This may seem to some to be a small thing to say as a grown woman and not a child, but the truth is I have never been that afraid of the physical dark. Happy to have wandered around my farm home as a child at dusk moving into darkness – especially when the moon was full – the dark of the night sky was never something that concerned me greatly. When you are blessed to grow up where I did with nearly every night sky illuminated by stars you quickly embrace, admire and even look forward to it. It has only been in the last few years of my life however that it has been a different type of darkness that I have been afraid of.
The darkness within myself.
Now before I make myself sound all ‘Darth Vadar’ like (!) the truth is that we all have a dark side. (Star Wars pun intended.)
Some of us may like to think that we don’t. That we are all light and kindness. And that we would never do anything bad or hurt anyone. And while we may not deliberately harm anyone it doesn’t mean we don’t or can’t – and it certainly does not mean (even for the kindest and most loving person) that we are all light. To be so would simply see us burn out.
We all have a dark side. It is where our ego lives and along with it our jealousies, pettiness, vanity, fear, rage and a whole lot more besides, that on a good day we would like to think is not that bad, and on a bad day can consume us.
And I too have been someone that has pushed the shadowy side of my being away, but at the Dark Moon Gathering of the Four Seasons Journey I was confronted with myself head on. Moving into this dark winter experience I was open and ready, having gently been preparing myself and doing a lot of work leaning into my ego and what I was trying to teach myself.
But can you ever fully prepare for the underworld and the power of the dark Goddesses of Innana, Hecate and Lilith.
No
And that’s really the point.
You can’t until you’re prepared to be right there and shaken from your foundation. Toppled. Stripped back. Vulnerable. And then She will let you dance with her.
I knew that this dark journey would be profound for me and it was. An experience with my sisters that involved witnessing, drum journeys, dancing, deep work with the different faces of the Goddess and an experience in the dark of the night that saw me shed many tears as I faced my own dark nature which is rooted in control, bossiness, dominance, haughtiness, arrogance, comparison and righteousness.
I can own that now. The dark has stripped me of my denial. And it is now my role to continue to transmute it, bringing the dark of my Yin nature into greater alignment with the Yang of my light.
A lifetime of work where one dark moon journey begins a thousand others. Taken in the depths of the Otways Forest. A story to tell my potential future grandbabies and them theres. The time that ‘Nana’ went deep into the forest night.
With no light.
