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MarkostheGnostic
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Registered: 12/09/99
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Re: Dark Night of the Soul [Re: Silversoul]
#5944604 - 08/08/06 03:57 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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"Wow. That sounds a lot like where I am right now."
If this is true, you must be experiencing quite a bit of 'angst.' If you are, and there is anything I could add that would serve to give some direction, please ask. At the end of seminary, I wrote a response to an editorial in my town's paper about what it meant to me to be a Jewish Christian. Among responses to my article was a lovely 'older' woman (I was 25, she was 39) who helped me to reorganize my then disenchantment with women (since the girl I had fallen in love with had become a prostitute, and eventually a madam of a big operation). The relationship failed when, in going to grad school four hours away, I took up with the woman who would eventually become my Borderline Personality Disordered wife. (I was a dick and I paid for my mistake. )
Recently, a lost friend reconnected with me and sent me some pics. Here I was with the Jewish Christian gal in 1979 with whom I exchanged more than 'a holy kiss,' and who whet my appetite for a life on Earth as well as in Heaven.

This lady was divorced, had a 20 year old son and three teenaged daughters who lived with her. I decided to marry a younger woman, who treated me with evil and who had a tubal ligation without discussing it with me four years into the marriage. Six years after that event, I would be cast into yet another Dark Night. Marriage for me has always been the Alchemical Marriage - the Marriage of Sun and Moon. My ex wife was like Lilith, Adam's first wife, who left him to consort with demons.
"And no marvel: for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." - 2 Corinthians 11:14
I am perhaps at long last with my Eve, but over and against the classical literature of the Dark Night as it pertained to celibate monastics, it must be understood for many of us as it occurs to unwedded beings whose natural state is to be in intimate relationship with an other. The Alchemical 'Conjunctio' for us must be enacted in the outer as well as the inner worlds.
"WHO can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he will have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life." - Proverbs 31:10-12
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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it stars saddam
Satan

Registered: 05/19/05
Posts: 15,571
Loc: Spahn Ranch
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
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Thanks for the affirmation. My friends all liked her too . I cheated on her twice in grad school: the first girl gave me herpes, and the second one whom I married almost ruined my life professionally and personally. Bear in mind that at her last birthday, she turned 68. (Then again, I turned 53) .
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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it stars saddam
Satan

Registered: 05/19/05
Posts: 15,571
Loc: Spahn Ranch
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I was throwin' up the horns for your beard, not the girl.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
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Sorry...I guess it was the "Lusts for the Libertines" that influenced my interpretation . But, I had the beard a lot longer than I had that lady!
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jungjedi
starfleet


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ive been asking similiar questions redgreenvines.ide just like to run and make it with the border of mexico.if you have any suggestions,ide love to hear them because i dont know if i could begin again and not have an angry insight on the world. edited to say. People are strange, when you're a stranger Faces look ugly when you're alone People seem wicked, when you're unwanted Streets are uneven, when you're down
When you're strange- faces come out of the rain (rain, rain) When you're strange- no one remembers your name When you're strange, when you're strange, when you're str-ange
Edited by jungjedi (08/10/06 06:42 PM)
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Dark Night of the Soul [Re: jungjedi]
#5951956 - 08/10/06 08:39 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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How strange are ya? Mexico? Wherever you go - you're there. Running never made sense to me.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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demiu5
humans, lol


Registered: 08/18/05
Posts: 43,948
Loc: the popcorn stadium
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Re: Dark Night of the Soul [Re: soulcircus]
#5952001 - 08/10/06 08:58 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I read an interesting book that deals with this topic as well as other similar topics. Dancing the Dream by Jamie Sams. She is one of few Native American (I don't remember what tribe) women taught and led through shamanistic practices.
It's been 2-3 years since I've read the book, but it contains some very detailed descriptions of her dark nights of the soul. I reccomend it.
-------------------- channel your inner Larry David
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eve69
--=..Did Adam and ...?=--


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Re: Dark Night of the Soul [Re: demiu5]
#5953067 - 08/11/06 04:47 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I think the 'Dark Night of the Soul' occurs when one perceives that the contents of their mind is not in fact reality and that therefore all is rather empty of ultimate meaning or specific quality or value, thus since things have been eclipsed by the ultimate expansiveness of what underlies them, therefore one becomes overshadowed, as in darkened, by the Ultimate, and so as such one loses pleasure, loses individuality, loses all relative things of their previous character which had previously given them pleasure.
Since St. John was a celibate monk it could be said that this experience really only pertains to those monastics who seek to know God or the Ultimate, and who find their own individuality even, extinguished in the process.
The light at the end of the tunnel being that one finally comes to rest in the Ultimate without pretensions, and finding rest in the Ultimate one goes forth no longer, and seeks no more elsewhere.
Now enough theory. I will tell a bit of personal experience as it may shed some details on the subject.
I was taught a system of meditation (and I will not say which since I am not qualified to teach about it), but in this system one has their nature shown to them, and then having had that shown and realizing that that was indeed all that there is, I was thrust into a black depression and literally cried for a few days having learned that my hopes for a glamorous future were dashed. Learning that liberation was simple like water, and not exciting like a mixed drink I had many chersihed illusions dashed. But then after letting them go I found ultimate freedom in the present without need for recourse to illusory futures filled with pretentious dreams and hopes.
You see, if now is perfect then one resides in the greatest liberator of all. Since all potential resides right here, always at ones disposal.
Sorry this is vague, but I'm afriad that words really will never do justice, so if I included all the details of the whole universe it still would come across vaguely.
-------------------- ...or something
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