The path of spiritual growth and evolution first leads us into the dark. The lost parts of our selfhood and humanity — hidden treasures obscured amongst the shattered fragments of our pain and wounding, mysteries long repressed and forgotten in the waking world, secret stories that can set us free, wondrous possibilities not yet imaginable — await us in the sacred dark.
A Fall Equinox Story
It’s the cusp of the Fall Equinox. I’m at a secluded Buddhist retreat center. The focus of our dharma talk is love. The teacher rings the bell to start our meditation. Within a few breaths, a vision comes to me. The wooden floor gapes open and reveals a stairway. A man is standing on the stairs, his hand extended to me. I can sense him more than see him. He emanates a powerful elixir of animal magnetism and ethereal beauty, as if he is equally woven of flesh and of light.
“Come,” he says, “it’s time for your awakening.”
I take his hand and descend into the waiting darkness.
So began a new cycle on my journey of soul, one that returned a precious missing part of my humanity and womanhood to me — my beloved — God, man, husband, father, brother, son and my own inner masculine. The promised awakening was one that led me over and over again to lost pieces of my Self and life story that held both my beauty and wounding, and the light and dark of my greater maturity and wholeness.
For the next several years, this soul work of reclaiming my beloved became the central theme of my dreaming, magical workings and personal healing, mending a tear in my soul that I’d carried since my early childhood, and lifetimes before. In the end, I came to the infinite grace and communion of love, with myself, with God and with the men and boys who blessed my life.
Persephone’s Tale
This vision isn’t unique to me. As the wheel of the year turns to the Fall Equinox — a moment of balance between the light and the dark, before the land retreats from the sunlit world of Summer into the cold sleep of Winter — a portal opens to the Underworld and the Goddess Persephone makes Her mythic descent into the sacred dark.
Persephone is a stunning Goddess maiden, full of the juice and joy of Her worldly powers and nature. But She is incomplete in the sunlit realm of Her Mother Demeter. The Underworld calls Her to seek out the missing parts of Her nature in the sacred dark. Persephone descends and walks among the dead and the rich mysteries of the Underworld, drinking in bitter tears and hidden magic. And She grows and matures through Her trials and sorrows.
In Spring, the powers of life call to Persephone once more. She stirs in Her Underworld travels, turning Her awareness to the rustling of green grass, freshening winds, and the life-inducing heat of sunshine on the waking landscape. She returns to the sunlit realm, no longer a maiden, but a Goddess transformed into Her full maturity and wholeness, Queen of the Underworld and Goddess of Springtime Growth. As Her feet touch the living Earth, flowers bloom in Her path, for Hers are the powers of transformation and rebirth.
Persephone’s tale is one of spiritual growth and evolution, woven of the ancient ways of the Goddess that remind us that we’re meant to live big, bold lives, sourced from our unique configuration of beauty, wounding and power. But these things don’t come easy. We must descend into the Underworld and claim the dark of our humanity as the twin and beloved of the light.
Our light side is the part of us that lives in the sunlit world. It holds our worldly knowledge and skills, and all the wondrous things that give us joy and pleasure. But this isn’t the totality of our being. Like Persephone, the Underworld and our dark side call us to become more.
But our dark side speaks to us in ways that we don’t really like: our scary, secret hungers, our personal stories of pain and wounding, and our dysfunctional behaviors and choices. Yet we must follow where they lead, past the borders of our known world into the deepest mysteries and hidden treasures of who we truly are, and the lost parts of our Self and life story.
When we have the courage to let the light and dark of our lives be our teachers and guides — when we are willing to embrace the totality of our being — magic happens. We become something new. We become more deeply and fully ourselves. And the living Earth sighs, reassured that Her lost children have returned home to the beauty that they are, offering up the gifts that are theirs alone to share with this world.
The Invitation of Fall Equinox
The wheel turns; one cycle ends and another begins. Always, at the Fall Equinox, the sacred dark opens portals that beckon us into its depth, and a new cycle of spiritual growth and evolution, each according to the unique configuration of our soul and life story.
He waits for you on the stairs, a magical ally to guide your journey back to your true Self.
“Come,” he says, “it’s time for your awakening.”
Take his hand, descend; the sacred dark and your deepest becoming await you.
Photo Credit: Photo by Will Fuller on Unsplash