Does being in the dark give us greater awareness of ourselves?
The Earth is tilted from its plane of orbit, so as we move through the cycle of the year, it looks to us like the Sun is moving above and below our equator.
When the Sun is furthest below, there’s a period of a few days when it seems to stop. This ‘stop’ is called Winter Solstice. Solstice means the standing still of the Sun. In the Northern Hemisphere, this marks the darkest time of the year.
In many ancient traditions, this standing still of the Sun marked the beginning of a sacred quest: The quest for self knowledge. As the world grew darker without, ancient belief held that it created a heightened opportunity to look within, to shine one’s own inner light on the true nature of being.
When the ancient initiate was successful, he would speak in initiation language the words: “I know where the Sun goes when the Earth doesn’t see it”. This was another way of saying: “In the deepest dark I have come to encounter with myself, and here I find my true nature, which I can only illumine by the light of my own inner Sun.”
What we know about the ancient understanding is that they saw the human being as three-fold in nature ~ a being of body, soul, and spirit. Today we often hear the phrase “body, mind, and spirit”, which is only part of the distinct division of body, soul, and spirit understood in former times.
Now consider, the Sun comes to its Winter Solstice moment along the Milky Way. Here it appears to standstill in front of the Trifid nebula. As its name reveals, this nebula is also three-fold in nature, appearing in telescopes as though divided into three distinct lobes.
With Solstice occurring next Sunday evening, it’s time to kindle the inner light for this three-fold quest to self knowledge in the dark.