Like a Dark Night of the Soul | Steve Beckow

By Steve Beckow, March 7, 2023

(Golden Age of Gaia)

As an awareness writer, I report the good, the bad, not so much the ugly.

At the moment, I’m in what St. John of the Cross might call a “dark night of the soul.” (1)

Not what we might call a dark night. What we mean by it is a very difficult, even hopeless, situation, so traumatic we’ll probably never forget it.

What St. John meant by it was a particular stage of spiritual unfoldment in which one experienced a deprivation of the senses and of everything that might help us to connect with and experience God.

I’m not saying I’m in a full-blown experience of a dark night. That’d be an exaggeration.

But I’m in a place that shares some of its characteristics, as St. John described it.

Many in this stage feel abandoned. The love and bliss they felt are now absent. It seems as if God no longer hears them. They’re enveloped in darkness.

I haven’t had a comforting signal from Michael all day. I haven’t felt his comforting presence. I haven’t felt bliss since this morning whereas I usually feel at least brief moments of it throughout the day. It feels like all is quiet on the inner front.

Since it’d be inappropriate of me to climb the ladder of enlightenment when I’m committed to remaining grounded and anchored in 3/4D, I interpret this “dark night” as the Mother and Michael wanting me to be more on my own, to unveil my divine authority, which we all have.

Attributing everything that happens to me to Ascension, I see this also as a response to the rising love energies. What Suzy Ward’s correspondent, Saminten, said resonates with me:

“With the acceleration of everything within the universe, it is natural that the cells of your body are reacting to being lifted into a higher survival mode. Most of all, this is affecting your brains – the computers that turn on your thinking and reasoning processes – and this is necessary! The light being absorbed by your cells is allowing your brains to slough the layers of forgetfulness and programming that have denied them full functioning ability.” (2)

I surrender all need for remedial action to the Mother and just abide in observation, until this mood chooses to pass.

Thank heaven I studied St. John after the 1987 vision. (3) Otherwise I might add depression and dismay to simple disappointment at such a quiet day.

I know enough to just be quietly with this purely-empty space. This too shall pass.

A quiet mind is more about mind chatter. This is more about an emotional/experiential stillness and silence.

Footnotes

(1) St. John’s description of the three dark nights we go through in our purgation leading to perfection covers several pages. I’ll post some of the highlights here: https://goldenageofgaia.com/2023/03/01/st-john-of-the-cross-on-the-dark-night-of-the-soul/

Here’s Bernadette Roberts’ interpretation of the term:

“In experience, the onset of this process (of God-realization) is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his former light has gone out and left him in darkness, the contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into hiding.

“In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as we thought if should be. …

“From here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time.” (Bernadette Roberts, “The Path to No-Self” in Stephan Bodian, ed. Timeless Visions, Healing Voices. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1991, 131.)

(2) Saminten in “Suzy Ward on Memory Loss,” March 6, 2023, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2023/03/06/suzy-ward-on-memory-loss/.

(3) On the vision, see “The Purpose of Life is Enlightenment – Ch. 13 – Epilogue,” August 13, 2011, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2011/08/13/the-purpose-of-life-is-enlightenment-ch-13-epilogue/