From Darkness into Light (can I do it?)

"The self is in the dark because it is blinded by a light greater than it can bear. So the soul, by reason of its impurity, suffers exceedingly when the Divine Light really shines upon it."
~St. John of the Cross

So I have one answer to one of my thousand questions: what is going on with me? The answer jumped out at me as the title of a book off a library shelf - Dark Night of the Soul. The knowing that it is the right answer comes from within, in a flash, and now I have a name for my suffering. It's not just a mood I'm going through, but a threshold I'm trying to cross, a feeling I'm trying to name, a meaning I'm trying to define, a hole I'm trying to fill.

What it is I'm going to fill the hole with, I don't yet know, but the recognition of a dark night helps me mop up my soggy, sodden, messy feelings a little. The naming helps define, distance, and detach myself to understand, dig deeper, find the right plug I'm looking for. It helps me understand my child-like retreat into a comfortable corner, my craving for womb-like silence and solitude, my resistance to anything social or remotely related to relationships, my clinging to daily rituals like sun-gazing and candle-lit meditations, and my only feeling safe in nature and in my bed.

Whether this is normal or not, whether people understand it or not, I don't know. I used to think a dark night was more like a single night of suffering, but in my case, it's turning out to be a series of seasons, winters changing into springs, Saturn parked solidly in my house and not going anywhere. For years now, I haven't been able to cross this threshold. When I come to it, I stand still, afraid to make a move. I sit at the threshold, camp out, the grass growing around me, but I don't break out of my tight bud.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
~Anais Nin

I cling to my cozy cocoon, afraid, not knowing if I'd ever become a butterfly. I'm afraid I'm not worthy enough, truthful enough, kind enough, pure enough, or just enough, to transform into a butterfly. I'm not sure if I'm ready to let go of my childish caterpillar self and mature into a true adult.

But I need to acknowledge that this is the way of the soul; the only way it can grow and fly and soar is if it can break open out of its tightly bound chrysalis of beliefs, boundaries, fears, insecurities, resistances. I need to break out of my chrysalis to cross that threshold. I need to pray for the lamp that will guide me across the threshold, through the dark passage of this night.