"Original Blessing" by Matthew Fox - Path 2, Step 11

Step 11:  Emptying:  Letting go of images and letting silence be silence.

p. 135 - For growth of the human person takes place in the dark. Under ground. In subterranean passages. There, where "no image has ever reached into the soul's foundation," God alone works. A light-oriented spirituality is superficial, surface-like, lacking as it does the deep, dark roots that nourish and surprise and ground the large tree. 

I like that definition. The more I stay awake to living my life, the more I perceive the darkness and I realize it nourishes me and helps me grow. Darkness - the vitamins of a healthy life.  Well, my life isn't 100% healthy but I am making strides. Recognizing the purpose of darkness takes away the fear of it. 

p. 135 -  The dark is "all that we are afraid of, all that we don't want to see--fear, anger, sex, grief, death, the unknown."  The way of the unconscious mind or the "right brain" is the way of darkness. The depths of our being are not all sunlit; to see clearly, we must be willing to dive into the dark, inner abyss and acknowledge the creatures we may find there. 

It makes sense the darkness would be right brain - where feelings, intuition and creativity exist. Entering the darkness lets me experience all of me... all of life; and I learn to trust God when I have no intellectual clue what is going on.

p. 135 - It is healthy to reflect on how in fact our lives are already bound in darkness without our having to perform any extraordinary manipulations. 

Agreed. Manipulation of self or others is not only confusing, it makes it nigh impossible to recognize truth.

p. 135 - The womb was dark and not fearful. 

I like that analogy; yet having carried two sons to term, I question if there was fear towards the end when they were cramped, uncomfortable and hugged very tight by periodic Braxton-Hicks. Yet, the image of being carried in the warm womb, is still a good analogy of finding inner peace - especially peace during the spiritual wildnerness of darkness.

p. 136 - Silence means the letting go of all images -- whether oral ones or auditory ones or visual ones or inner ones or cognitive ones or imaginative ones.

Contemplation is inner silence. Sometimes I find comfort in the hum of voices and machinery nearby - it reminds me my silence is part of something bigger and greater than me and the world.  Voices and machinery don't stop just because I stop participating in the noise. Then I let go of the noise, or maybe I become once again as insignificant as the noise,  and return to the peace of silence.  To float in the womb of God's love - awaiting having new areas of my life being reborn to resemble Christ.

p. 137-138 - the human race cannot continue to afford to flee the darkness and to embrace an Enlightenment that does not include an Endarkenment.

The book was first published in 1983. I think the human race is dividing into those who are willing to look at the darkness, those who are unaware of darkness and those who intentionally shun the darkness. Yet, I think more people are becoming aware there is spirituality in darkness as well as light.