Struggling to find the Darkness

[Quintessence]

Winter Solstice. ​

This day is commonly celebrated by contemporary Pagans of many different traditions. Non-Pagans get involved as well, whether realized or not, through the religious holiday of Christmas and secular Christmas, or what we might call "Giftmas." The people hang all sorts of lights on their houses, banishing the darkness during this time of long nights. The typical Pagan tradition marks the time as the rebirth of light, and ritual themes focus on this idea.

What about the darkness?​

When I first became aware of the existence of contemporary Paganisms, and in particular Wicca, it was often said that these paths - and the wheel of the year - are about balance of light and dark. Yet this was not evidenced in the actual practices spoken of. There was no holy day celebrating darkness. I decided early on to rectify that, and have ever made Winter Solstice about honoring the virtues of darkness. In developing a new, formal ritual for this, I found myself running into some interesting technical issues.

I can't find the darkness. ​

Ideally, I want to do all of this ritual in the room I have dedicated to my practice. I want to have all the normal candles lit, and snuff them out one by one, representing the darkening. And then, I want to sit and deeply meditate in pitch blackness, and get thoroughly lost in it. Yet even with all candles snuffed, light pollution streams into my ritual room. Aside from sealing up the windows with thick cardboard, there will be no keeping out the light. And the obnoxious displays of colorful lights outside only make the matter worse. I've mulled over a few different solutions to this. None of them are ideal.

It's an odd problem to have, isn't it? Trying to find darkness? Total silence? What does it say about our culture that we banish the darkness so much that we struggle to find it at all?

 

[Willamena]

It may be an intrusion in this forum, but you may try looking for the darkness in metaphor.

 

[Tumah]

Isn't not being able to find something, an expression of darkness?
In which case you already found it.

 

[Quintessence]

It may be an intrusion in this forum, but you may try looking for the darkness in metaphor.

Much of contemporary Paganism is the raw experience of life and living. It's what makes them mystical religious traditions. One doesn't learn about the nature of trees by contemplating a "metaphorical tree" - one learns about trees by going out there in the world and experiencing trees directly. There's only so much that can be learned through metaphor and third-party sources. Life has to be lived. I'm not looking to connect to a metaphor, I'm looking to connect to the actual thing.

I try to think back to the one time in my life when I visited a cave. Part of the tour involved the guide briefly turning out all of the lights and plunging us into pure darkness. They warned us that this can be an extremely disorienting experience and people can go mad from it. That is the experience I'm looking for again. If there was a cave under my house, I would go there. Alas, I don't really live in cave country.

Isn't not being able to find something, an expression of darkness?
In which case you already found it.

Hah! There's truth in that, but as I think I express above, that's not really the experience I'm going for here.

 

[Erebus]

It may come as a shock, but darkness (both metaphorical and literal) plays an important role in my own religious outlook.

I can provide a few tips to help you with your rituals.

1. It might seem a faff, but physically blocking your windows might be necessary. You can buy blackout curtains which will help, but depending where you live it might indeed be necessary to cover your windows with cardboard. If that fails, a blindfold can get you by in a pinch, though it's not quite the same.

2. I personally tend to use only one candle. This is for practical purposes more than anything else. Since you're looking for pitch darkness, you don't want to risk knocking things over. Give yourself as much space as you can.

3. Depending on how soundproof your building is, you may also want to invest in some good earplugs.

4. Turn off your central heating. This is down to personal preference really, but I tend to associate darkness with cold. It makes sense to me that an absence of light should include an absence of heat. Winter is therefore a good time for these rituals.

5. Pitch darkness, silence and cold all combine to create some very odd experiences. Stick with it though, it's worth it.

6. It's much harder to find pitch darkness outdoors, even in rural areas. If you do perform a ritual outdoors, be careful. If you hurt yourself at night in the middle of nowhere, you're in for a rough time.

Finally, even if you can't create pitch darkness, it's not a total loss. Our senses react to low light in interesting ways and I think you can still get a lot out of a ritual set in almost pitch darkness.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Winter Solstice. ​

This day is commonly celebrated by contemporary Pagans of many different traditions. Non-Pagans get involved as well, whether realized or not, through the religious holiday of Christmas and secular Christmas, or what we might call "Giftmas." The people hang all sorts of lights on their houses, banishing the darkness during this time of long nights. The typical Pagan tradition marks the time as the rebirth of light, and ritual themes focus on this idea.

What about the darkness?​

When I first became aware of the existence of contemporary Paganisms, and in particular Wicca, it was often said that these paths - and the wheel of the year - are about balance of light and dark. Yet this was not evidenced in the actual practices spoken of. There was no holy day celebrating darkness. I decided early on to rectify that, and have ever made Winter Solstice about honoring the virtues of darkness. In developing a new, formal ritual for this, I found myself running into some interesting technical issues.

I can't find the darkness. ​

Ideally, I want to do all of this ritual in the room I have dedicated to my practice. I want to have all the normal candles lit, and snuff them out one by one, representing the darkening. And then, I want to sit and deeply meditate in pitch blackness, and get thoroughly lost in it. Yet even with all candles snuffed, light pollution streams into my ritual room. Aside from sealing up the windows with thick cardboard, there will be no keeping out the light. And the obnoxious displays of colorful lights outside only make the matter worse. I've mulled over a few different solutions to this. None of them are ideal.

It's an odd problem to have, isn't it? Trying to find darkness? Total silence? What does it say about our culture that we banish the darkness so much that we struggle to find it at all?

That is profound. First impression is our culture lossed its "pagan" connection. It lossed a lot of its community and ties to humanity. Finding darkness and silence is like going back to being in your mother's womb. One way it can be interpreted is our search for finding simplicity even to be "blind" to distracting lights and colors as a baby doesnt experience sight right away.

Its also a comfort zone that many people find it hard to actually go back "to the womb" or "become the infant" all overagain.

Its saying that our culture puts a lot of stock in what people of what age should do. So if adults want to go back into literal darkness, we find it odd but thats just (as above, first interpetation) going back to the womb.

I do that when I shower. I never shower in light; alwayz pitch dark. Thats where I find myself (in a clean way, no pun). It isnt odd just maybe our culture is afraid to become infants again?

 

[allfoak]

Have you considered sensory deprivation?

 

[Politesse]

I agree that it is best to find a true darkness; it has a very different quality in nature than does a darkened room. Are you sure there are no wild caves in your area? Or dark-sky parks? It would be worth it, I think, to travel a bit if you seek to learn from the resulting experience.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I try to think back to the one time in my life when I visited a cave. Part of the tour involved the guide briefly turning out all of the lights and plunging us into pure darkness.

Yes, same here, I think caves are the only places I've experienced pitch black. Being outside at night there is usually some illumination from the night sky even if you can get completely away from man-made light sources.

 

[crossfire]

Blackout blinds.
As for creating an actual practice: you might find some inspiration by researching Taoism's Zuò Wàng practice.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

@Quintessence To tell you honesty, the only places I can think of where it's pitch dark is in small closeted areas between 11 and about 3 in the morning. I usually cut off all the lights, of course. Shut the curtains, and go into my closed knit space, put towels under the door, and the curtains blocks everything else. Unless you're eyes are extra extra sensitive, that's the closest thing I can think of to pitch dark. However, doing ritual or whatever spiritual practice you'd like to do depends on, of course, where and if it's convinient and appropriate too.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Yes, same here, I think caves are the only places I've experienced pitch black. Being outside at night there is usually some illumination from the night sky even if you can get completely away from man-made light sources.

dense fog on a overcast and moonless night, far from artificial light sources strongly resembles the inside of a cave. A well-constructed sweat lodge, even in broad daylight, but especially at night or on an overcast day will also work. Obviously the first you have no control over and may not have access to on the rare occasions when it happens; the latter you could approximate in your living space with a small tent covered with lots of thick blankets and towels.

 

[bain-druie]

So much of what people said here is awesome!

I've been offline celebrating the long dark myself, so I'm late to this party; but I totally get it. Darkness has been a focus of my own studies and practice as well, mostly because there is such a dearth of understanding and embracing darkness in our culture. Christianity is notorious for demonizing the dark, though it's far from alone in doing so, and so we end up never learning the unique beauty and wisdom held secret within an entire half of our world. Everything is different in the dark; night repaints a familiar landscape in alien hues, making us see it as utterly new.

But of course what we're after during the Winter Solstice is quite different from simply the darkness of a nightscape; what we want is, in terms of Spongebob, 'ADVANCED DARKNESS'.

Once an acolyte of the Druids would have entered a sacred tomb on Solstice night, to spend the longest dark of the year surrounded by the scant remains of the dead in utter solitude. The tomb was underground, the entrance precisely placed to admit the first rays of the newly rising sun, marking its rebirth as the days begin to lengthen once more. The darkness of this tomb was complete; it wasn't a natural cave, perhaps, but the effect was the same.

That is the darkness we long to reclaim at the Solstice especially; yet our society makes it nearly impossible. We pretend to outgrow a child's fear of the dark, when in reality we have merely learned to rationalize and justify it. We're taught (not without justification, of course) that darkness equals danger, so we must light up the night and never permit a shadow to gain a real foothold.

This zeal for artificial light makes it extremely difficult to access real and utter darkness, which is something we do need.

I don't know your situation or how easy it may be to access nature, but there are shelters other than caves outdoors. When I lived in a redwood forest, I found that the roots of those giants often formed enclosures that gave me a darkness as dense as a cave's, especially during a New Moon. I find that if you're willing to improvise and work with what you're given, you'll often find surprising new solutions to dilemmas like this. Working outdoors is, to me at least, preferable whenever possible; it makes me open to a wider variety of input than can be found indoors.

If you need to be indoors, as others have said, you can put up blackout blinds or cardboard over the windows etc.; pretty much however you manage it, there are lessons and beauties to be gained, as you already know.