And if it frightens and torments you to think of childhood and of the simplicity and silence that accompanies it, because you can no longer believe in God, who appears in it everywhere, when ask yourself, dear Mr. Kappus, whether you have really lost God. Isn’t it much truer to say that you have never yet possessed him? For when could that have been? Do you think that a child can hold him, him whom grown men bear only with great effort and whose weight crushes the old? Do you suppose that someone who really has him could lose him like a little stone? Or don’t you think that someone who once had him could only be lost by him? – But if you realize that he did not exist in your childhood, and did not exist previously, if you suspect that Christ was deluded by his yearning and Muhammad deceived by his pride – and if you are terrified to feel that even now he does not exist, even at this moment when we are talking about him – what justifies you then, if he never existed, in missing him like someone who has passed away and in searching for him as though he were lost?

      Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy? Don’t you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn’t it be His beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful? If he is the most perfect one, must not what is less perfect precede him, so that he can choose himself out of fullness and superabundance? – Must not he be the last one, so that he can include everything in himself, and what meaning would we have if he whom we are longing for has already existed?

      As bees gather honey, so we collect what is sweetest out of all things and build Him. Even with the trivial, with the insignificant (as long as it is done out of love) we begin, with work and with the repose that comes afterward, with a silence or with a small solitary joy, with everything that we do alone, without anyone to join or help us, we start Him whom we will not live to see, just as our ancestors could not live to see us. And yet they, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time.

      Is there anything that can deprive you of the hope that in this way you will someday exist in Him, who is the farthest, the outermost limit?

      Dear Mr. Kappus, celebrate Christmas in this devout feeling, that perhaps He needs this very anguish of yours in order to being; these very days of your transition are perhaps the time when everything in you is working at Him, as you once worked at Him in your childhood, breathlessly. Be patient and without bitterness, and realize that the least we can do is to make coming into existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.

And be glad and confident.

Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke
(December 23, 1903)
——
from Letters to a Young Poet (trans. Stephen Mitchell)

Today, December 14, we commemorate St. John of the Cross, a new addition to the Episcopal liturgical calendar. He is probably best known for the term “the dark night of the soul,” which is also the poem in which he wrote about “the soul’s happiness in having passed through the dark night of faith, in nakedness, and purgation, to union with its Beloved.”

1. One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

The poem,  Dark Night,  is the basis of two of John’s major works, the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night. Though separately titled they form one work. Ascending Mount Carmel is John’s metaphor for the journey into union with God.

John describes three ways to the mountaintop of union with God. Two of them are broad roads to the left and the right. These are “the ways of the imperfect spirit” consisting of the pursuit of earthly goods on the right and the pursuit of heavenly goods on the left. Seekers who follow these broad roads become attached to earthly or heavenly goods. However, the goods are not God. Only the narrow center “path of the perfect spirit” leads to divine union. The apophatic nature of John’s theology and spirituality is made explicit in use of the term “nada” (nothing).

The Ascent explains the path one must follow in order to reach union with God. John wrote out of the sadness that he felt that so many failed to advance because of what he calls darkness and trials. A person must pass from an initial state of disorder, along the way of faith, to God, the goal of every human being. John concludes that the entire way to union with God can be called a dark night because, just as in darkness there is a privation of light, this way demands privation.

The Ascent deals primarily with the active nights of sense and spirit. Individuals must deprive themselves of the gratification of their disordered appetites and journey in faith deprived of light. They will thereby reach God whose brightest light is total darkness to us in this life. The Dark Night deals with the passive nights of sense and spirit. We must remember, however, that the active nights and the passive nights are not two separate paths. Rather, they are two aspects of one unique active-passive journey to God.

The poem describes two fundamental conditions in the spiritual process: the painful passage through the night, and the unspeakable joy of encountering God. John does not prescribe a specific program of detailed asceticism. Rather, he emphasizes allowing God to lead. John uses two allegories to illustrate the purifications. First he speaks about God as a loving mother who first nurses her child, carries and caresses it in her arms, but who then must wean the child, teach it to walk on its own, and finally to put aside the ways of childhood. Second, in the purification of the spirit God’s action is likened to fire working on and transforming a wood log.

The spiritual journey to union with God is an ongoing work of purification, cleansing of all that is repugnant to God’s holiness. This implied purity requires personal effort. However, no matter how intense this personal effort is it always insufficient and cannot achieve the radical stripping away demanded by the union. God’s intervention is necessary through a passive purification that is beyond what human effort can achieve. Human effort does little more than dispose one for the divine purifying action.

The negation of the dark night is in reality a theological communication. The apophatic way is not simply the idea that language is inadequate. It is not finally about absence and negation. In a paradoxical way there is presence in the absence of apophaticism. The emptying and stripping away is transformed into the fullness and presence of the divine in union with the human.

John describes the dark night experiences as a painful lack or privation – darkness in the intellect, aridity in the will regarding the exercise of love, emptiness of all possessions in the memory, and a general affliction and torment as a consequence. These are the result of contemplation. For John contemplation is the in-pouring of God into the soul, a divine, loving knowledge that is general, without images or concepts, obscure and hidden from the one who receives it, a knowledge that both purifies and illumines. The dark night leads to a new self, divinized in being and operation, now living a life of faith, hope, and love.

Up until John’s time the spiritual journey was generally understood in three stages: beginner, proficient, and perfect. These stages correspond to the three phases of spiritual growth, purgative, illuminative, and unitive. These stages were considered important but the transitions from one stage to the next were not. The the points of transition were seldom discussed. John accepts the three classic divisions but introduces a new way of understanding them. John’s personal experience, especially his time in prison, taught him that the painful experiences of life are often the moments of greatest grace and progress. John named these painful transitional experiences “nights.” John’s writing tends to emphasize the transitions rather than the stages.

John identifies three signs that one is entering into a night of transition: 1. an irresistible drawing towards more quiet in prayer, 2. a mysterious dryness which affects all aspects of our life and especially our usual spiritual practices, and 3. a great deal of anxious concern about what is happening generally and specifically regarding our relationship with God. Obviously, these signs cannot be applied as a checklist but must be discerned under the guidance of competent spiritual director.

For John the spiritual life is a continual process of growth or regression. It is never static. Growth in the spiritual life is an integrated development that implies a firm, unrelenting, and enthusiastic search for union with God. It is not a dissipated pursuit of several goals at once. The following two sayings from John’s The Sayings of Light and Love encapsulate our journey toward union with God:

• “Preserve a loving attentiveness to God with no desire to feel or understand any particular thing concerning him.”
• “What God seeks, he being God by nature, is to make us gods through participation, just as fire converts all things into fire.”

Related post: St John’s sketch of the Crucifixion.

It is four minutes before 6PM as I start to write this entry. I just finished my routinary ‘aero dance’ with my niece. The view from my room’s window is completely surrounded by the looming dark night. Cold seasonal wind chills my spine. Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘Soulmate’ cries from my laptop’s speakers. The music, I think, is written for someone like me J I wish I could perform that on drums or piano, if only I know how to. It’s one of my frustrations. If our church could buy a new set of musical instruments soon, maybe our music ministry can teach me to play least one instrument.

Then, suddenly I’m blanked. I’m without a direction what to write about. Staring at the immaculate white MS Word before me, a chat suddenly popped out from my screen. It was my former officemate. Asking for forgiveness and for us being at least ‘civil’ to each other. I can’t. Now. Just for once, please, allow me to be unkind. Sometimes, I wanna get tired of being so kind and understanding to people. Because no matter how nice and sincere you can be to them, they can still return your kindness with pain. God must be frowning at me now. I am so sorry. In due time, I guess, I can be ‘civil’ with them. The pain, I guess, has made me so numb. Again and again. And again.

This was one of those blogging moments when I will start to write a new post then stop because I really don’t have an exact thing in mind to discuss about. I just wanna write and pour out all my thoughts at the moment. And so this post was continued after about almost a month. Lol!!! I got so busy practicing for FilWeb Asia’s Writing Department’s bid to defend our championship (We have this FilWeb Idols talent competition every Christmas party). Add to that the inconvenient scenario at home the past month due to some repair and renovation works. At least now I can sigh with relief that it’s all over now. Our Christmas party was held last night.

There appeared a thin sheet of ice, overnight, on the lake.  The limbs of the trees are naked, their cold arms reaching, sagging, isolated one from the other.  They no longer face the cold sun, nor touch each other with billowing leaves.   They are dormant, a kind of stagnation exists that suggest they are not breathing, and they are not dead.

They look dead.  They are brittle and hard and cold to the touch.  The sun is too far removed to warm their sap.  They lie in wait for a new spring, without knowing for what they wait.  I am a winter tree perched by a frozen pond, naked and sagging, only a hint of curiosity accompanies my mind this cold december morning.

I did not ‘decide’ to not go to church this morning. Instead,  I slowly waited until it was too late and pushed my catholic guilt aside and brewed a cup of coffee.  Usually Unitarians do not mind.  This morning I do mind.

My ego has taken charge of me. I found it very hard to fall into sleep last night.  I watched the fire glow, orange and blue flames until it was only embers forming a warm bed of dis-inter-grated carbon.  A tree had grown, blossomed, flowered, withered, fell and on the third day descended in hell and I was witnessing the funeral fire; and it warmed my body while chilling my soul.  It was 3:00 a.m. when I came down to my studio and scribbled a pen & ink village nestled in some obscure corner of the world. The canvas took the walnut oil-ink and shapes emerged on their way to a large grey cathedral with a huge burgundy stained glass window centered below the two spires and a towering steeple.

It took me a long time to decide if the steeple ought to support a weather-vane or a cross.  Finally, I decided that I knew very little about protestant, weather-vaned churches, so I carefully drew a catholic cross atop the steeple.  It was a bold cross and the perspective was wrong, well maybe not so much wrong as childish.  The cathedral was set askew and facing a south west angle, but my child like perspective could only draw the cross facing me head on.  So there I was, it was now past 3:00 a.m. and I was facing a boldly fixed crucifix, set askew; and with the wrong perspective, I stood in a european village in the center of my mind unable to emerge from a deeply rooted ego that was determined to have its way with me.

It was child-abuse.   Yes, looking back it was child abuse.  And, it was still child abuse, except now–I was both the perpetrator and the victim.   Funny, because this house of mirrors that I live in, always has me facing myself no matter how honestly I believe that i am facing another, I am always and only facing myself.  I am always and only cursing and hurling stunningly accurate  words of painful wisdom at myself–even if the mirror reflects a disturbingly, damaged child, I aim my wisdom straight for the heart and like an arrow that knows its mark, it pierces, and we both bleed.

The statue points one finger at the Sacred Heart, broken, and  bleeding of Precious Blood.  The Holy Family church crumbles like a basilica in an Italian earth quake.  Then I quake at the power of the universe and at how I can harness that energy to kill or to create.

Yesterday, I killed.  I confess that as simply as if  I were a vampire in an Anne Rice novel.  And like the protagonist in an Anne Rice novel, these are real people, real men and real children bitten in the neck and poisoned forever.  There is no Lazarus coming back from the dead to tell us all…no one to squeeze the universe into a ball. There is no overwhelming question.  ”No” that was not what was meant at all.

Today I sit, alone, meditating the pile of crumbled blood stained stones.  The reason I can not let it go is simply this:  I can not let it go because it IS my sin.  The harnessed energy  channeled itself through me and the symbols of a catholic childhood are as awake in me today as they were when I was twelve and when she was ten.  The source of my pain is me and source of her pain is she.  That will never excuse my sin.  An ancient definition of sin, is from a word that means to miss the mark.  But in my mind, once the arrow has left the bow the sin begins at that point to sail through the universe and the mark is not what we aimed for, the mark is what we hit.

I am sorry, reader.  I know it is December and the warmth of the Christ’s birth is suppose to warm the naked branches hardly swaying in the blustering wind.  I know that is how it should be, in one corner of my mind.  But, it is just not how it is this morning.  And, if you read me, then it is me that you get.  And you know that I am no longer a card-board cut-out of an as-if persona, but a flesh and bleeding human being whose spirit can soar as rapidly to the pits of hell as it can soar through the bliss that is heaven on earth..  To the extent of your sorrow, so too, to the extent of your joy.

So, it may not be a happy read, but today it is a catholic read, a universal sentiment established in the deep recesses of the darkest nights of the year.  It is what I mean by a coal-dark night of the soul.  ’Twas in the winter cold when earth was desolate and wild, that angels welcomed at the birth the everlasting child.  Even birthing a King is labor.  And there is no turning back.

In war and in peace, when the blood flows think upon the battlefield it is hard to distinguish the enemy from the the dead. We often can be each other’s pain, even in joy–though in a perfect world we would like for it to not be that way, what we have is what we have–”a second chance, there never was meant to be but one. We work in the dark, we give what we can, and the rest is the madness of art.” (h. james)

A while back, I read the Come Be My Light, the story of Mother Teresa’s life and spiritual journey. Many know that she spent most of the last decades of her life with little or no conscious sense of God’s presence, though remained a woman of deep and faithful prayer. Here are a couple of insights that helped me:

“‘When I see someone sad,’ she would say, ‘I always think, she is refusing something to Jesus.’’ It was in giving Jesus whatever He asked that she found her deepest and lasting joy; in giving Him joy she found her own joy.” (Mother Teresa. Come Be My Light. New York: Doubleday, 2007, p. 33.)

“She would again insist: ‘Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.’” (p. 34.)

What little things is Jesus inviting you to do? Are you willing to do them with great love, rather than looking around for the dramatic thing you can do for Him?

Buy a copy of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light on Amazon.com

Entertainment Tonight came out with a list of what they call “The Best of the Decade” in entertainment. Here is the list.

1) A Boy Named Harry Potter - It’s hard to argue that Harry Potter was not one of the biggest entertainment phenomenons of the last decade. I love it.

2) The Sopranos - Great show. Is it the best show of the decade? I don’t know. What do you think? 

3) YouTube - No doubt YouTube has been a huge phenomenon as well. I would putter Twitter in this category too, but I suppose it is too new to be included.

4) The Lord of the Rings - Heck yes. I can’t think of a bigger film franchise other than Harry Potter.

5) Lost - Never watched it, Don’t get it. But my folks like it, so who knows.

6) The College Dropout, Kanye West - The man is an ass, but he’s also a great rapper and the College series of CDs are excellent.

7) iPod - Who doesn’t  own one? Or three?

8 ) The Daily Show - I heart you, John Stewart. Regular news is so biased.

9) American Idol - I can’t wait for the new season! Maybe you hate it, but it’s huge and deserves to be on the list.

10) Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”  video – Really? I like the video too and it did spawn a lot of spin offs, but, really?

11) Brokeback Mountain - Ha-ha-ha! My dad has a little song he likes to sing called, “I’m Going To Get My Nails Done on Brokeback Mountain”. It’s really funny.

12) A Scoundrel named Capt. Jack Sparrow – For shizzle, my piratizzles.

13) Arrested Development - Such a great show. I don’t know that it deserves to be on the list, though, as it had such a short run. Can’t wait for the movie!

14) Gladiator - It’s a great movie, but it’s no Harry Potter!

15) The Road, Cormac McCarthy – Never read it. The movie looks creepy.

16) Facebook - Can’t live without it now. Myspace is so over.

17) The Dark Knight - Very hot.

18) The clothes from SATC - This, I think, is referring to “Sex and the City”. I do love the show, and I really liked the film, but this is just referring to the clothing on the show. They certainly did have the best clothing of the decade, so I guess this is valid.

19) “The Landlord” video – From Will Farrell on Funny or Die. I think it’s really funny, but I’m not sure it’s the best viral video of the decade.

20) Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “The Body” - I love Buffy and I miss her a lot, but I had to look up on Wikipedia to see which episode this was. It’s the one where her mom dies. Does it represent the best Buffy had to offer and the one of the best tv episodes of the decade? Hm.

What do you think about all this?

Entertainment Tonight also asked its viewers what they thought was the best of the decade and here is what they said. Turns out they aren’t all idiots. Some of the answers are good.

Harry Potter

Pixar – I completely agree with this. Pixar are the gods of good filmmaking, animate or live action.

Lost - Do that many people really watch this show? It makes no sense!

ipod

Britney Spears - She was definitely the biggest celebrity of the decade, hands down.

Johnny Depp

The Internet/YouTube

American Idol

Peter Jackson/ Lord of the Rings

Tina Fey - Love her! But she really was only big towards the end of the decade.

Bonus: The Landlord

At first a childhood, limitless and free
of any goals. Ah sweet unconsciousness.
Then sudden terror, schoolrooms, slavery,
the plunge into temptation and deep loss.

Defiance. The child bent becomes the bender,
inflicts on others what he once went through.
Loved, feared, rescuer, wrestler, victor,
he takes his vengeance, blow by blow.

And now in vast, cold, empty space, alone.
Yet hidden deep within the grown up heart,
a longing for the first world, the ancient one…

Then, from His place of ambush, God leapt out.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell)

Elizabeth of the Trinity

Her first retreat after her profession established her in this state of soul: the way of faith, obscure, yet luminous, because she clearly realized the love of God.

He was her light, enlightening her in the darkness of her night, so that she blessed the Lord at all times.

God appeared to wish to recompense her generous fidelity during this retreat, for she was overwhelmed with graces too sublime and substantial to be described, so that when Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity gave an account of her dispositions, she raised her lustrous eyes to her Prioress, and could only say: “He imparts eternal life to me.”

… After this retreat, her prayer seemed still more simple. “We must keep our eyes on Him,” she said, speaking of the Divine Master; “we must be silent; it is so simple!”

This was her one rule. If a novena was to be made, a feast to be prepared for, when she was asked what she was going to do, she always answered: “I am going to be silent, so that He may flow into me.”

…Sometimes, however, she felt very doubtful whether she ought to be constantly passive; ought she not to act more during prayer ?

Her peace, disturbed for the moment, was always restored to her by Him Who wished her to be thus recollected under His direct and continuous action.

One day, during the “Forty Hours,” Elizabeth, after listening to her companions urging one another to make reparation, felt rather sorry, as she began her prayer, at not being able to act in the same way; but she had hardly prostrated herself to adore our Lord, when He enveloped her with a luminous and peace-giving radiance.

It was suddenly revealed to her that the obstacle created by sin against God’s diffusing Himself into the souls of men was one of the things which most deeply wounded the Divine Heart, and that to console Him and to make reparation for such an outrage, she must let herself be taken possession of by God, giving full liberty to His grace and love to act within her.

Now that her form of prayer was divinely approved, it became more and more her habitual state of soul

Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906); as recounted in The Praise of Glory: Reminiscences of Elizabeth of the Trinity by A Carmelite Nun of Dijon, pp. 110-111.

Hmmm.. It’ s dark outside.. the clock has shown five minutes to 1 a.m.

suddenly loss my desire to accomplish the assignment.. thinking of buying new laptop since the old 1 has broken down.. fiuh.. anicca.. everything comes and goes.. comes and goes..

Really wish tahat there were money rain,  didn’t need to be billions, just enough to buy me a new laptop.. ^^

Buddha.. please help.. show me Your way..

Jesus was in my room this morning.

I don’t know why He came.

Unless it was the prayer last night

in which I called His name.

——————————————————-

It was too early for any daylight,

so I didn’t view His face.

But His love was present in the dark

and soon filled up the place.

——————————————————-

The early morning was cold outside,

blanketed by a frost.

But I realized with Jesus at hand

nary a hope was lost.

——————————————————-

I’d spent the night in an awful gloom,

ashamed of my many sins.

I’d prayed that God would open my heart

and let His Son come in.

——————————————————-

But I had not received an answer,

at least I didn’t think so.

Till I awoke and felt Jesus’ presence,

then I began to know.

——————————————————-

To know that my prayer had been answered,

to know how much He cares.

To know that He is my Comforter,

to know my pain He shares.

——————————————————-

And then I noticed some light outside,

cast by a rising sun.

Soon the entire house began to stir,

for a new day had begun.

——————————————————-

So I cried, “My dear precious Jesus,

please do not leave me now.

For I have to start this brand new day

and I’m just not sure how.

——————————————————-

You’ve only just arrived to my room

for the early morning light.”

Then a voice said, “I’ll never leave you,

don’t you know I spent the night?”

                                                                      Russell Mckinney

Jack

Sam

Some days,  just getting up to feed them is exhausting.  Four dogs and one cat; my babies.  They all came to be part of the family through unplanned circumstances.  Two had been strays that wandered into the neighborhood.  After running a seven-day found ad, nobody stepped up to claim them.  The idea of relinquishing these loving little balls of fur to the local kill shelter was abhorrent, so they stayed.  Sam, the oldest and largest dog, was my parent’s faithful companion’; he outlived both of them.  Jack, the Min-Pin, came from a family that was a bad match for him.  He was still intact and wasn’t being trained, thus, he was becoming far too alpha for the children. He was also afraid of teenage boys and men because of teasing.  At the time, we had an old Basenji that was very close to the end of her projected life span.  We had just inherited old Sam and felt that bringing Jack on board would be a good choice at a good time.  I had no concerns about his behavior problems because I’d been successful in re-socializing the Basenji after she’d been through a string of non-dominant owners.  Jack has a pretty reddish-brown coat which is similar in color to that of  Gus, our ornery dachshund.

Gus

Missy

 Missy was a stray tabby that had wandered into the neighborhood and was hanging out at any house where she could get a bite to eat.   Initially, I thought Missy belonged to my neighbor’s daughter.  During a conversation that I was having with my husband, I mentioned Missy and described how sweet she had been at our first meeting.  My husband explained to me that Missy was a declawed stray that had been around for two weeks.  I was horrified because coyotes, raccoons, dogs and tom cats roam our semi-rural neighborhood.  Out of concern for Missy’s safety, she was invited into our home.  When I first encountered Missy, I hadn’t had a cat for over thirty years and I had no interest in adding one to the herd.  When there was no response to my found ad after it had run for a week, it was decided that Missy would join the critter crew.  Sam and Gus were pretty much uninterested in Missy and, after a little posturing , even Jack tolerated her.  Missy’s patience with “vulgar” dogs (her words, not mine) was tested when Oso arrived on the scene.

Oso

One July afternoon, my nephew was washing his truck in the backyard.  As he finished up, he stepped back to do a scan for missed spots.  Out from under the truck appeared a fuzzy little puppy with a spitz-like tail.  He was walking with a puppy stumble and didn’t appear to be much over eight weeks old.  My nephew immediately fell head-over-heals for the little guy.  He looked like a cub bear so he was christened with the name Oso (Spanish for bear).  We ran a found ad which, surprisingly, had no responses.  My nephew wanted so bad to have his own dog, so, with much trepidation, I agreed.   The trepidation stemmed from the fact that the puppy looked like it had Akita or German Shepherd in its DNA.  My nephew would be living with us for the next year and I was afraid that we’d be tripping over ourselves as well as the four dogs.  My dogs have always been indoor dogs and are considered family members so they are underfoot most of the time.  The thought of adding another big dog to the mix was a bit daunting. To our amazement, Oso reached full size at about forty pounds.  Like I previously mentioned, he was supposed to be my nephew’s dog, however, after my  nephew finished school and moved away, Oso stayed.  Oso is a happy little goof who gets along with just about everybody, although, he doesn’t really know to react to Missy.  Missy will sit at the top of the stairs hissing and growling with the safety of the baby gate between her and Oso.  In response, Oso gets all wound up and barks at her.  He’d never intentionally harm Missy, he’s just curious about what kind of critter she is and wants to get her to play with him. 

Sometimes it takes everything out of me just to keep the babies fed and to clean up after them.  I always feel relieved on weekends when my husband is home and able to take care of the dog-kids in the morning so that I can get a little extra sleep.  I must admit, more days than not, it’s my babies that keep me going.  Even though at times it’s exhausting to care for them, they are a constant source of entertainment.  Best of all, they’re each very attached to their people and want nothing more than to feel loved.  Even on my worst days, loving them is an easy thing to do.

The anger is always worse at night.  Angry minds don’t fall asleep easily.  The rage spins and spins.   Then the guilt.  Guilt for feeling angry; angry for feeling guilty; repeat and stir ad nauseum.  Banshees are screaming from the dark corners of my mind “I hate you! You screwed it up! You’re a screw up. Get with it.  Your life sucks because YOU ARE LAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!”  Feácem all!  RAGE RAGE RAGE… please leave me… If I could just feel better, I could beat this.  My scalp itches.  Why haven’t I washed my hair for two weeks?  Self-hate?  Last night I had a dream about life before illness and the  loss of body parts.  I’d forgotten how nice I used to look when I dressed up.  Now I’m fat.  I never thought I’d be this fat.  Illness, depression’, and medication makes this girl FAT.  Although, it doesn’t help matters that I’ve seemingly lost all sense of self-control.  I get so agitated thinking about the chaos in my life.  If God didn’t exist, this whole experience would be an unbearable exercise.  I cling to the idea that all experiences in life have a formative purpose.  Hope springs eternal in the human breast  beast.

This morning I had to look twice at the face staring back at me from the mirror.  Snakes.  I felt like I’d just spent a long weekend as Jose Cuervo’s bitch.  I looked like it too.  I’m sick of being sick. It was a long day spent on the couch. Fruitless endeavors.

My Screaming Mind

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
Haunts us in our dreams.

(today’s mood:  Smashing Pumpkins: Bullet With Butterfly Wings)

The Dark Night of the Soul: Everyone’s Journey Through One Man’s Eye…
By: Vajra Krishna.

Review: “…I felt like being reborn… no matter what else I read, what great books, the simple fact that I am sure you are real. And… the more I was reading… the more liberated I felt somehow… After reading it you can never be the same… you are joyful. And you begin to love yourself. And accept yourself. The hook is your sincerity. The need to still be there… in your fight in order to see more about myself. And while I was reading… indeed, I also realised it was about loneliness. I thought that a magikian is one who learns about himself, who discovers himself and who sees the world reflecting itself in every human being… or a Goddess in every person. But as I went on reading, I realised that you never discover yourself until you don’t see, but actually feel the world as within yourself.”

Buy a Copy Here: http://www.lulu.com/content/5242536

The Dark night of the Soul described in absolute detail the disjointed, placeless void – a profound loneliness. Neither here, nor there. Unable to find satisfaction in emotional or material or sensual things, and yet, knowing nothing else. Like a man-whore addicted to sex, despite that he feels nothing in it. It described a constant back and forth transition from divine exaltation to human humiliation. A period of purification – where everything that is impure is wounded and killed. And mostly, that the secret wisdom given by the end of the affair could never be explained. It is not possible to explain it – it will always be precious, and secret.

“The ancient seers had observed, that man is born, he suffers, and he dies. According to them, such impermanence of man’s existence was designed to make him delve deep into the meaning of life; and paved the way for discovery. They held that sorrow is a propellant, which re-directs the purpose of an otherwise wasted life, of delusion. Sorrow begins a great quest.”

– Shailendra Gulhati, The Yogi and the Snake.

A revealing passage on the dark night from The Mystic Website:

Dark night of the soul” sounds like a threatening and much to be avoided experience. Yet perhaps a quarter of the seekers on the road to higher consciousness will pass through the dark night. In fact, they may pass through several until they experience the profound joy of their true nature.

Many seekers would encourage the dark night experience if they knew what it was. However, to one engaged in the dark night, suffering seems unending.

The dark night occurs after considerable advancement toward higher consciousness. Indeed, the dark night usually occurs like an initiation before one of these special seekers is admitted into regular relationship with higher consciousness. The dark night also occurs to those who do not seek relationship but immersion or unity in the higher consciousness. While the term dark night of the soul is used broadly, its general meaning — in the field of higher consciousness — is a lengthy and profound absence of light and hope. In the dark night you feel profoundly alone.

You Can’t Fit In

The dark night usually develops this way:

You, as a genuine seeker, have gone through many significant phases as you progress toward higher consciousness. Your faith is strong. You have kept loyal companionship with fellow seekers and perhaps you have already found a special teacher. You’ve experienced indications of the reality of higher consciousness and yearn to be more deeply in communion with it. You see the principles of a higher power at work in your life. Yet, all in all, you find yourself somehow painfully on the outside. You feel caught between your old way of living, your old tendencies and associations, and this nebulous, unreachable realm of higher consciousness.

You feel an exile in both places. You don’t belong in the old pastimes. in the old empty or numbing way of life, yet you somehow can’t fit in or feel at home in the fellowship of those who talk naturally of the higher consciousness and its reality. They are experienced, they are absorbed in it. They are loving, giving people. But you are unable to live, with full heart and mind, the way they do. They’re able to apply the principles of higher consciousness easily, yet it’s so hard for you. They have manifestations and proofs on a regular basis. You only stretch like a human mule after a receding corncob while pulling the heavy weight of your old tendencies behind you.

You try to be good, and often you can’t. You try to be loving and find at times your heart is hard like stone. Sometimes your projects fall down around your ears. You keep struggling and still you don’t break through. You understand the path is one of joy and yet your life seems to have been barren for a month or two, perhaps longer. Where did that early joy and zest go?

Hanging On

Up to this particular time there was joy, there was delight. But now there is only a hanging on, a dogged hanging on. You persist because you can’t conceive of going back to your old way of life. That seems impossible now. That would be like going to prison, living as if with a transorbital lobotomy.

You deeply want to have joy and fulfillment, easily manifest prosperity, but something’s not working. You don’t know what it is but something’s awry, and your meditations have lost their luster. Sometimes, during rare meditations, you do experience brief moments of peace. Your agonizing mind and heart rest from their turbulence and even these fleeting times of calm are so deeply appreciated. Your light dance of life, which had gone on for some time, is now a trudging in what seems a devastated and alien land.

Your fellow seekers look at you and show their concern. Their words of kindness are valued but you feel you’re somehow incapable of responding well. Your heart is numb. At these times your friends try to cheer you up. They invite you to dinner. You seem to perform fairly well, despite the emptiness you feel inside. What else is there to do? You wonder if you have any right to be in their fellowship at all. You think of leaving town, but where would you go? What good would diversion be?

A number of your friends in the fellowship of this great path know what you are going through for they have been through it themselves. They feel the main thing to do is encourage you to go on. They know if you keep it up and do not quit you will succeed. They know if you quit you will be a self-reject and will return to the old life, forever a foreigner, being neither at home with it nor at home anywhere else. They recognize that your own higher self, out of love, is lifting you up into its embrace. They see you are being drawn into your dark night because:

Your inner potential has great stature.
Your crusty, old ego requires you go through the dark night in order to be transformed.

You Feel Totally Alone

Other seekers, for various reasons, do not have to pass through the dark night. However, the dark night is your way.

Your night is a very difficult time. While others may one day envy you for the marvelous growth you experienced in such a short, intensified period, you will, because of the pain of your experience, always feel profound compassion for those whom you one day see going through a similar night.

Being caught between the old way of life and the new possibilities, your sense of alienation intensifies. Your sense of inadequacy and not knowing what to do next becomes gnawingly constant. You feel you would do anything to get out of this state, yet it is only your ego which is keeping you in it. However, this insight is impossible for you to grasp while going through your long night.

And you feel so totally alone. Sure, you have friends and you appreciate them, but you are keenly aware they are not capable of feeling what you are feeling or knowing what you are going through. Sometimes they seem like clowns, sometimes they seem empty-headed, caught up in meaningless pursuits. They do not understand, you think, how much you are suffering or how you cry out and pray deep into each midnight. You try their advice but it doesn’t seem to touch the heart of the matter.

You begin to enter the dark night in earnest when you feel completely stranded. In the fullness of the dark night you don’t know where you are spiritually. You’re separate from God and man. You do not know where to turn. Your friends love you and wish you well but your condition does not improve.

The dark night is a very private matter. The person in the dark night is generally able to function quite well despite inner suffering. Often your acquaintances never suspect that you are going through the dark night — they probably do not even know what it is. Only people close to you — especially friends along the path — can recognize your pain.

You feel like a hollow person doing the activities of life with no motivation except expediency. Your eyes seem deeper in your head. You are profoundly aware of the suffering of humanity and the cruelty of one person to another. You feel that cruelty and negativity far outweigh love and constructive action.

You Enter Midnight

Alone, and not wishing to be, unable even to express yourself to others, you enter midnight and the greatest intensity of the dark night. Here you have finally come to the time of sovereign solitude. In this precious time, which has no apparent prospects of love or happiness, you clearly perceive that nothing in the outer world has proven adequate to heal your condition. Nobody, not even your dearest friends and loved ones, can make you whole. Even if they have tried, and love you enough to try loving you forever, they can’t give you peace.

You eye your books and consider all the benefit you have gained from these extremely wise vessels of truth. Yet not one book, not one thought, goes deep enough inside you to where the affliction abides.

You look at your possessions, your money container. No material thing has been able to help you. No material means have worked. Nothing, no one, in the outer world has enabled you to come out of this dark night.

In your loneliness, you next — in a seemingly random process — notice that none of your thoughts have proven adequate to your suffering. Not one — even repeated fifty thousand times — breaks the inner storm and lets in light. God and higher consciousness seem so far away that perhaps they are unreal. Neither one has, despite your protracted exposure of yourself, done anything to ease or remove your agony. Nothing appears efficacious. Nothing works.

Clearly, there is nowhere to turn. There is nothing to be done. All actions you considered have been tried. There is nothing to think, nothing to feel, nothing to do, nowhere to go. It seems you have to accept this defeat — or, you can persist in struggling against it. For awhile longer, you go about thinking, feeling, and doing other options that occur to you. But you realize in the midnight of your soul that you have tried every option you know of.

The Peace Comes

Helpless, totally helpless, as well as ever so alone, you abide in this condition. And you accept your predicament. You accept that there is really, except for a murmured prayer to a remote Lord and a remnant of a shredded faith, nothing else left.

Suicide would be absurd. Suicide would be an act of arrogance and vanity. You have grown far beyond such primitive responses to your private agony. No, nothing to do. Nothing remains in this lonely helplessness. There is, without question, nothing you can do.

You abide. You accept your state. How have you gotten to this place? That’s insignificant. Musings and feelings aside, you wait. You feel you may have to stay this way forever, doing the regular day-to-day things, but in this mood of emptiness. Nothing. Nothing.

Then, it happens. A holy presence comes into your room — sweetly, softly. You feel it filling you. Your mind is filled with mellow or bright light. Your heart, your still heart, is permeated with peace. This peace moves through your body like a cold spring of mountain water. It flows in your spine, your brain, and under your skin. Everywhere.

Also, this presence, this comforter, moves like a breeze across your arid mind and numb heart. Then, or a few days later, the fire of joy begins to smoulder. Here, abiding with nothing more to do, your ego drops away! Your ignorant, arrogant, fearful sense of self falls away from you. You stand in light — a new being, a free being — transformed.

Your Ego Sense

Believe it or not, that’s what the dark night is all about: transformation. Your ego, your limited sense of self, your inadequate complex of ideas about who you are had to be dissolved. Your ego was, you begin to see, eclipsing higher consciousness and your true nature. Your old sense of self was inadequate to your new hopes and proper state. Your suffering intensified because of a major misapprehension. You were too used to thinking of yourself based on inputs from your previous experiences in life. On and on through life, you gathered information and responses from the world which indicated to you what kind of person you were and are. These superficial units of related inputs became integrated in what is called the ego — your sense of self, your sense of who you are. As long as you allowed this inaccurate or only partial sense of who you are to dominate, you could not know or abide in your true nature.

Your ego sense is so powerful — you invest it with so much of your thought and feeling — that your attitudes of life become based on an egocentric perspective. The ego gains a progressively greater foothold on your entire life because your basic attitudes about your existence and essential nature are strongly linked with ego.

Then, your ego sense, due to your suffering or your limitations in life, wants to have more power over circumstances and a more pleasant life. The ego sense often becomes motivated to seek higher consciousness and, thus, greater ability to dominate in life. Not always, but often, it is the ego sense which most eagerly pursues higher consciousness. It wants to be in charge; it wants to manipulate events and make life come out more to its satisfaction. But, as long as your ego dominates, it is on a collision course with your true nature and your higher consciousness. There’s going to be a showdown. There has to be a confrontation sometime if your higher consciousness is ever to emerge, if you are ever to know truly who you are and what your human capabilities are.

Furthermore — and this is extremely important, especially in understanding the dark night of the soul — your ego, as it develops from childhood onward, has the conviction that it is the doer. Generally, your ego assumes that it chooses what your mind will think, and chooses what your heart will feel. It feels it selects the various actions and activities you are going to undertake. Your sense of self, being convinced it is the doer, feels it accomplishes anything and everything in your life. Do you see, then, how the dark night develops? A false sense of self has been ignorantly and manipulatively standing in the way of enlightenment.

Additionally, until you are consolidated in higher consciousness, your ego can return and reestablish control if you let it. Sometimes when you’re fatigued or when you have special, new opportunities in life, you are vulnerable to the reestablishment of your ego and its opinion that it is in charge of doing everything. It will again eclipse the higher consciousness until you recognize what has happened. Then you must courageously and consciously reaffirm your true nature, and deal with the upstart, old ego. Otherwise, another dark night phase will again develop.

Attempts of the Ego

A person seeking higher consciousness is, in effect, and with intensity, seeking the transformation of his own ego. He is seeking to end the tyranny of the ego and abide in his true nature, instead of a false nature concocted through experiences and emotional inputs during the process of life. While it is true these inputs have a value in subjecting you to new experiences and so offer unique learning situations, they often give you a delusory sense of self. You are not your mistake. Even a murderer can change and become a new being.

Still, as you progress toward higher consciousness, your ego may not be humbling and daily transforming itself. You may, instead, have a highly developed ego which is sure that it is causing the events of higher consciousness to unfold bit by bit. Your ego, after all, can be very interested in the attributes of higher consciousness, in meditation and association with enlightened beings. Your ego feels gratification and satisfaction in moving on down the road toward higher consciousness.

Your ego may also have the opinion that, because of its grasp of matters, it will one day establish or — by its thought process and feelings —bring about enlightenment and awakening. It is convinced that it will achieve higher consciousness. This is ironic because by the time of the dark night, the ego is the main obstacle; it is the obstruction of the light of consciousness. It stands between you and your fulfillment. In fact, the length of your dark night is based on the truculence and cunning of your ego. It can fight a very lengthy battle if it fears it’s going to be destroyed or will have to give in to something so much greater than it knows itself to be.

Incredibly, your ego wants to be in on the act of enlightenment. Ego wants to bring about higher consciousness by its own dramatic means. Certainly, it doesn’t want to be granted fulfillment by a power outside of itself. Convinced that it is the doer, your ego holds on for dear life — until that event called the dark night of the soul, when your ego awakens to the profound fact it cannot cause or bring about higher consciousness.

Ego cannot, by its will or any other skills whatever, create the wholeness of heart which will end your deep suffering. In a sense your ego recognizes itself — in the dark night — to be the disease. It recognizes that its foothold on your mind and heart has, at an advanced stage on your path, proven a great numbing agent and a high stone wall against the light. Ego stands against the fulfillment of your faith and the realization of your profoundest yearnings. Finally your ego has found something it cannot do and, in the dark night of the soul, it becomes totally convinced it is inadequate. It cannot deal with your suffering or the fulfillment of the heart’s yearning. Nothing it can do, think, say, buy, or travel to, will in any way suffice.

Dawn of a New Life

Here in this dark night, the lifelong ego sense dies: impotent. Having fulfilled its part, now weak and incompetent, it is dissolved — transmuted. From a higher sense now awakening within you, you slough off your false sense of self. You now know yourself to be a different person than you thought you were. Your ego was merely experiencing some of the attributes, some of the qualities, of your true nature, while at the same time obstructing others.

You, in passing successfully through the dark night, enter the realms of higher consciousness. You’ve been cleansed of the most deep-rooted sickness: your ignorance of your true nature and your inadequate, often totally wrong opinion of who you are. You now cease your inner conflict and abide serenely in your true nature. The night is over. The dawn of a new life in higher consciousness transforms your bleak life of the past few months into one with a heavenly nature. You have been delivered of the intolerable bondage to ego.

Henceforth, you will walk the earth seeing others afresh, living a new life, and abiding in your true nature. You have become a son or daughter of higher consciousness. Now your words and actions will be attuned with your true self. Now you express inspiration and comfort.

The dark night has passed. It is over.

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings—oh, happy chance!—
I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.
In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised—oh, happy chance!—
In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.
In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me—
A place where none appeared.
Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!
Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
The breeze blew from the turret As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended.
I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved.

- St John of the Cross.

AGAIN EVIL AGAIN AND AGAIN    

Evil Again Audio

I woke—and woke again—and again—

and woke again—last night was my

dark soul of the night—and again—

kept the lamp lit and the radio audible—

the blankets  and me in a continual

crocodile roll—sheets preparing to

wind me up for the long haul to the

slab—the longest night—forty days

rolled up into forty years—and tossed

and turned and woke again—and saw

through bloody eyes 3:34 and caught

2:23 and turned and eyes burned and

cast on to strings and particles—the

tails on the Devil’s coat as he disappeared

again—evil was afoot, and you felt it too—

could come crashing through a window—

like it did before—a’tooth, all claw—

sleep, sleep, they say, at least seven

to forty years to sleep at bay this

H1N1 that is so hard on the young—

Rosie had pneumonia and was cultured

for it and the County took her DNA—

where is it now?—there was no cough—

and we both expected evil to come

crashing through—and toss us and turn

us again—we’ve seen the teeth, the

coattails, the cat with the big watermelon

bite taken out of it—you said Satanists, I

hoped for the mountain lion—the lesbian

told us coyote but you and—I that night

slumbered—and you feared at the kitchen    

table among belated thank-you  notes—

for Mary and Lazarus and our crucified

liturgist who fought our evil—and felt evil

slither cross your shoulders and into your

lap for a long and contented nap—one eye

open so it could see you—what you get for

staying so late awake I said—and again—but

 it nabbed me too last night and raped me of

my rest and sleep the sweet sleep of peace last

the longest night and we both gave thanks when

finally—and again—we saw the dawn.

October 27, 2009

Dan Davis, © 2009

John of the Cross

The reason for which it is necessary for the soul, in order to attain to divine union with God, to pass through this dark night of mortification of the desires and denial of pleasures in all things, is because all the affections which it has for creatures are pure darkness in the eyes of God.

And, when the soul is clothed in these affections, it has no capacity for being enlightened and possessed by the pure and simple light of God, if it first cast them not from it; for light cannot agree with darkness; since, as Saint John says, ‘The darkness could not receive the light’.

The reason is that two contraries (even as philosophy teaches us) cannot coexist in one person; and that darkness, which is affection set upon the creatures, and light, which is God, are contrary to each other, and have no likeness or accord between one another.

Thus Saint Paul taught the Corinthians, saying: ‘What communion can there be between light and darkness? Hence it is that the light of divine union cannot dwell in the soul if these affections first flee not away from it.

…For all things of earth and heaven, compared with God, are nothing, as Jeremias says in these words: ‘I beheld the earth,’ he says, ‘and it was void, and it was nothing; and the heavens, and saw that they had no light.’

In saying that he beheld the earth void, he means that all its creatures were nothing, and that the earth was nothing likewise.

And, in saying that he beheld the heavens and saw no light in them, he says that all the luminaries of heaven, compared with God, are pure darkness.

So that in this way all the creatures are nothing; and their affections, we may say, are less than nothing, since they are an impediment to transformation in God and the privation thereof, even as darkness is not only nothing, but less than nothing, since it is privation of light.

And even as he that is in darkness comprehends not the light, so the soul that sets its affection upon creatures will be unable to comprehend God.

And, until it be purged, it will neither be able to possess Him here below, through pure transformation of love, nor yonder in clear vision.

John of the Cross (1542-1591): Ascent of Mount Carmel, 1,4

On a Dark, Dark Night is told through the terrified eyes of a little boy and his cute companion, a pudgy pup, who awake to find a witch prowling throughout their house. In the true fashion of fear, the little boy and his faithful dog silently follow the witch from room to room as she threateningly towers above his siblings.  Author Jean M. Cochran’s rhythmic storytelling emphasized by the staccato sounds of fear-the “boom, boom, booming” of the heart and the “knock, knock, knock-ing” of knees-is a beam of light throughout the dark, dark night. Jennifer E. Morris‘ cute illustrations capture the comical side of horror-where fright is really something familiar and where ‘witches’ would sooner cook you breakfast than eat you up. Morris also adds such clever details as robot sheets (where I can get a set?!) and an illusionary “Hooked on Fishing” hat. On a Dark, Dark Night is a lighthearted and lyrical tale that dissolves shadows into silly distortions and assures us that it’s still OK to hide under the covers.

Hardcover: 32 pages
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Publisher: Pleasant St. Press
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935025007