schedule your first appointments with Greg Rickard, please use our Online Booking Portal

Citations

Chödrön, Pema. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. 20th anniversary ed., Shambhala Publications, 2016

I [Heart] Huckabees. Directed by David O. Russell, performances by Jason Schwartzman et al., 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2005.

Johnson, Robert A. Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

John of the Cross, Saint. Dark Night of the Soul. Translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, Image Books, 1959.

Jung, C. G. Alchemical Studies. Translated by R.F.C. Hull, 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1983. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 13.

Neumann, Erich. The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton University, 1954.