The Dark Night of the Soul with Josh Reeves

[00:00:03] In deepest solitude, I found the narrow way, a secret giving such release that I was stunned

[00:00:12] in stammering, rising above all knowing.

[00:00:19] These words of Saint John of the Cross or One Daylock Cruise are all a part of this spiritual

[00:00:27] concept that we call the dark night of the soul.

[00:00:33] But an interesting term, the dark night, this idea of a dark sky without moon or stars, a

[00:00:45] place of absolute unknowing.

[00:00:50] And yet when we look underneath it or even past it, there is that sense and that excitement

[00:00:57] of limitless possibility.

[00:01:00] And of course this idea of the soul being on a journey and that a portion of its journey

[00:01:09] is to move through the darkness of night, through the thick of not knowing and yet aware

[00:01:17] at a deep feeling level of its immense possibility.

[00:01:23] One way of interpreting the dark night of the soul is through an immensely challenging

[00:01:31] but it must also be transformational time.

[00:01:35] An experience of being broken open.

[00:01:39] An experience that could be metaphorically referred to as a crucifixion.

[00:01:48] A time when we experience betrayal or loss or even come against who we think our best

[00:01:56] self is that isn't enough for what is before us.

[00:02:00] I think this is a powerful interpretation of the dark night of the soul.

[00:02:05] Times where we must have faith in that infinite possibility even in the midst of not knowing

[00:02:12] or in suffering or in pain.

[00:02:17] I prefer to ensue the idea that God brings us pain or suffering intentionally as a way

[00:02:25] to teach us a lesson.

[00:02:27] But I think a deeper way that I've used for myself is when going through a challenging

[00:02:32] experience I'll ask what am I being initiated into right now?

[00:02:39] Or I'll say boy, I sure am being initiated right now.

[00:02:44] And it has to do with this idea in our promise to soul, in our soul commitment to live our

[00:02:52] best lives that our lives can get shaken up.

[00:02:57] Our lives can break suddenly and if we have the maturity we cannot blame ourselves for what

[00:03:07] is taking place or even God but we can say I have set an intention to live in a greater

[00:03:14] way and my life is responding to me through this change, through this loss.

[00:03:22] And it's painful and yet it's kind of an initiation because the loss, the change, the pain can

[00:03:30] indeed be teaching us what we need to know to step into our next level of becoming.

[00:03:40] I remember when I was about 18 or 19 I thought I really found my purpose in life, getting

[00:03:47] to run retreats for teenagers.

[00:03:51] I'd found this faith and I just loved creating environments for teenagers to speak their

[00:03:58] truths, to learn about themselves, to embrace their innate wisdom, to build strong ideas

[00:04:07] about who they are and what they wanted in their lives.

[00:04:11] And I really enjoyed this work and I was working in California but then got the opportunity

[00:04:16] to work at a more national level.

[00:04:18] And a lot of the other people that were doing this leadership work were probably like

[00:04:22] who the hell is this 19 year old kid and who does he think he is?

[00:04:26] And there were some things that happened.

[00:04:28] We had a camp where a girl was caught smoking and the rule was you had to send

[00:04:32] him home and I wasn't going to send her home.

[00:04:35] There were a few other incidents that took place and I think because people didn't see

[00:04:39] who I really was or had judgments rightly or wrongly that I was too young to be doing

[00:04:45] what I was doing, I had to resign those positions.

[00:04:50] It was really heartbreaking for me because here is what I loved to do most and it was

[00:04:55] like losing all of that.

[00:04:57] And so it was a hard experience in my late teens, early young adulthood to go through

[00:05:03] and yet looking back now, I'm still not grateful for the experience but if it wasn't for that

[00:05:10] I wouldn't have taken those important next steps that led to ministry of working with

[00:05:14] young adults and then of working with adults.

[00:05:18] And so there was something about that experience that initiated me not only to being less

[00:05:25] judgmental myself because of what people's age are or anything like that but also to

[00:05:32] realize that there was more for me to do, more for me in terms of calling.

[00:05:37] That's always been with me and ministry.

[00:05:39] It's God I want to serve as many people as possible and sometimes we have to build some

[00:05:44] boundaries with God too.

[00:05:46] There are limits to that because I want to enjoy life as well but I'll always remember

[00:05:51] that experience.

[00:05:53] Another aspect of the dark night of the soul that is probably less understood but

[00:05:59] I think more in alignment with what St. John of the Cross meant is it's a spiritual

[00:06:04] practice.

[00:06:05] The dark night of the soul is a spiritual practice.

[00:06:10] One day the cruise says this, God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness

[00:06:17] because if we fully knew what was happening and what mystery transformation God and

[00:06:23] grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or

[00:06:29] stop the whole process and the spiritual practice of the dark night of the soul is to

[00:06:35] allow your consciousness to go dark.

[00:06:39] To close your eyes and have that experience of it being just like looking up into the

[00:06:46] starless night, the moonless midnight.

[00:06:52] All we have to do to see nothing is to close our eyes.

[00:06:58] This is the practice of the dark night of the soul.

[00:07:01] It's to release ourselves from the thinking mind, it's to release ourselves from story

[00:07:09] and from images and it's to have the faith to be in the total darkness, to have the

[00:07:16] faith to be with nothing but that faith in the darkness to see what might come

[00:07:21] forward.

[00:07:23] Nwande LaCruz and other contemplatives of his time believed that this practice was a

[00:07:30] great way of communing with the divine, not creating God in our own image and

[00:07:36] likeness which we often unintentionally do with our own imagining and visioning

[00:07:41] and thinking but to wait with faith.

[00:07:45] Sometimes it's scary, it's always filled with the unknown, sometimes in

[00:07:50] silence we have to face fears and anxieties and hurts but as they LaCruz

[00:07:56] and other teachers support us with if we keep going with faith even into that

[00:08:02] darkness, not filled with evils by the way but with that not knowing we can

[00:08:08] have revealed to us a light in which we've never comprehended before.

[00:08:15] A light of love, a light of consciousness, a light of depth.

[00:08:21] As we close this session today I want to share a poem of sorts from Nwande LaCruz

[00:08:29] and you can close your eyes if you'd like but I absolutely invite you to move

[00:08:35] into this idea of the dark night of the soul as a spiritual practice as we

[00:08:39] take in these words.

[00:08:43] I came into the unknown and stayed there unknowing, rising beyond all knowing.

[00:08:51] I did not know the door but when I found the way unknowing where I was I learned

[00:08:57] enormous things but what I felt I cannot say for I remained unknowing, rising

[00:09:04] beyond all knowing.

[00:09:06] It was the perfect realm of holiness and peace and deep as solitude I found

[00:09:11] the narrow way, a secret giving such release that I was stunned and

[00:09:17] stammering, rising beyond all knowing.

[00:09:21] I was so far inside, so dazed and far away my senses were released from

[00:09:27] feelings of my own.

[00:09:29] My mind had found a sure way, a knowledge of unknowing, rising

[00:09:34] beyond all knowing.

[00:09:37] And he who does arrive collapses as in sleep for all he knew before now seems

[00:09:44] the lowly thing and so his knowledge grows so deep that he remains unknowing,

[00:09:51] rising beyond all knowing.

[00:09:54] The higher he ascends the darker is the wood, it is the shadowy cloud that

[00:10:00] clarified the night and so the one who understood remains always unknowing,

[00:10:07] rising beyond all knowing.

[00:10:11] This knowledge by unknowing is such a soaring force that scholars argue long but

[00:10:16] never leave the ground, their knowledge always fails the source to understand

[00:10:22] unknowing, rising beyond all knowing.

[00:10:27] This knowledge is supreme crossing a blazing height though formal reason

[00:10:32] and tries it crumbles in the dark but one who could control the night by

[00:10:37] knowledge of unknowing will rise beyond all knowing.

[00:10:43] And if you wish to hear, the highest knowing leads to an ecstatic feeling

[00:10:49] of the most holy being and from his mercy comes his deed to let us stay

[00:10:55] unknowing, rising beyond all knowing.