God is not simply in the light, in the intelligible world, in the rational order. God is in the darkness, in the womb, in the Mother, in the chaos from which order comes . . . darkness is the womb of life.
—Dom Bede Griffiths
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
I am thrilled to share that my newest book A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness has been published by Ave Maria Press and is available to order from your favorite booksellers!
To celebrate we have two gifts for you:
First, is a reflection guide with questions to companion each chapter of the book. These will help you move more deeply with the material.
Second, is an online book launch tomorrow (Monday, September 16th) where I will be joined by musician Simon de Voil and I will share more about the book and a meditation. There will be a chance to win a copy of the book or a space in our companion retreat for those who join live.
Here is an adapted excerpt from the introduction to A Midwinter God:
I first learned to love the darkness after my mother died. Not initially. At first, after holding her body close in those minutes after her last breath and then in the weeks that followed, I railed against the cold, black night of loss. I tried to send out a flare again and again. I once was a child of summertime, relishing the long days of brilliant sunshine and intense heat. I used to love the way summer would illuminate everything, making it seem filled with possibility.
Now I am a child of winter and moonlight. It was the only place where I could begin to weave the thread of my loss through my life with any meaning, where doubt and despair had a home and were welcomed to the table. Where faith is not an assumption, but something wrestled with like the biblical story of Jacob in his long night with the angel. He walked away from that encounter blessed but limping. He would carry the sign of that struggle with him always.
Richard Rohr urges us to welcome the holy darkness, knowing that we most often will not go willingly into the “belly of the beast.” It is only when darkness engulfs us through a great loss that we find ourselves compelled to embark on a journey we did not want. He writes, “As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers.” We may try to find our way out by seeking answers, but it is the questions themselves which beckon us to an expanded vision. When we try to change or control what is happening, we are sidestepping the transformation that is possible. Rohr writes, “We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer.” This book is an invitation to enter the holy darkness.
Darkness is, by its nature, an uncomfortable and uneasy place, but also a place of profound incubation and gestation, a source of tremendous and hard-wrought wisdom. If you feel some fear and trembling, this is a healthy response to a holy encounter.
We can gather resources to help sustain us in this experience of feeling unsettled, challenged, or pushed. Resources are anchors in the storms of our lives. Consider what accompanies you or steadies you on your way. Tools like grounding, being in nature, breathwork, placing your hand on your heart, holding a stone or prayer beads, or wrapping yourself in a prayer shawl or blanket can all be companions to support us as we make this journey. It is worth spending time considering what resources you have available to you and allowing yourself to feel connected and held. You will be invited to return to these regularly.
Nothing in our culture prepares us to deal with darkness and grief. We are told to cheer up and move on, to shop or drink our way to forgetting the pain we carry. Yet I believe, along with Rohr, that being faithful to our own dark moments is the path of true prayer. Our lives are filled with grief and loss. Everything is impermanent as the Buddhists say. Everything in this earthly existence passes away.
The path of holy darkness is a distinctly feminine way, feminine in the sense that we all contain feminine energies no matter our gender. The sacred masculine is concerned with light, ascension, and progress while the sacred feminine embraces darkness, descent, and waiting. Both are essential to our spiritual journeys, but we tend to favor the former, and so we become off-balance.
My mother died twenty years ago. She had a serious chronic illness for many years, but her death was sudden and painful for me. I sat by her hospital bed those last five days of her life as she lay unconscious and attached to a web of tubes keeping her body alive by fighting the infection that had taken hold of her system.
The journey that followed was more painful than I had imagined. I was suddenly an orphan, no parents, no siblings, no children, and there was this confrontation with an existential aloneness that I think we all need to engage at some point in our lives. What I mourned more than anything was the absence of deeply rooted rituals to hold me in that space. I wanted to wrap myself in ancient prayers and traditions to help guide me through my grief and darkness. They existed but were not easily accessible. Even members of my church community wanted to rush me toward light and hope.
I believe that central to our spiritual path, we must hold the tension of lament and praise—we must learn the language of descent as Rohr says, as well as ascent. We need to allow ourselves to grow intimate with the contours of each. To praise without acknowledging our pain is a superficial and shallow response to the realities of the world in which we live. To lament without offering gratitude or praise is to unbind ourselves from hope and become mired in cynicism and despair.
Please join us tomorrow for our launch of A Midwinter God which is a free event and order your copy of the book. (The book is delayed on Amazon and stock will be replenished shortly. It is also available from other retailers such as Ave Maria Press and Bookshop.org.)
Therese Taylor-Stinson is leading our first Centering Prayer for the fall this Wednesday, September 18th.
If you’d like to join us in community for another online journey, we are starting Orphan, Fool, Sovereign, and Prophet: How imagination helps us weave new beginnings in an unravelling world (September 23-October 19, 2024) in a week.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
PS – We have a post on our website with a reflection on the Holy Fool, one of the archetypes we will be exploring in our upcoming Archetypes retreat on the Orphan, Fool, Sovereign, and Prophet.
