We fear the dark, most of us. Why? Is it because, in the dark, we can’t see what’s there? Are we socialized to fear the dark? Do the fairy tales of our upbringing program us to fear the lack of day? Do things really go bump in the night? Do monsters walk when the sun goes down? Are vampires on the prowl? Werewolves (check the moon)?
Why do YOU fear the dark?
I have feared the dark, and sometimes, fear it still. Admittedly, living on fifteen very rural acres in Blue Ridge Mountains reputed to foster Big Foot, panthers, rattlers, copperheads, and rogue bears (including the occasional rabid raccoon and chipmunk), the feeling of smallness and vulnerability are ready at the first gasped breath, to overtake my mind and emotions. Luckily, I have two large dogs. Unluckily, these 100-pound Weimeraners believe that they are 7-pound lapdogs, and have shown their own fears in strange and unexpected ways. Case in point: their absolute terror when a neighbor’s tiny donkey and miniature white pony wandered into our meadows to munch.
However, I admitted my fear (to myself) years ago, even worked on it by camping alone, in the dark (within screaming distance of others) to purge the stupid fear from my conscious and subconscious. It worked to a great degree. Following years of forcing myself to face the darkness, mostly alone, created, if not a mastery, an ability to face it even when I was scared out of my half-wits. Still, it haunted me. Still, it was a spectre, and in my estimation, a weakness of character.
So, when I started Dark Goddess Studies, I’d hoped to come to terms with the remaining sticky layers of self-preservation that created private films of my being eaten by beasts that move only under cover of night. But, what is a Dark Goddess? An evil Goddess? A Black Sorceress? Would I be sucked into a miasma of Satanic delirium; would children run at the sight of me? Would my Rice Crispies start talking to me, demanding that I do things of uncharacteristic and dastardly deviance?
Wearing every protection amulet that I could make or acquire, I went into the fray of new learning. Dark Goddess. Darkness. Dark versus light. I was a child of the new age: a Bliss Ninny. I craved light, sought only light, accepted only light. Everything else was antithesis to my spiritual growth, or so I thought.
Not so, I discovered.
Like up has down, back has forward, no has yes, lightness has dark. Think about darkness. It’s where life gets its start–in the womb, in the loamy soil, in dreams. The dark is sly and silky; it sings in sultry, deep whispers, like the embryo’s heartbeat. The dark can be protective, nurturing, healing and restorative. At night, our world is quiet. People sleep. Appliances sleep. Cars still. Phones meditate and satellites take mini-vacations. Dark can be velvety and restful, it can be provocative. It can be healing.
And light. Oh, glorious light. The sun. Its reflection on water; its warmth on skin. It coaxes the dark-started sprouts from the ground and greets the new babies into its embrace. It is powerful. It is life. And it pushes down everything it can’t move around.
Consider the laser. Consider sun poisoning. Consider drought. Intense light can be a powerful force of destruction. Yet, we are not trained to fear the light.
Explore your mythologies. Explore your beliefs. Are your “facts” true? Are your “realities” real? We must have dark. We must have light. Darkness is not synonymous with evil. Lightness does not guarantee the pure. They are great balancing factors in a universe filled with oxygen and its carbon life forms.
Yes. There are things that go bump in the night (see exorcism and ghosts for more of that). But guess what? Things go “bump” in the daylight too.
Reveal your myths and discard the ones that no longer serve you. Shed your fears and revel in your new powers. Before long, you too could be cooing to the moon, standing in the dark whispering, “Fear; you are not the boss of me.”
