Glory of Night

Having received some letters with questions why I do not write further, I want to thank first of all those who reads this blog and supports me despite my silence. Thank you - Hari, Serge, Rene, Radek, Nathalie, John, Nicholas ... and many fine people whom I meet on favour divine. I cannot answer your questions now because I have no rights obviously on it. An experience of everyone is so individual and who can give advice if itself is ignorant simply? But also this night is a part of the divine plan in us and it is blessing certainly. Therefore I dedicate this letter to Great Night.

“When they are going about these spiritual exercises with the greatest delight and pleasure, and when they believe that the sun of divine  favor is shining most brightly upon them, God turns all this light of theirs into darkness ... and leaves them ... completely in the dark.” St.Juan de la Cruz

How it is possible though something to tell about experience even in its 'light' phase? The irreducible immediacy of experience itself which, however exhaustively described, however carefully nuanced, remains not just primarily, but essentially, an incommunicable experience. These fleeting touches of union are occasioned solely by God and depend totally upon the divine will. The mystic of himself cannot produce or reproduce these experiences that are independently and actively conveyed to it by the agency of God that itself is perfectly free. The extraordinary nature of this experience derives from the fact that it is not our experience – and this is to say that the experience is entirely contingent – contingent upon the will of God – who, moreover, within himself comprehends perfect freedom such that no constraint conceived as external to God necessitates this extraordinary experience independent of the self-legislating will of God.
And it is not always possible to draw a hard and fast distinction between that which experiences and that which is experienced – although in fact such a distinction unmistakably exists – especially in this state of proximity which is difficult for describing to me, and which must not be confused with enlightenment or other conditions higher than mine.  I think that the invitation to union is far more common than we suppose. That it is a perception we are likely to distort, resist, or even arrogantly dismiss. And this invitation continues to beckon us, despite the disdain, even the reproach of reason, to something beyond ourselves, something infinitely greater than our selves. And our reluctance to respond to this invitation seems, in the end, to be rooted in fear. Many of us simply are not prepared to make a commitment as absolute as the invitation requires. For ultimately, we realize, it entails far more than our heart, embracing, as it does, the totality of our being in the totality of His love. Love should not be afraid and I trust absolutely to that condition of darkness also. 

Once in the dark of night,
Inflamed with love and wanting, I arose
(O coming of delight!)
And went, as no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,
Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,
(O coming of delight!)
In dark when no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me,
And lead me to the one
Whom only I could see
Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
A lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.
There on my lover, face to face, I lay.
All ended, and I let
My cares all fall away
Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

The Dark Night Of The Soul
By Saint John of the Cross
Translated by A.Z. Foreman