We can’t understand what is happening to us, and if we are in the habit of always wanting to know what is going on, this aspect of the dark night will be maddening. We can find meaning in these times of change, but we have to think differently about our lives, be less psychological in our approach, and more philosophical and spiritual.

We don’t understand that our passions have something to do with life making sense. We also tend to focus on the problem at hand, as though it were a mechanical issue in need of engineering. We often fail to see how all parts of life are connected, and how difficulty in one area may indicate change in another.

Part of the pain of love is that no person, however suitable and satisfying, completes the desire for love. There is always a remainder, because love takes us beyond the human sphere. It puts you in touch with the ultimate object of desire. It invites you to transcend yourself, to be more than you ever have been.

The ideal is not wholeness or integration, but marriage and love, not an overcoming of differences but creative coexistence and mutual influence.

Many people claim to have integrated their shadow sides, but that effort is itself a work against the dark. To integrate it is to co-opt it into the light. The real task is to live in, and with, the darkness, appreciating its unredeemed value and loving its irreversible qualities. What is needed is a view of life that includes the dark.