When Enlightenment Breeds Exile, and Darkness Breeds Depth

Dear readers:

What is the most estranged you've ever been?

Have you ever grappled with the darkness and wondered if it would win? Have you ever let your demons win their battle—and lose a piece of your life, love, or soul?

Have you ever hit a personal rock bottom of being out-of-integrity?

This talk is about the darkness that sculpts us.

The darkness is so clearly an intimate and authentic aspect of who I am.

I am pleased to share my love and respect for the other side of light with you this evening. 🖤

You see—my enlightenment experience at age 23 was only the beginning of suffering I didn't even imagine was possible before.

The resulting alienation only deepened the trenches of estrangement that had already been trod into the pathways of my being.

Over my insistance that what I experienced was real:

I lost friends. I lost housing stability.

My lover told me "I sounded crazy" in talking about the experience, and that I should "seek help."

Little did I know had still so much more to lose on the quest of truth.

Despite all the losses, often compounding and intersecting, I've endured: it is my (and our) holy charge to become more whole.

And that does not mean avoiding ordeals of transformation.

It means going through them. ...No matter how despicable.

I spoke of attuning to the darkness making us somehow more whole. My friend Erin Evergreen replied, "yes, because it expands our capacity."

YES.

So may you attune to your own darkness this week. See into the shadow: your own capacity to exploit, abuse, ignore, neglect, disregard, stymy, and suppress. The conditions under which you find doing so justified. Your abject terror at becoming who your muffled intuition relentlessly urges you to be. Your willing flirtation with meaninglessness.

GO THERE.

This week I had to let go of two people in my life, who I still love, and yet who I do not have room in my life for relationship with.

The blade of discernment frequently means loss, inner or outer. 🗡️

Just make sure you know which tradeoffs you're willing to absorb. What parts of you are worth risking, and letting go of, for the person you must become.

Blessings,

C.