Full Description
The first book to examine the spiritual and therapeutic practice of retreat in physical darkness to explore inner light
• Shows how experiencing complete darkness over prolonged periods helps in developing mental clarity and creativity
• Draws upon many indigenous and spiritual traditions that use this technique
The use of ceremonial darkness is a classic and cross-cultural method for exploring hidden aspects of unconscious and super-conscious states, accessing invisible landscapes, and embracing the deeper recesses of the self. In Darkness Visible Heaven and Buxton examine the spiritual and therapeutic practice of taking retreat in physical darkness.
For millennia mystics and sages have used darkness as a spiritual tool for breaking with their pasts, prior conditioning, and the limited reality of their societies. Spiritual seekers from many traditions--Celtic, Eastern, indigenous North and South American, Tibetan, and African--have used darkness as a tool for spiritual enlightenment. Heaven and Buxton show how experiencing complete darkness, even for only a period of hours, brings about a remarkable clarity and mental stillness and thus provides a springboard for creativity, intuition, and spiritual development. They include exercises that explore lucid levels of dream consciousness, drawing both from their experience as teachers of this method and from the many cultures that include this practice in their spiritual traditions. Darkness Visible shows how deprivation of sight can truly teach us to see.
Contents
Forewords
Inviting the Darkness In
by Malidoma Somé
Journeying Farther Than the Eye Can See
by Sandra Ingerman
Prefaces
Entering Darkness and Seeing the Light
Ceremonial Darkness in the Haitian
Vodou Tradition
by Ross Heaven
If Honey, Then Also Sting
Darkness and the Path of Pollen
by Simon Buxton
1. God in a Time of Darkness
The Spirit beyond the Light
-Try This-
Close Your Eyes
Inviting the Darkness: The Interior Stars
Playing God
Forgiving God
2. The Tunnel at the End of the Light
The Practice of Darkness
-Try This-
Awakening the Senses
The Spirit of Nature
The Cave of Souls
3. The Mythological Mind
The Impact of Darkness on Those
Who Enter There
-Try This-
Initiation into Darkness
Hearing the Truth
Future-Seeing
4. The Landscape of Myth and Emotion
The Psychology of Darkness
-Try This-
The Voices Within
Active Imagining: Using Darkness for
Positive Change
The Flow of Things
5. Entering the Dark World
Initiation into Darkness
-Try This-
The Wise Elder
Dying to Live
Rebirth
6. The Stories of Our Lives
Exploring the Dark Self
-Try This-
Your Conception/Life Story
Who Are You?
Earth's Embrace
7. What's Your Name, What's Your Number?
The Question of Identity
-Try This-
What's Your Name?
The Ancestral Chain
Temple Dreaming
A Blessing for Yourself
8. Welcome Home
Coming out of Darkness into Darkness
-Try This-
The Meaning of Life
The Sadness of the World
The Crossroads Commitment
9. Beginning to See the Light
Life after Darkness
Notes
Bibliography
Resources: Darkness Visible and Other Workshops
