Living our dreams, not our doubts

The flow of grace has returned to my life. I am sure of myself and my work thanks to a series of affirmations and, of course, Spirit.

These past weeks really have begun to follow a pattern, the same one we've been exploring in the Turtlebox spiritual-nurture group. Last post I discussed the dark night of the soul, which was also the topic of Thursday's Turtlebox and  my most-attended session. I had provided a warning that this was a difficult topic and, still, they came. 

That was an affirmation I sorely needed as I had been struggling with some doubt in my own dark night.

Fallen/pastel on paper

Last Sunday, I experienced a very deep and powerful worship, though I had no vocal ministry, which is rare. I was almost so deep, I couldn't move. Our minister noticed, saying I didn't seem my usual self and suggested we talk. Automatically and surprisingly, I agreed. When I mentioned the dark night, she got all giddy and excused herself to return with a passage from a book on the dark night she had copied for some reason: me, she now believed. Then the talk turned to my ministry and how the Meeting has been puzzled that I haven't finished applying for funding. That when they created the fund, they all had me in mind: a person with many gifts and not in a regular job. She reiterated the Quaker notion of releasing one for ministry by financially helping with living expenses.

I had not been ready for this step because of my doubts, but now see that I am. Another affirmation.

In reading an e-mail from a Quaker friend who plans to volunteer this week with Artsy Fartsy, she said the nominating committing had just met and discussed my "sold vocal ministry." I thanked her on both counts and said I was grateful for the vote of confidence as I struggle with doubt.

A third affirmation.

After posting the last blog on dark night, a wonderful Quaker/writer/friend said it was one he'd read again because it applied so well to his current experience. Then he thanked me for sharing my explorations. I expressed my gratitude, mentioning that I often feel like Bridget Jones who says, at one point, that she doesn't need another person to tell her she's messed up because she feels that way most of the time.

A fourth affirmation.

Unexpectedly, my husband brought a letter to me to the studio. When I ripped it open – it was from a grant funder to whom I'd applied – a check for the total amount of my request spilled out. "Thank you for your commitment to the children in your community," it concluded.

Yet another VERY concrete affirmation.

The doubt really has dissipated along with the dark night. One of the wise women who has been attending Tutlebox said a spiritual director told her a long time ago that God is in your dreams and desires, not the doubt.

I believe that again.

And as we talked about Thursday at Turtlebox, the dark night strips us of ego and things of the world, so we may lose ourselves more fully in Spirit's flow of love, which I am feeling so powerfully and gratefully again.

I am living my dreams, not my doubts.

• When I have felt connected to Spirit, then separated?
• How did I experience that darkness and separation?
• What kept me going?
• If reconnection happened, what was that like?
• Where are my current dreams taking me?

A classic case:

months of near ecstasy
and energy

close encounters,
amazing experiences,
vivid dreams,
visions and images
collecting

best I've been
in years

so open, I
ask for
change

and BAM
it comes crashing
in, loosening
so much
old stuff ...
crud that was
still hanging
like a tether
to the old me

the one trapped
by ego 

and I stewed there
awhile

until I began
to understand
just where I
was – a
spiritual
sorting house

soon it was
time to emerge
and fly

because the
baggage is gone
and my heart
is deepened,
but lighter

Listen to this post:

Dark nights and moldy clay

Interesting how life imitates art – probably more often than we know.

This week as I've been reading and planning my Turtlebox group for Thursday night on Dark Night of the Soul, I realize I've been living in this place. That understanding has made it more tolerable and, perhaps, begun to edge me out.

The patterns described, particularly in Evelyn Underhill's classic, Mysticism, seem to fit. I had an energetic almost year of launching ministry, attracting funding, feeling so in the flow of grace and receiving dreams and images with deep spiritual meaning. Then, it came crashing down when I, in the prime of all this and feeling physically at my best, asked for change. I felt I was strong enough and ready. Of course, what was delivered what not what I had anticipated: another helping of pain, energy loss, self doubt and anxiety. I had concocted a myriad of reasons for each symptom.

Psychologically and physiologically speaking, the crash comes after an intensely active period. Spiritually speaking, we're not meant to permanently live in ecstatic states as if that is the end of our journey. This, according to Underhill.

We can experience the dark night in a number of ways: a withdrawal of Spirit, lack of joy or interest in what usually stimulates us, emptiness, doubt, anxiety, uncontrollable and disturbing thoughts, etc. If it sounds like depression, it's because the two, dark night and depression, often accompany each other. Not being an expert, I don't know where the line is in deciphering the difference. Personally, however, I understood that this recent episode, on an unconscious level, was something happening within me. Something that would be transformative in a positive way. I can't tell you why, except that I had a faith and trust built on my experience of the last year; that I knew it isn't always this way.

It also helped that my shaman last week mentioned depression and said it wasn't mine to own ... to throw it back. I realized he was right, so I did. I'd been flirting with drugs to help the night-waking and anxiety, but opted for meditation and a bedtime gratitude practice instead. They've worked.

A few years ago, when the world learned of Mother Theresa's very long dark night, I was heartened. Not because she'd struggled so hard and long, but because hers wasn't always a path of light and ease. It taught me that real faith is when you feel abandoned, yet don't abandon God or God's calling to you.

Underhill says it is those mountain-top experiences which feed us during the Dark Night when "the whole inner experience is suddenly swept away, and only a blind reliance on past convictions saves them from unbelief."

She describes the spiritual journey as "oscillations between 'states of pleasure' and 'states of pain' ... in which each intense and progressive affirmation fatigues the immature transcendental powers, and is paid for by a negation; a swing back of the whole consciousness ..."

Its purpose, according to Underhill "is to cure the soul of the innate tendency to seek and rest in spiritual joys; to confuse Reality with the joy given by the contemplation of Reality" and force "total abandonment of the individualistic standpoint, of that trivial and egotistic quest of personal satisfaction, which thwarts the great movement of the Flowing Light."

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow evening ... to see what transpires and the conversations we share. I want to learn of others' experiences. I've also designed a clay meditation to help open us to the idea of the Dark Night. One that emulates connection, a blunt cutting off, being separate, then re-joining. 

My fingers are still dusty with clay as I type this post. I had such fun dividing the large clump into smaller portions and re-invigorating drier pieces. It was cathartic to slam the clay on the table, re-shaping it and prepping it for tomorrow's hands, ever prayerful that I am doing the work to which Spirit calls even in the darkness of anxiety and doubt ... though that is melting.

• How have I experienced a Dark Night of the Soul or separation from Spirit?
• How did faith help?
• At what point did I understand it was part of the spiritual path?
• Where am I right now spiritually?
• Wherever that is, how can I continue to express gratitude?


The bag hadn't
been touched
for a year.

Simply moved into
my studio with
everything else.

I unwrapped the
chunk and began
working the clay,

noticing dark
spots as I
carved
slices with
floss.

I cut off
all of the bad
and rolled
out little
logs. Smooth,
clean, ready
for the next
set of hands.

Then I
played with
the spoiled
pieces. Easily
and seamlessly
knitting them
together into
one, giant and
very pliable
lump.

Google told
me potters
covet this mold
as it means the
clay has aged
and is easier
to manipulate.

So, the dark
is NOT a
bad thing,
just part
of the 
refinement
process.

Listen to this post: