Are you in a winter funk? I know I am. Once the Christmas decorations have been packed up, and the initial cheer of the New Year has dissipated, I’m ready for spring. And why not? Right now, where I live, it’s uncomfortably cold with “feels like” temperatures in the 20s. The trees are bare having dropped the last of their leaves. The skies are gray, with overcast days far outnumbering the sunny ones. And the winter blues are settling in.
Some see our blue periods as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
In the 16th-century, the mystic Saint John of the Cross was imprisoned for not obeying an order from the Roman Catholic church. His incarceration was hellish and included regular beatings and solitary confinement. But John used the time to write the book, and coin the phrase, Dark Night of the Soul. John saw it as the “start of a journey” that would lead him to “the blessed place of perfection,” one in which there would be a divine union between his soul and God.
Kudos to John—but it’s hard to imagine connecting with God when the dog days of winter have set in and you’re merely trying to stay afloat in a sea of melancholy. During our blue periods, it can seem as if God has disappeared altogether, leaving us to fend for ourselves. The religious scholar Mirabai Starr, in her modern translation of Dark Night of the Soul, describes this state-of-mind vividly:
The soul is left baffled and bereft. The soul sits helpless…and simply breathes into the darkness. There is nothing else to do. The seeker in this state may be shy about disclosing his inner struggle to anyone for fear it will reveal nothing but his own deadly doubts and spiritual failures.
So, what do you do when you feel like a spiritual ne’er-do-well, abandoned by the divine spirit, left to fight off the bullying emotions of doubt and despair all by yourself? Starr says there is only one course of action, just one thing you can do:
All the seeker can do is surrender to the darkness and take humble refuge in the ineffable stillness…we have nowhere to go but into the silence.
To find solace in the silence, Starr believes we must be fully present in “the tender, wounded emptiness of our own souls.” That means not hiding from or ignoring the darkness, even though this may be our instinct, but immersing ourselves in it. Think of lowering yourself into a warm bath in a darkened room. She explains:
It’s about not turning away from the pain but learning to rest in it. Rather than distracting ourselves from the simple darkness at our core, we sit with it, paying close attention, and opening our hearts to all that is left, which is love.
More wise advice on dealing with the winter doldrums comes from Thomas Moore.
In his book Dark Nights of the Soul, A Guide to Finding Your Way through Life’s Ordeals, Moore advises us that the best way to proceed during times of melancholy is not to fight the blues, but instead to “live in, and with, the darkness”:
Go with developments, rather than against them. If you feel empty, empty out your life where it needs it. If you feel sad, let sadness be your dominant feeling. Being in tune with your deep mood is a way of clarifying yourself. Speak for it. Show it. Honor it.
Importantly, Moore argues that when you feel sad for extended periods, it is best not to treat these moods with pharmaceuticals. Unless one is clinically and chronically depressed, try to ride out these periods as best you can. Especially when the symptoms can be lessened through exercise, proper diet and sleep, meditation, or prayer. Moore warns:
Ours is still a therapeutic society that values the removal of symptoms over the soul’s sparkle and shine…broaden your imagination of what is happening to you. If your only idea is that you’re depressed, you will be at the mercy of the depression industry, which will treat you as one among millions, for whom there is only one approved story.
The dark night is a time for soul work, for digging deep into the self, and in Moore’s words to discover “what it is to live religiously.” The author explains what happens during this period, when you experience the world from the point-of-view of the soul:
It is the deep, dark discovery of roots and cellars, the opposite of enlightenment, but equally important and equally divine. Letting your spark light up a dark and dangerous world is a way of healing both you and your world.
Moore sees the dark nights of the soul as indispensable to our spiritual growth. While he recognizes the difficulties and challenges they pose, he believes the darkness can add “character and color and capacity” to our lives and are a gift to be appreciated. In his words:
Nothing could be more precious than a dark night of the soul, the very darkness of which allows your lunar light to shine. It may be painful, discouraging, and challenging, but it is nevertheless an important revelation of what your life is about. In that darkness, you see things you couldn’t see in the daylight.
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