We've all heard of "The Long Dark Night of the Soul," but what is it, really?The Druids did not shy away from the dark. They were well acquainted with the principle of working through the darkness to get to the light. At one time, the Irish method of initiating Druids into Arch Druids was to seal them in a cave for three days and three nights without food, water, light, sound or any sensory input other than the cold, hard stone of the cave floor and walls. Within that period, they had to prove their readiness for Arch Druidship by becoming one with their Higher Selves - evidenced by the fact that they could translocate their physical bodies to the outside of the sealed cave entrance. The cave initiation was the Druids' Dark Night of the Soul intensive - a Short Dark Night of the Soul, you might say. It was not merely the isolation and utter darkness that killed or drove the initiates mad. It was the opening up of their subconscious and unleashing of all their inner demons, while simultaneously sealed off in isolation and utter darkness, that had a strong potential to drive them insane. The way to be able to survive and handle the experience was to connect and become one with their Higher Selves.
And that's what the Dark Night of the Soul is. "It is the opening up of the subconscious, and the emptying out of all that is there. And that is no small thing. Our minds are like icebergs." The conscious mind is only the small part sticking up above the surface. Most of it is below, unknown to us. Imagine suddenly becoming aware of 20 times more thoughts, feelings and programming than you knew of before - much of it from infantile periods of life and thus quite illogical, crazy, even 'insane.' When the boundary between the conscious mind and the subconscious vanishes and all that has been suppressed in the subconscious starts flooding our minds within a relatively short timeframe, even the spiritual and emotional super heroes among us will find it utterly challenging to maintain their sanity. In the case of the Druids, even with years of preparation and training, only a few succeeded.
And so it is with the Long Dark Night of the Soul as well. Talk of it may sound darkly mysterious and exciting, even romantic. But going through it feels nothing of the sort and it is definitely not anything to play with. When your Higher Self deems you ready to handle and survive the experience, then and only then will your Higher Self create it for you ... READ MORE ...
