The longest night of the year
Welcoming darkness, awaiting the dawn
Hello dear friends, I have two quick notes before diving into this email.
One: I’m pausing all paid subscriptions starting now and for the foreseeable future. I won’t be keeping a regular publishing schedule in 2026 (more on this later) so it seems reasonable to pause payments for a time. If you are a paid subscriber, there’s nothing you have to do. Substack will handle it for you. If and when I decide to resume paid subscriptions, I will certainly give you a heads up.
Two: This post was originally shared in December 2023. While we’re a few days past the Winter Solstice, I’m still contemplating what it means to dwell in darkness for a time, especially as we welcome the light and joy Christmastime often brings. I hope you enjoy this reflection, and Merry Christmas. 🎄✨
As a girl, I was terrified of the dark.
I especially disliked being outside alone at night. This didn’t happen often. There would be the occasional need to run out to the car, after the sun had set, to grab whatever I’d left behind earlier in the day. Given that I grew up on the outskirts of a small town, there were no street lights, no lights from neighbors’ houses, and even our porch light didn’t illuminate much beyond the porch itself.
The only way I knew how to endure my fear of being out there was to run to the car as fast as I could, collect whatever item I needed, and then dash back to the house with all the speed my little body could muster.
Mission accomplished, I’d think to myself. I made it back into the light.
Darkness is an experience most of us avoid. With good reason, I suppose. Unless you’re a nocturnal creature, finding your way in the dark is difficult. The raccoons, the opossums, the bobcats and the foxes move with total confidence under the darkened hues of a night sky. I wish I was more like them.
Darkness also evokes uncertainty. We step into the shadows any time we lean into the unfamiliar or unknown. In doing so, we’re certain to bump up against things we didn’t even know existed inside of us, much like running into furniture in a poorly lit room. We do our best but without illumination, we can’t always know if we’re making the “best” or “right” choices. This can be a nightmare for those of us who are addicted to illusions of control.
Darkness is intriguing because even with all the discomfort, fear and uncertainty it brings, we need it. Like seeds need the black hiddenness of the soil and like human life needs the dark covering of a womb, newness emerges from the darkest of places.
Surely, I’m not telling you anything new here. It’s a tale as old as time itself,
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.1
Creation mysteriously flows from the hidden and uncertain places.
Somehow, and in some way, the darkness makes room for new life.
In his book, The Dark Night of the Soul, Gerald May explores how the obscurity of “dark night” experiences makes room for transformation.
He says,
“In speaking of la noche oscura, the dark night of the soul, [John of the Cross] is addressing something mysterious and unknown, but by no means sinister or evil.
It is instead profoundly sacred and precious beyond all imagining. It is the secret way in which God not only liberates us from our attachments and idolatries, but also brings us to the realization of our true nature.The night is the means by which we find our heart’s desire, our freedom for love.”
The liberating activity generated in dark night seasons doesn’t necessarily make said seasons comfortable or easy. In my observation, quite the opposite tends to unfold. And yet, there is the possibility that if we let the darkness, the uncertainty and the periods of not knowing have their way with us, then maybe we’ll find our way to an inner freedom from the attachments and passions that cause ourselves and others so much harm.
Of course, this is a mystery. It requires a degree of surrender and trust. Trust that the hardest things we walk through won’t last forever. Trust that even in the midst of profound loneliness, love holds us. Trust that the trouble won’t last always.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re approaching the longest night of the year.
As we inch closer to the Winter Solstice on December 21st, darkness blankets even more of our waking hours. Because of electricity, we can often move through this darkness relatively unfazed. But what might it look like to enter in to the long dark night? To be shaped, changed and perhaps liberated by it?
We enter humanity’s long dark night when we stay present to the horrors and genocide facing the Palestinian people. When we keep watch, raise our voices, and pray.
We enter more fully into our own dark nights when we surrender to the painful disorientation of all that we cannot control, refusing to numb or hide.
What might it look like to stand under life’s dark night skies and to resist the temptation to run back inside? What safety and what wisdom might we find out there?
I ask these questions because I’m living them. As someone who still very much so fears the dark, I’m wondering what it might look like to trust the hidden processes of Love that make for growth, transformation and healing.
Every so often, I have a sleepless night.
Worry takes my brain by storm and it’s as though my very best evening routine doesn’t quite grant my spirit the rest she longs for. I’ve made peace with this, as it just seems to be the way of things.
On my most recent sleepless night, I found myself lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, annoyed that my dog was also restless in his crate. But what can you do? Getting up and working at 3 AM seemed ill-fitting. Talking to someone wasn’t an option. All I could do was lay there and wait. So I laid there and waited. And waited. And waited.
And then, surely enough, a glimmer of light broke through the window. I knew that at least for a time, the darkness was over.
I hope and pray that however you’re moving through these midwinter days, that you have what you need to be wholehearted and well. If you find yourself in the midst of a night that is dark and long, may you also find grace to lie there, to wait, and to trust in a coming dawn.
Be well, friends. Take it easy and take care.
Bethaney
In the Loop
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Genesis 1:2