Dark Returns
”Brave the Witness… Enter the wilderness within.”
We choose the word “Returns” on purpose as this is not a Retreat from anything, rather a Return to self, your natural state of being and to your original space of conception.
Reconnecting to our sacred relationship with the darkness is our gateway to a potent transformational experience. It’s a voyage of self discovery exploring who we are or could be. All initiations into life mysteries have traditionally taken place in dark spaces. It is in the absence of light that the spirits work their greatest magic.
Dark practices have been around for over 2500 years spanning across many cultures. Our shamans, ancestors, poets, artists and teachers have always known that beneath our socially constructed reality, there are beats of our hearts in the darkness. From a tribal perspective, it is the darkness that is the light our our ancestors. And the knowing that there a are certain types of wounds that can only be healed by the hands of our ancestors that show up once the last candle blows out.
Enticing whispers of the darkness invite us into the temple of dreaming and into it’s deep liquid intimacy of the ancestral womb, embraced by our own sanctuary. The student of darkness becomes the poet of the soul and the explorer of the infinite. All we have to do is trust, step onto the path and allow it to show us the way. (excerpts from Darkness Visible)
MEETING THE MEDICINE OF THE DARK
How you meet the medicine of the darkness; the medicine of the darkness will meet you. Invite it to take you to your edge and show you how to let it in. It’s a choice to offer yourself to yourself. Meet yourself at your gate of acceptance. Curiosity is the opening. Surrender to what is in the moment and follow the nudges to move into a state of receptivity. Embody your ancient wisdom from within. Open to its dynamic expression. Arrive at infinite grace. You are the ceremony.
Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty, Fall in love with mystery. Knell at the Alter; of not knowing. Give questions space and time to breath and the answers will find you.
Jeff Foster
I love the Dark!
Treeka
Guardian of the mycelium at The ForRest | Creatrix | Explorer| Birth & Darkness Doula
My friendship with the dark began about a decade ago with float tanks and a deep curiosity of the potent space it offered for self work. I did my first 10 day dark sit in a self curated, community supported container and have been in regular practice with it since. Curiosity has lead those with courageous hearts to sit with me, to meet themselves in the oneness of the dark. New moons are natures reminder to spend some time with the dark.
Love note to the Dark: Thank you for teaching me about the only thing that hides in the dark...is you.
Thank you for showing how to meet myself and not back down from my edge, self acceptance, and the space of the deep capacity to reclaim our own medicine, wisdom, intuition and voice.
Musings from my first 10 day Dark Sit
In the dark…
How many times do we pull away from Self?
How do we navigate this edge?
How do you meet yourself at your gate of acceptance?
Choosing to stay is a radical act of courage and trust.
The darkness is the preparation; it is the mindful presence to each action; it is the trust in the feel. It incubates, prepares, curates, impregnates. Choice is in the claiming of it’s offering.
Eyes closed, there is a sleepiness of being safe to hide in the shadow of the dream. Choose to look darkness in the eyes and open to the waking consciousness of the present, to the everything in the void, to the exhale, to the all knowing of conception.
There is a deep capacity within the dark to embody the reclamation of your medicine, your wisdom, your intuition and your voice.
The darkness is you. Follow your breath. It will lead you home. Re-awaken into the remembering. Simplicity to your path. Be brave, you know the way. Your medicine is wild and fierce in the intimacy of your soul.
You learn to hold yourself in a way that is secure when you have a sanctuary that is untouchable. Participate in your own experiments, building a relationship with the direct experience and engaging with the mystery awaiting just beyond the external layer.
As your own gatekeeper into the dark, give space to trust, the breath, the surrender, the discordance and invite the oneness and magnificence of the darkness to be in union. Honor the paradox, the duality, the transformation of the discomfort into infinite freedom & grace, resistance into allowance, and fear into unconditional love..
~ Personal journal entries from the dark experience | Treeka February 2020