Face the Dark

I was afraid of the dark as a child. I had a very active imagination and was acutely aware of my vulnerability to forces greater than me. Growing up, my fear concerned external dangers.

By the time I reached my late teens, however, I was even more fearful of the dark within me than around me. Psychiatrist Carl Jung called this inner darkness the “Shadow,” signifying those aspects of ourselves which we have not accepted, not integrated into our wholeness. As an abused child, my mostly unconscious fear was of my unprocessed anger.

For several years, I was haunted in my dreams by Frankenstein slowly but relentlessly chasing me. Finally, by my early twenties, I grew tired of the chase. It was time to face the monster. In the final dream I had with Frankenstein, I knew he was waiting for me in the dark living room of the house where I had been abused. I did not want to run any more. Taking a deep breath, brushing aside my fear, I walked into the living room darkness. As I did so, I abruptly woke up. And I never had that dream again. Later, during therapy, I was at last able to embrace my anger, recognizing it as a potentially strengthening ally, rather than necessarily destructive enemy.

We tend to associate darkness with evil, and light with good. Yet like paired opposites, the two are in perpetual connection, the one calling forth the other. Darkness defines the light, as light reveals the dark. They are essentially yoked; you cannot have one without summoning the other. Both must be embraced. As Brené Brown said, “Numb the dark and you numb the light.”

Love arises in darkness, and faith lives in it. Patrick Overton said, “When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.” I have taken those steps into the dark; and amazingly, I have always landed on solid footing.

In an important insight, Wendell Berry said, “To go into the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight and find that the dark too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”

Rachael Naomi Remen, M.D., who worked for decades as a psychiatrist with cancer patients, wrote of darkness and its unexpected positive significance to those nearing death, who feared approaching darkness. One poignant instance was of a dying man who feared being pulled into the dark, as if into a cosmic black hole. She told him to allow himself to be pulled in. He did so, and here are his actual comments, with which each one separated by several minutes:

“There is darkness. Big darkness. I am floating.

The darkness is very soft. . .gentle. . . It supports me.

I have no needs here. . .. (Sighs).

I am tired.

I am at rest. . . Totally at rest. Every cell is resting.

Every cell is open. . . I am filling up. . . filling up with life.

I could not fill up because I could not open up. . . Let go.

I can open up in the darkness.

Life is everywhere.

Whatever happens, it will be ok. . ..”

In the darkness, he found peace with and readiness for, whatever was to come.