“Walking in Darkness” by Jacqie Wallen

Finding the power of the sacred, not despite suffering , but in the midst of it:  This is the alchemy of the dark emotions.  Through this alchemy, grief moves us from sorrow for what we’ve lost to gratitude for what remains.  Fear of life’s fragility is transformed to the joy of living fully, with openness…a profound commitment to life as it is.

Greenspan gives the first interpretation of Job’s trials that has ever really satisfied me.  Job refuses to accept the glib explanations for his suffering provided by those who attempt to console him and he refuses to suppress his pain and rage toward God at the unfairness of it all.  He won’t deny his pain.  But ultimately he recognizes God’s higher power and that surrender is the alchemy that transforms him.  We are not God and we don’t control the universe.  But we, in the words of the Serenity Prayer, change the things we can and accept the things we can’t change.  And we can look for light wherever we can find it.

Chögyam Trungpa’s term, “spiritual materialism.”  Spiritual materialism involves treating spiritual enlightenment as something that can be “acquired” and that once “acquired,” makes one better than others.  It is related to spiritual narcissism or the belief that one deserves special praise and respect because of one’s spiritual achievements.  This is totally the opposite of the attitude of the Dalai Lama, who could claim the pinnacle of spiritual achievement but who instead is noted for his humility and often refers to himself as “just a simple monk.”

Taylor refers to St. John of the Cross’s concept of the “dark night of the soul.” She says, that though people use the term in many different ways, two of the key features of the dark night of the soul, as John of the Cross described it are:

• Lack of understanding (“One of the central functions of the dark night is to convince those who grasp after things that God cannot be grasped”)

But this does not mean that we don’t have a relationship with God in our dark night Taylor talks about feeling “more and more devoted to a relationship that we are less and less able to say anything about.”

I had a very powerful reaction to a comment that Marjory made on one of my journal entries.  It was sort of like when a Zen master whacks a student (though I’m sure Marjory would never do anything like that) and the student suddenly sees everything differently.  Marjory said: “Marion Woodman (a special mentor for Marjory) says the journey is about making the flesh conscious – i.e., letting our senses inform what we know and can put into language ON BEHALF OF OTHERS.”

It was that “ON BEHALF OF OTHERS” (capitalized by Marjory—I’m just quoting) that struck me (almost literally).

I have always looked to others to validate my perceptions and feelings and have felt crazy when they didn’t.  It has been a source of enormous confusion and emotional pain for me.  Over the years I have learned that access to the dark world is unequally shared, for a lot of reasons.  And people who do explore it often lack the ability to describe their experiences in words.  But it is still very difficult for me.  I have always been a voracious reader and I think a large part of that is because reading takes me inside the feelings and perceptions of people who are able to express verbally what they feel and sense.  It is also why I like therapy sessions and AA meetings—these are settings where people often speak from the heart.  But what Marjory’s comment made me realize is that I have been looking at this whole thing kind of backwards.  I have not really thought about how my attempts to understand and express my feelings and observations might benefit others.  Looking back on my life, I can see that others have often benefited when I speak from the heart about my own thoughts and emotions.  Of course, often they have not, as well.  But the thing is, if I continue to be basically who I am, which is a person who tells the truth about what I am experiencing, it doesn’t matter whether other people validate it or not.  It’s still the truth about what I am experiencing and it may benefit someone.  I don’t mean that I should ignore opinions that differ from mine—it’s important to learn from others’ experiences.  But I can help others by sharing mine.  It sounds obvious now that I say it out loud but thinking of it as something that I can do on behalf of others rather than in order to make myself feel better came as a brand new perspective for me.

So that is what I have done here today.  I have spoken about my feelings and observations on behalf of others.  And I’ll conclude by repeating what Peter says:  “Thank God we are all in this together!”