The void progresses leaving me feeling cut off, lonely and without a single goal that I can put in place. All the avenues that I love/loved have disappeared. I have no inspiration or its creative energy to make art or create items. I have lost the desire to dance and act and sing. Sometimes I sing, but these come in downloads and once the song has spent, it is gone. Back into the ethers. I feel like I have nothing to look forward to and suddenly feel incredibly old.
Today, I remembered that this time last year, I still had the love of my life in my life, albeit as a friend, I still had my dogs, I was still in a band and loved the music and the songs and even the rehearsals. I was still working in addiction which is my speciality and I was still looking forward to the possibility of getting an agent for my acting. Financially, I was fine and earning decent money.
I know the purpose of the void is death and re-birth but with the Dark Night of the soul, I still had times of creativity. Now, I have gone into, what feels like a pit, that is so dark there is nothing to see, do, or be. It is like having the blandest life anyone could imagine. I know this sounds a bit piteous, but I want to write what I feel like now so that I remember this feeling. I think when you’re in something that feels so tough and lonely and alone, you think that when you come out of it, you will remember how it felt. However, I didn’t write much of the Dark Night and some of the experience is lost to me now. You could say what does it matter? However, then and now, I really wanted someone to show me what I was going through. I wanted someone to say, these feelings are normal, its okay, you will come out of this. I found very little useful information at the time and since entering the void, which feels like its gone on for ever, I only found one good you tube video on it and nothing written. Fortunately, spirit brought me back to Caroline Myss and Energy Anatomy, who I had read with my ex partner maybe 18 years ago? This led to Entering the Castle which has truly been a huge help. It has provided a map for what I am going through. I need to add that my spirituality is very precious to me and in the latter part of the Dark Night and especially in the Void, I lost all connection to spirit. This was even more horrendous to me, than losing all creativity. It has started to come back now, but is not quite the same as it was, but the ‘Entering the Castle’ helps.
Still, the point of writing this now, is that maybe there is someone out there, that is going through the same thing and feels totally lost. That is what I feel, totally lost, like life has lost all point. There is nothing I can hook on to and get involved in, because there is no creativity or its necessary energy. I have some urge for writing but even that has diminished at the moment. It is like all ambition and all hope for the future has gone. I am totally unable to plan a life, or any part of it. Literally all of it has gone out of the window. I am left with the hope that this is not just some weird depression of everything I know and feel, but is rather a controlled journey, by forces beyond human. I am left having to trust that this is meant to be. I have to add here, that my spirituality did leave me, tell tale signs, prior to entering what is now, nearly a year of ever increasing nothingness. The Void. I will list these below:
When I was young, I had a repetitive dream of being in a dark pit and every time I tried to crawl back up and out, I was sent falling back into the pit. I also had a repetitive dream of doing some sort of mission for others. On a more sobering note, I also had a repetitive dream as a child, of being alone in a cottage on the edge of society, like an old fashioned wise woman. Oh joy! As an adult, over the last few years, a very dear friend did a journey for me and foretold certain things which included, at the end, entering the Void. Neither of us really knew what this mean but he directed me to the story of Bran in the Mabinogion. This was actually, very apt.
On another occasion, a butterfly flew out of my fridge, (yes, it flew out of my fridge), when I opened the door. It almost collided into my face, it took a steep turn and ended up in the washing up bowl which was filled with water. Horrified, as even then, I realised the implications of this sign! I fished the poor butterfly out of the water and put it up in my warm study, in the hopes it would dry out and be okay. The next morning, it was sitting about three quarters of the way up, on my study window. I was very relieved that it was alive and its wings were working. I opened the window and out it flew.
Just over a year ago now, I did a journey. My intent for the journey, was thrown out and the journey I was taken on was the alchemical marriage. I felt, at the time, very confused as to how this could happen and also very humbled. I felt unsure that I would be ever able to take such a journey. However, it seems that this too was taken out of my hands. The journey into the Dark Night began and from there, I entered into the Void. I can’t quite remember when the transfer happened, but think it was about October time last year. Suddenly, nothing worked, I had been gradually losing so much, I can’t recall all of it. Some were little and some were huge. It was and still is intensely scary. Everything you know of yourself and your life just simply comes to an end. Its like leaving a beautiful but rather messy room, full of wonderful things and finding yourself in a bland and darkened, laundry room from the 1800’s, doing repetitive and endless chores, which I have to say, increase your feelings of hopelessness. It is like, life bleeds out of you and goes off to live somewhere else, leaving you feeling like a card board cut out. This might sound drastic and it is and is probably the best way to describe it. There is a nothingness, so huge, you can’t get round it. It doesn’t matter if you want to create something new, you simply can’t. It doesn’t matter if you want to plan a new life, you simply can’t. It doesn’t matter what you want, period! It is happening and there is nothing you can do to bring your old life back! I resisted and tried to fight it endlessly. I ranted and self sabotaged by shouting and yelling at the gods and spirits. I am not really the surrendering type, so this journey has been, probably more bumpy and filled with rocks, than may be necessary for others.
I tried to do a journey one day to the ancestors and hit total blackness. Nothing going on at all. If you know anything about shamanic work, you will know you cannot do this alone. It’s not like giving a massage or being a Aromatherapist. If spirit is not leading, you are NOT going anywhere sunshine! This was a huge blow. It threw me into a form of despair and there have been times when I have felt that there is no point and wanted to end it all. And yet, somehow, because of how drastic this is, you know somewhere in this, that this is happening from another source. It is happening for a reason. Even I, who, trust me, has had a tumultuous life, at times, and not in a good way, know I couldn’t mess my life up to that degree! For those of you that might be screaming, this is depression, get to the doctors and get some anti-depressants! I say, no!! Whatever, you do, don’t do that, it will not help you! It may well, prolong your period in the Dark night or Void. Some small or rather, tiny part of you knows, this is happening for a reason. You are being blocked and halted for a reason. I don’t mean some fabulous, lofty reason. I mean the reason to be taking this journey, whether you like it or not. It is different to real depression. This, I can’t really explain past that. You know it when you have it. After all, how many depressed people do you know that say, this is the dark night of the soul?
I also need to add that you can feel that things are happening beyond your control. I still desire to do things but there is no energy to do them. For instance, I will see a gorgeous sunset and want to paint it, but the energy that flows through an artist, to paint, is simply not there. It doesn’t come. If you are an artist, you will know what I mean. Currently, I draw/paint, when I try to defy what is happening, but what I create, is like that of a five year old! I have come to the disappointing but revealing conclusion, that I must have a huge ego, because I fight to the bitter end. Instead of surrendering, which to be fair, I do try to do, sometimes! I generally, stamp my feet and keep trying to do the things I used to love to do, only to be disappointed again and again. It is like that gift has been taken away completely and I grieve bitterly for it at times. I have no way of knowing whether it will ever come back.
In the Void, you feel totally alone, even amongst people. Everything happening to you has absolutely nothing to do with negative thinking, or affirmations or creating your own reality. That definitively will not work, give it up. If you are in the Dark Night, or worse, the Void, please do not artificially try to raise your vibration. You will find yourself in the middle of a fight with yourself, in a cycle of trying to raise your vibration and falling flat on your face. Give it up, this is where the gods/spirit, what ever you want to call the Divine, contrary to all the new age stuff, is being done for a reason! It is a death of the old life and possibly, the loss of everything you knew of that life, including people you love, relationships, friendships, financial stability, your home, your career, your desires and ambitions, everything. You lose so much that you just know this is beyond reasonable, you know that it doesn’t make any sense. If you are being led through this process, there is no seat belt and there is no knowing, how long you will remain in this. The rebirth, I can’t write about yet, but birth is painful too, usually. So I imagine that re-birth has its own sunshine and utter darkness in its labour pains. Deep joy!!!
I think one of the biggest problems, when facing this journey, which has been charted by many, for millennia, most of us don’t have the option to just go off in the woods and sit there for months on end. Most of us don’t have a spiritual master to help lead us through it. Neither do we, in the west have any concept of this journey now. Our lives are fast paced, full of bills, full of demands and requirements and obligations. We don’t have a wise person to turn to, to help direct us through these difficult transitions. We have lost our templates and spiritual masters. We have rendered them to the past, like relics. Within our culture, we are logic and thought driven, there is no room for that kind of transition, nor really, much understanding. Although, conversely, I believe that more and more people will be facing this sort of transition, as we are being forced to move beyond where we currently are.
If I was growing up in a tribe, they would know what to do with me and how to lead me through it. However, I would still have to go off on my own to meet my own demons and fears.
I know that most of the current information out there in the new age scene is mostly about ascension, awakening, creating the life you choose and so forth. However, there is no talk of the very real journey of the true Dark Night and certainly, almost nothing on the Void. This certainly does not help when you are going through the Dark Night/the Void. It can compound your feelings of loneliness and abandonment and all the other feelings you may be experiencing. For myself, I wondered endlessly what I was doing wrong, that I wasn’t awakening or ascending. As I said previously, my connection to my spirituality was very strong and I often had knowings and other mystical happenings before the Void. However, most of what they wrote about, I couldn’t relate to and this increased my sense of aloneness once I was in the Dark Night. I think one thing positive, hooray! I will say about the Void. There is a definitive feeling of knowing this is meant to be this way. I might have no idea of what is on the other side of this or even if there is another side, at this point. However, you know, somewhere inside, this is being held, you are being held down, the you, you know of. Its like being put in a dark room and left there. You know someone has the key and you know that you are stuck here until that someone chooses to open the door again. I would say it is like a cocoon but that would imply it was cosy and warm and the Void is certainly not that!
I leave you with this:
The journey is long, how long, no-one but the gods know. It is scary and sometimes terrifying. It is lonely and you may well feel completely lost and abandoned. You may have a strong desire, sometimes, an all consuming desire to go ‘home.’ This is not so much a place and is hard to define. It is like being a child and wanting to find your mum. You will feel vulnerable, sometimes very vulnerable. You will feel angry and want to resist being pushed down this funnel – a funnel into where? Who knows? You may feel you are going mad. You may hear voices, you may feel suicidal, you may feel absolutely nothing works anymore. You may feel that your life is over – it is, as you know it – but….. there is more, but not yet! You may reach complete surrender sooner than others or like me, you may fight endlessly for your life and end up in tears when you realise that no matter what you do, your going down this road anyway. Or, again like me, you may reach a point of surrender, or think you have and then something else goes ‘wrong.’ Let’s say, someone smashes up your only car or your best friend tells you they are moving half way round the world to a tiny village to help in the rice fields. So now, you won’t even be able to face time or Skype them! Then you shout and demand again and your back in the ring for round 2, or 3 or 9 or 50. Then you think you have reached the place of surrender again but your ego kicks in and you throw another wobbler! You might find yourself being even more judgemental or angry or emotional than ever and think, ‘this can’t be a spiritual journey!’
It is, but all that stuff, comes up to be cleared too! Yeah! Not fun, in fact, this journey in the Dark Night and certainly in the Void, is anything but fun!!
On that note, I just want to say that the Void I am talking about is not the void of creation, as most people know of it. This is a Void of utter darkness, some people might understand it as the descent into the Dark Goddess or the Underworld or the Hero/Heroine’s journey.
Don’t give up! Try to continue some sort of spiritual practice even if you feel like your talking to a brick wall! It will feel like that! You may think what is the point? My connection has been totally annihilated! Do it anyway and if you can’t, try to take time out in nature at least or sit in your garden and note the weather and the season. Try to take care of yourself as best you can. When you don’t feel like yourself at all, you can feel very lost but you need to just carry on with the mundane, there is no choice really. Your life probably feels very flat and isolated. Very little will interest you and many things will feel so far removed from you that you can’t engage with them anymore. An example would be, politics or the news or reading books or reviews etc. Let yourself sleep, write a journal if you are able, make sure you eat, even when the food tastes as bland as your life. Keep going. Talk to whoever the Divine is to you even if you can’t feel them talking to you. Trees are great companions for this walk. They can bring comfort or at least a little bit of peace. Walk on the earth when you can, with bare feet if possible, not in the snow, obviously! You will develop a way of staying in the moment, at least for the while that you are allowing yourself to do this. This can be very nurturing in a time of chaos and confusion.
Bright Blessings