The Darkness Before the Dawn
byLlewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Recently[i] I wrote about the coming dawn and our need to be fully present to welcome the sunrise. But I also wrote about the darkness before the dawn, and it is this darkness that I am now drawn to articulate more fully, to explore its meaning and the story it is telling us:
We are standing on the edge of an abyss, this crisis of climate change and ecological devastation. And echoing this physical tragedy I feel that there is a deep forgetfulness of the sacredness of creation—an attitude that has allowed us to treat the planet as an object we can pollute and desecrate at our own will. What has drawn us into this inner and outer self-destructive cycle? Is it just greed, the desires of materialism that consume so much with so little regard for their source or their real cost? Or are there other forces at work?
It is easy to see the ravages of an ego-driven culture, a society that puts short-term economic “progress” above any larger or more far-sighted concerns. But is this surface-self only to blame, or are its attitudes and their devastating effect part of a larger picture or pattern, a deeper dying to what holds us all together as a sacred whole?
Psychology tells us that our personal and ego-self are surface identities under which there are other, often more potent forces: our repressed selves, and the deeper forces of the archetypal or collective world. We know how our repressed self can easily erupt in anger or catch us in neurosis or other dramas. We can begin to glimpse the archetypal forces that express themselves in the images of dreams or myths, and recognize how these belong to our collective heritage and destiny. But what is the real story being told at this present time? What is our surface drama, with its economic and political concerns, and what are the deeper forces at work and the story that they are telling? Who or what is calling us to this abyss that we appear to approach so willingly?
Poets and prophets have warned us of this time, how, in Yeats’s words:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…
Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
(The Second Coming)
But is it a second coming we are approaching or a dark age? Is this the longed for golden era preceded by a global crisis intense enough to awaken us, or are we becoming more and more lost in a nightmare of forgetfulness played out on our world stage when the forces of life turn against us? Is our ecological destruction, the dangers of a global economic collapse, the forces of terrorism and the loss of the sacred in everyday life, all part of a pattern, which, like the destructive reality of the suicide bomber, is now here to haunt us? And what might this mean to our souls as well as to our daily outer life?
The danger is always that we content our selves with the surface dramas of the moment and our desire to solve its problems without concern or understanding of the underlying causes. But can our small light either confront or dispel these deeper shadows if we do not even acknowledge their existence? Can we afford to neglect this inner reality just as we have neglected the fragile state of our ecosystem until it is almost too late? Do we not know how it is all an interconnected whole, that the state of our planet and our loss of the sacred is one story told in different ways? Is it not time to listen to this story, to find its meaning, and to recognize finally that this story belongs to each of us—it is our own story as well as the story of the whole world?
Many of us are awakening to a desperate need to save our planet. But if we do not recognize the real nature of the forces we are encountering, how can we work to redeem the present situation? Is it the monster of corporate greed and exploitation, the forces of fundamentalism, or simple ignorance and self-centeredness? Or is this an archetypal drama in which we are unknowingly caught—the dark myth of material prosperity whose empty promises are that it will fulfill us, bring us the happiness or security we crave, while the truth is that it starves our souls and robs real meaning and joy from our lives.
This dark side of our addiction to consumerism is one possible explanation of what is happening. But how much do we understand the power of this inner darkness in our everyday life? Are we unknowingly victims of primal forces, gods we have long dismissed but now desperately need to acknowledge and honor? All we know for certain is that for the first time we are bound together in a global drama from which we cannot isolate ourselves. This is the most basic truth of global pollution and climate change, as well as the threat of terrorism. There is no “over there” any more.
Spiritual teachings tell us that what happens to the individual affects the whole. Now we know for certain that what happens to the whole affects each of us. Unless we remain buried in an illusion of insularity, we have to acknowledge how we are all interconnected. This was one of the lessons of the “sub-prime mortgage crisis”—how greed and bad lending practices in some parts of America almost brought down the whole global financial system. And its resulting recession has affected us all. These patterns of interconnectedness are the first major lesson of this crisis.
But what of this darkness that we label individual or corporate greed? We may seek to condemn the bankers with their million dollar bonuses, but are they the cause or just a symptom of this darkness that appears to disregard everything except immediate profit? This ego-centered profit motive is at the very center of our western ideology. It may have promised us prosperity, but there is a darker cost we are now beginning to pay. Could it be that through our human weaknesses of ignorance and greed a deeper darkness has entered and spread its tentacles, slowly sucking the sacred lifeblood of the planet, leaving us in this physical and soulless wasteland we now inhabit? A darkness that is gradually drawing the light and meaning from our lives? It takes away hope and leaves instead anxiety, fear, even an anger that we may project onto outer situations or events, but comes instead from deep within, from empty promises or a sense of betrayal.
What is the purpose of this darkness? Where has it come from and where is it taking us? What is its story? Does it just feed off the life and light of the planet and ourselves, until all that is left is a soulless wasteland—an inner and outer landscape like the vast tar sands in northern Alberta where our desire for oil has polluted these pristine lands and their rivers, poisoned its indigenous inhabitants?
This darkness is all around us, even if we try not to notice it. We may read about oil spills and see its images on our TV screens without noticing the affect on our souls. But knowingly or unknowingly we have become the story that this darkness is telling. We are the light that is being lost. We may blame corporate executives or politicians, decry the evils of terrorists, but this is no absolution. Once we look closely both around us and beneath the surface we can sense that here is a deeper darkness than can be caused by any individual or group. We can feel it even if we cannot name it.
The darkness is as real as the pollution and more dangerous because we do not know its source. We do not know why it is here or what it wants. We have not dared to see it because then we would realize how we are all implicated. Even if we look to the light we have to acknowledge the darkness that is within and around us. And if we just want to follow the desires of the ego we need to know the danger. Ignorance cannot be an excuse. And most important we need to see how the darkness affects each of us, how it affects and endangers the light of our consciousness and the quality of our soul. We need to recognize how easily it can take away our light and draw us into forgetfulness. And then maybe we can begin to understand what it means for our light and our remembrance of the sacred to be gradually lost, what it means to live in the shadow lands when all that is left are the empty promises of our materialistic dreams.
The myths of humanity have always included the stories of darkness. Sometimes God cleansed the darkness as in the story of the flood or Sodom and Gomorrah. Sometimes the darkness has a pivotal role to play as in Christ’s betrayal by Judas. Is this present darkness here to destroy the world or precipitate a rebirth of divine love? What are the myths of this present time?
The only certainty I can see is that the darkness is telling a story, and that we are a part of this story as is the destiny of our planet. Never has the fate of humanity and the ecological fabric of the whole world been tied together so closely. Never have our forgetfulness of life’s sacred nature combined with our greed had such a destructive affect. Our soul and the soul of the world are not separate, and if darkness covers our soul it affects the world soul, the anima mundi. We do not know what this could mean, but we can try to listen and be attentive. We can look for the signs within ourself and in the world around us. We can relearn the ancient art of witnessing so that we can come to know this story, just as our ancestors watched the stars and the storms, their dreams and the patterns in nature to know the story which they were living.
What matters with this story is how it is being told in our own individual life. How does this darkness affect us? Does it cover us in forgetfulness, draw us into desires, into its web of materialism, or does it make us feel the sadness of a world that has forgotten its divine nature?
If this darkness does have a mythic or archetypal dimension it is important to become aware of the feelings it evokes. Carl Jung stressed that when working with the archetypes[i] it is vital to know the feeling quality of the experience as this adds a human element to the otherwise impersonal world of the archetypes. It stops us from being swallowed into its cold shadows. We do not need to descend into this darkness or try to battle it. This would be dangerous because it is more powerful than any individual. But we need to recognize how this darkness feels within our own life and soul, as well as the life and soul of the world around us.
In my own experience I have watched this darkness grow over the years, and how it has covered over or devoured a light that belongs to our consciousness of the divine, of the sacred within ourselves and the world. This has evoked a deep sadness within my own self and soul, knowing how the loss of the light of an individual effects the world soul, the anima mundi. Watching this light going out has been like watching a tragedy that few seem to notice, and yet affects us all, individually and as a whole. Without this light to guide us it is much more difficult to find our way, so much easier to get lost. And without this light there can be no real transformation, no possibility of a shift in consciousness, no emergence into any new age.
It is not easy to come to know this darkness. This is a time when it is easier to forget than to remember, to cover our eyes from seeing what is really happening in the inner and outer worlds. But we need to know how the darkness is affecting our planet and ourselves. We need to bring the light of our consciousness and the warmth of feeling into the darkness we are living. There is a great danger that once this light has gone, has been completely lost, devoured by the darkness, there will be no remembrance left to tell the true story, no awareness of what is happening. We need to know the story of this darkness before it is too late.
c 2010 The Golden Sufi Center
