A person suffering a dark night might say, “Help me. I’m depressed. Get me out of it.” But how can you get out of a natural process of change? How can you medicate self-transformation? The problem, of course, is that we no longer think in terms of passages and transitions. We have exchanged a spiritual awareness of life’s meaningful moments for a psychological view based on medicine. We would like to cure ourselves of the darkness. The resulting confusion of categories only makes things worse.

When a woman’s soul is set to blossom, she may feel at first that she needs to be released from the nurturing, sensitive identity she has known for many years.

A dark night can toughen you and steel you, helping you to be a real presence in your world. In the realm of the soul, most of us are wimps at first. We have to deepen and strengthen our outlook and style.

She separated herself from life so that she could finally heal her soul. We have seen this theme over and over, how the dark night is fulfilled in some form of withdrawal from active life.

When that inner genius shows itself in personality, way of life, values, and expression, mediocrity disappears. It is the cloud that prevents the spark from being seen.