Confession

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Two of the most thoughtful witches on the web, Sara Sutterfield Winn and Diane Sylvan have been writing about Pagan Dark Nights of the Soul.

I have to say that, since I realized that I was a witch, I've never had a Dark Night of the Soul. Maybe that's just how unevolved I am.

Nine years ago, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I did go through what I'd call a "general re-consideration of the purpose of existence." Heh.

I remember being in the metro station and thinking, "Well, shit. If all that happened was that I got to this point and then died, well, shit, what was it all for, any way?" And: Grace.

Standing there, underground, in the metro station, as clearly as if it had been written out in flaming letters in front of me, I knew. "It was all about what everything's about. It was all about what every life on earth, human and nonhuman, is, has been, and always will be about. It was all about Goddess finding out what it would be like to be Hecate Demetersdatter." And, somehow, that was enough. (I adamantly refuse to be one of those "cancer survivors" who proclaim cancer to be a "gift," (it sucks), but that realization has certainly become one of the bedrocks of my existence. Thanks. I'll take it w/o so much nausea next time, if it's all the same.)

It was the very moment in which I really understood that, as I say every morning in my daily prayer: I am a manifestation of the Goddess. There's really only one Consciousness; it simply enjoys -- maybe that's the wrong verb, maybe "needs to" is a better verb -- experiencing existence in as many different manifestations as possible. It's a good idea for me to enjoy being the particular facet on this diamond-- which is all, and yet, which is everything -- that I am. And to do that as much in MY OWN WAY as I can. Otherwise, the "point of it all" is defeated.

Beyond that, I've had no Dark Nights. I've never doubted that divinity has a feminine face and that my purpose was to manifest and to worship that face. I've never doubted that magic exists --how could I? I've done magics large and small for lo these many years and, well, my magic works. I've never doubted that duality was the biggest lie they ever told me and that "yield who will to their separation, my goal in living is to unite, my avocation and my vocation, as my two eyes are one in sight."

When I was a teenager, though, raised catholic, I had a Dark Night of the Soul. The thing that made me unsuited for catholicism is that I took them seriously (won the Religion award, every year, to the consternation of several Christophers, I assure you). I assumed that they meant what they said and that sainthood was the (completely possible) goal. Reminds me of a great line from Thomas Merton that I once copied into my journal about there not being too many true believers in the monastery.

I became a catholic pentacostal -- of course: my sun is in Pisces. I developed an amazing prayer life and then: bam. I crashed into a wall. I hit my Dark Night of the Soul. There was an impenetrable marble ceiling between me and the deity in "heaven" to whom I was praying. I was, Goddess guard me, 16. The priests that I talked to about it couldn't help me; they told me to keep praying. My pentacostal advisors told me not to take myself so seriously. I decided to start having sex, which provided, on a basis that I wasn't ready to understand, some ecstacy, which is, really, nothing more than connection with divinity.

I can, again, so clearly, remember being in the bathtub trying to pray, hitting the slab of marble above me, and saying, "Well, fine. You're a full-of-shit god if I ever saw one. I'm trying to pray and this is how it works? Fuck you; that's a shitty way, in the words of St. Theresa, to treat your friends. No wonder you have so few." And, surprisingly, Deity answered me. Diety said to me: "I will surprise you."

And, for about 15 years or so, that was it. "I will surprise you."

I'd try to go back to church, or to pray, or I'd read something about deity, and, again, all I'd hear, although I'd hear it loud and clear, was: "I will surprise you."

For a few years, I won some middle ground by thinking of deity as a juggler who juggled the sun every morning with just as much difficulty and work and desire and care and uncertainty as I juggled being a single mother, teacher, student, young woman, writer, "wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving." I'd spend time with trees and wonder, "Does it matter to deity that we appreciate creation?" But, still, if I delved any deeper than that, all that I'd hear was: "I will surprise you."

Having been raised catholic, with a mother and several nuns who kept telling me that I was "destined for the religious life," I thought I knew what that meant. I thought it meant that I was convent-bound, although I couldn't figure out what or why or how I'd ever wind up in a convent, bitter as I'd become towards xians and their anti-woman ways. I even, and this is how dense I was, read several books by Zimmer-Bradley about ancient priestesses with the words "I WILL SURPRISE YOU" literally ringing in my ears, without figuring it out.

And then, just like that, a year or two later, having figured out, I imagine, just how dense I truly was, Deity surprised me.

By being cunt-blessed like me. By being womb-blessed like me. By lactating like me. By being a mother like me, a writer like me, a teacher like me, a learner like me, a lawyer like me, by being, biggest surprise of all, like me. By being a woman, like me. Diety surprised me, as promised so many times, by being feminine -- the one thing, the very ONE thing, that, catholic-raised as I was, I could NEVER have imagined.

Since then, I've been discouraged, thinking that I'd never find a coven to work with. I've been disappointed, usually in my own abilities, my own attempts to know myself, my own need for almost daily transcendence. But Dark Night of the Soul? No.

And, if I had one, well, I no longer deal in dualities, as that 16-year-old did so long ago. So how would I know? Trips to the underground, honorary recreations of Innana's long journey to the meat hooks: those wouldn't upset me any more. They'd simply be yet another way for Goddess to find out what it's like to be Hecate Demetersdatter in THIS situation.

I've been having too much fun finding out.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a Dark Night of the Soul (I was raised catholic; I know that it was St. John of the Cross who coined this phrase) patiently waiting out there to surprise me.

But the words of Mary Olive sustain me:

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

From West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, by Mary Oliver. Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. Copyright 1997 by Mary Oliver.

So, this is what I say to the Dark Night of the Soul:

Let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

The Goddess taught me this. She taught me this on the day that she surprised me, as she'd promised me that she would do. I've worked hard at learning the meaning of that surprise. It's what Divinity wanted to learn in this incarnation, this time around. So mote it be. May it be so for you.