Dark Night of the Soul Journey: My Story of Hope and Renewal
A journey through the Dark Night of the Soul
For over two years, I walked through a dark night of the soul journey—a season of disintegration, silence, and loss. Yet within the darkness, I discovered wisdom, timing, and the faint flicker of hope. This is my story.
The Season of Light
In a season past, my soul felt one with the light and possibility. For the first time in my life, I felt purpose-driven, motivated, and enthusiastic about my future.
During that season, I openly shared reflections on life and inspiration. This season of light was the most fulfilling I had yet known. The future looked bright, and I felt that my life purpose had made itself known.
The Season of Darkness
However, one unsuspecting day two years ago, I noticed an ominous change in the weather. The once-bright sky grew dull, hidden behind heavy rain-soaked clouds. I believed the same wind that chaotically ushered in the storm clouds would return with equal fervour to dismiss them. I waited patiently.
Days drowned into weeks, then months, until darkness swallowed time itself. This was no mere storm. It was the death of my season of light and the start of my night season—the dark night of my soul.
Quaking with fear and panic, I prayed continuously for my past season to return. Yet with each desperate plea, the remaining light I carried in my heart dimmed further until, like an insignificant candle flame, it was snuffed out.
Dissection, Disintegration, Dissolution
It has now been 26 months since the day my voice was lost in the shadows. Today, I am very much changed. I no longer think or feel like the person I once knew; he is a stranger, an evaporated mist.
Yet I feel strong enough to continue the conversation I began in 2023 with my Caught in-between Seasons post. I am ready to share about my night season and the dark night of my dissection, disintegration and dissolution.
Dissected. Disintegrated. Dissolved.
Within the gap which separates the light from the dark, I was thrown—broken. I wandered in fear, lost within the blackness, not knowing where next to step. Over this time, the essence of who Richard was had been dissected, his sense of self disintegrated and dissolved into the nothingness of night.
Like a well without water, life lost purpose.
Release, Relearn, Reintegrate
The only disruption to the stillness in the darkness are the unpredictable and unapologetic storms. Lightning rips the sky with brilliance while thunder rages behind. Their displays of strength last for hours, leaving only once they have exhausted the sky’s energy.
Lately, I have come to find comfort in the darkness of this night season and eagerly wait for the storms to arrive. I marvel at their untamed displays of power as they take command of the sky.
I now see beyond the blackness into the night’s shades of grey, deep blue and violet.
Wisdom Written in the Night
In this softer light, I saw the walls I once leaned on were not walls at all, but monuments. Their stone carried the etchings of those who had walked these nights before me.
At first, I traced the grooves blindly, unready for their meaning. In time, the fractures shaped themselves into words. Words into sentences. Sentences into light—bioluminescent truths, glowing in the dark, wisdom that only night can give.
Surrendering Time
These night seasons taught me the difference between time and timing. Time belongs to desire—it is of the world. But timing belongs to the Divine, and it arrives only by His will.
When I surrendered time, I no longer felt the emptiness of my well—not knowing it was quietly, steadily being refilled. Reintegration had already begun.
Toward the Dawn
Lately, I have noticed flickers of light in the distance, moments in which I would swear the dawn had begun to wrestle with the night. Yet I no longer care; I now know that the seasons are not mine to command.
And while my well is not yet full enough to offer water to others, it is also no longer dry. Hope has returned—faint, but alive.
As my process of reintegration continues, I am reminded of the guidance that has been present throughout my journey. And so, I give thanks.
To my mother, my father, and my cousin Michelle—you have been the fixed stars in my sky, unwavering in the darkest hours. And to those whose light has since gone out, I give honour—for the brief but brilliant radiance you offered.
The Passage
The dark night is not the end, but the passage.
I share this not as someone who has arrived, but as one still walking—step by step—toward the light.
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