Mining the Dark
Some periods in your life are just . . . slow. Like ol’ Greek Sisyphus, rolling a rock up a hill over and over, it feels like all the work we do nets no results, no rewards.
It feels like you’re laboring in the dark, and the results of our efforts are totally inscrutable.
You wonder if there is a point. Or if you’re even on the right track at all.
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Yesterday I had lunch with my mom. I told her she sounded tired. She is. She’s been fighting rats in her attic. Rats that led her to a rat company that rips off seniors and sells them huge rat-reduction packages, then does no work.
She’s tired of rats, tired of rat companies, tired of patching holes and arguing for her money back, and lunch seemed like a much better idea.
Our pricey fish plates arrived. Eh, so-so. Undercooked, cold, and dry.
“Happy birthday,” she says to me, “This is your birthday lunch.”
At this point, we’re laughing. What else can we do?
I mean, c’mon Universe, give us a break, will ya?
But no, right now the Universe is slow for us. It’s a time to be inward-facing, and roll through our attics and basements, shoring up the houses of our lives.
Periods of light and activity illuminate our lives with growth, results, and action. It’s yang energy.
Periods of dark ask us to slow down, reflect, and re-evaluate. It’s for sleep, healing, processing, and renewal. It’s introspective. Yin.
If the light is about eating, the dark is about digesting.
We often get pissed off about the transition. We don’t want the party to end. Or we can’t wait for the party to start. The yin feels unproductive, unrewarding and even a fucking struggle.
We talk about loving the feminine and all that rah-rah, but when we’re actually in the dark, most of us are trying to run from it as fast as we can.
The dark is scary. What if everything breaks? What if we don’t land on our feet? What if all the good stuff is behind us now? What if we are royally, completely, totally fucked and no one will ever want or love us or our skills again?
So we keep pushing and working and trying to create forward momentum in the dark, and then we find ourselves blundering around, questioning, repeating things over and over, and just generally struggling.
We are out of flow with the energy in our life. And we are freaked out to be there.
When we’re panicky about it, it only gets worse. But it can be hard not to be panicky when things are slipping from our hands and lives, and nothing has arrived yet to take their place.
So . . . adjust your vision. Exhale, step back, and instead see the dark as an invitation.
It welcomes you to revise. It asks you to renew and/or discard things. But it’s not a time for Making.
Making happens in the light, whereas revisions, evaluation, and renewing happen in the dark.
They go together: opposite twins that can’t live without the other.
The key is in recognizing which one you’re in, and not fighting it. Fighting it leads to a riptide at sea—the more you struggle, the further you get carried out.
I wanted September to be a huge month of growth and expansion, but instead, I sense my days slowing and my focus slipping. After months of work lifting my latest project off the ground, the dark is asking me just sit in it for awhile.
I pouted, argued, and convinced myself I have no time for dark (not right now!). But you know I always come to my senses.
Sometimes you just have to get over your own thoughts about how things “should” be, and instead be in what actually is.
So I gave in, because that’s the only thing that’ll actually give me the reward I’m looking for.
The dark is your friend. And, all of us weave in and out of the dark in our lives.
Next time, instead of crying out that I need to know where I’m going, or bracing for whatever bad thing might be lurking ahead, I want to get my head together even faster than I did this time.
Instead, I’ll let myself fall into the place of power in my dark the first minute I feel the energies turn . . . no matter what my head is screaming about it.
For me, this means writing in the morning, taking my body for little jaunts at the gym, reading and researching, and walking along the surf as the sun sets over the ocean.
It means I’m giving up on making a result, and instead listening to the process that comes before the result—and if it’s not clear, then that’s okay too.
Because, things aren’t meant to be clear in the dark.
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I would love to hear your comments on this article. Please leave one below!
Worth rereading. Important for these times.
Wow-what an impact a tidbit I almost didn’t read is having! How insightful! I am one who loves the dark(finds the light much more scary!) and have kindof given into it, thinking this was finally it, i may spend months renewing & processing (& ok w/ being a loner) but then i will emerge into the light and finally find some daily (or at least weekly) balance to the day and night! But instead I got kindof stuck in the yin & for every step forward in 1 area, other areas stepped back – waaaay back & in areas i’ve never even had a ladder for! i’ve been teetering on panick thinking, but see clearly right now that the light is starting to infuse in me! And it’s soft and bright and comforting and beautiful this time around!
This resonates so much with my life right now. I’ve been in the dark for so long and I’ve been so patient but I’m yearning for the light again. I have a disability which affects one hand and recently I injured the other at work. Lots of exercises and rehabilitation to get back. I can’t wait for the light for the time that I can do things and achieve things. I can see signs of it turning – hopefully not long now.
PS I had rats in my house and then moved in with the man who eventually became my husband- the universe works in mysterious ways.
Gosh Summer! As one who is just leaving a dark period that has lasted way too long, I totally empathize. I love this inclusion with the book and believe it is necessary to remind all of us that things are not always going to feel like sunshine and roses. We do our major growth in this incubation period of life. For me, it has certainly carved and transformed my attitudes, focus and inner spiritual growth. Keep writing … love it!
Oh wow, this is so true. The dark can feel so frustrating & confusing but we can’t have the light without the dark. The dark helps us to appreciate the light & gives us the time to heal old wounds ready to share our findings when the light comes again. As you say it’s all about recognising the energy, knowing we’ll get through it because it all serves a purpose xx
Thank you for sharing this! I, too, am slowly coming out of the dark after a not so great September. Today I had a small breakthrough and am working towards getting back on track. This post was an excellent reminder that we’re not alone!
Many blessings,
Lauren
I love the part where you and your mother go to lunch. Rats are such a great visual for whatever plagues you and then I laughed when your food wasn’t much better! It’s so good to have humor in trying times. It’s important to recognize the dark values vs light and I’m so glad you’re writing about these contrasts! You contribute deeper reflection and always are inspiring.
I actually have been feeling this way for quite a while, a couple of years actually… I was kicking and screaming all through the first year. Second was transition and right now I’m just going with it. I do feel like I’m going nowhere but I kind of accepted it and keep going saying “one more year” before I can move forward. Specially because a lot of things are coming in 2020 that need me to be here and grounded. So just keep flowdreaming for the future and keep blindly going for now.
Oh my gosh! I am so there! It has been such a crap year, decade. I keep asking when is it going to be my my turn? What am I doing wrong? This can’t be as good as it gets. I just have to count my blessings and keep my faith that the best is yet to come. All the signs say hang in there. Some days it’s just really hard. Thanks, this was an encouraging message.
This article totally applies to me. I just went through the dark and now have come up out of it. I really feel like I have a understanding of what happened and next time I won’t fight it.
Thanks Summer!
Natalie Harris
This is perfect! Every night (even when the moon is not up), I thank Her for reminding us that there is a time of light and fullness that is meant for “doing” and a time of darkness that is meant for “being”. I cannot wait for your book to come out, Carol.
Just exactly how I have been feeling the last few days! My Birthday is October 10th and I always slow down the week before my birthday, can’t get much of anything done.
I heard once it’s also a reboot in your astrological year, similar to New Years Day for the rest of the world. You are lowest in energy right before your Birthday and then you get a burst of energy the next day. (Or something like that)
I have a list a mile long of things I want and need to do, but my body isn’t cooperating at the moment.
Thanks for the read, it was well timed on my end.
Love it and totally how I feel right now like I’m,in the dark and take 2 steps forward to take a million backwards.but I see a breakthrough on the horizin just very impatient.
Nailed it as usual! I always appreciate how honest you are with us on how up and down a spiritual life can be and how it’s not a bad thing or a sign that we are doing something wrong.
Good timing on this. Ever since April, I have been having a doozy of a time with unexpected urgent home repairs and veterinary emergencies that have sucked up a crazy amount of my time, energy, and finances. It’s been exhausting. I’ve been trying to put it in perspective and appreciating that 1. despite the stress, I have been able to handle everything, and 2. my house is in much better shape now, and 3. life goes in cycles. This too shall pass.
Also on the plus side, a couple of years ago, I had started putting together an online class on handling stress when life gets messy. That fell by the wayside. These past several months have been the perfect opportunity to retest my collection of techniques (they do work!) and get back to working on the class.
BTW, your Flowdreams, Everything is Easy and My Trouble Free Life, have been great for helping me cope.
I won’t lie, often I don’t feel like reading subscription emails and just delete them. I did that this morning but the Universe felt otherwise and decided not to delete this one, it reappeared on my phone, unread!
Okay, so listen to the Universe, don’t fight it…
And yes, the content was absolutely right. Back in December, my spine spontaneously and inoperably fractured and I’ve been living with reduced mobility ever since. You could say I no longer had the spine for something. I guess that something was my very stressful job in male fertility, where, despite my deep passion for my subject and patient care, I was always fighting for my own support. Despite being unable to go to work, I still provided the backbone of my very specialised diagnostic service from home; scaffolds to enable my employers to continue using skeleton staff and pare down the work to its bare bones.
I was on paid sick leave for nine months, until ill health retirement allowed me to release my old passion that had become a stressor. And for exactly nine months (and the fact that this is the length of human gestation, hasn’t been lost on me either), my dark phase was slow with unremitting pain. I was learning to let go, to release the control and allow my new life, my new baby, a re-invention of myself, to unfold.
Right now my creative juices are bubbling up and I am so looking forward to seeing what I can become.
Thank you Universe, you are always right!
This message was timely! Just yesterday my colleague told me, after a really rough day, this is the way things need to be for now . She said, “ You are in transition (my retirement date is a month away) this period is necessary.” My response, “But I don’t want it to be this way, I don’t feel like I am getting through to them.” Like I said, this was timely for me. Thank you.