The Dark Angel

...is a consciousness that works int he darkness because it is at home there.

I am currently reading Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore, and it's proving to be quite a hard read, taking a lot of time to assimilate the facts that he writes about. I read this part on the bus this morning, and it struck me as very interesting:

"In your darkness you may discover a part of you that is essential to your being, but unfamiliar. The darkness doesn't exactly come from outside, but is a revelation of something in your nature. In your black moods and dark fears you find an essential part of yourself."

"However you present yourself to the world, on some level you are a dark person. You have thoughts you don't usually tell people. You are capable of things that your friends may know nothing about. You are probably more interesting sexually than the world realizes. You probably have some anger and fears that you don't tell people about. You may have secrets from your past that make you more intriguing than your persona would suggest. Certainly your potential for darker thoughts and behavior is rich."

"We all have qualities that are opposed to the ones we want the world to see. Some are innocuous, some serious. This material we repress holds large quantities of vitality. We supress it out of anxiety, fearful of what would happen if it ever got out."

"Socially we usually try to present ourselves in the best light. We may have to pretend that we are brighter and more innocent that we actually are. We may do this so often that we come to believe it and feel cut off from the dark spirits in us we have hidden from the world. But all this dark material is extremely valuable, especially in times of tragedy and conflict, when an unsentimental, lunar attitude would be most helpful."

Interesting, don't you think so?

Excerpts from "Dark Nights of the Soul" by Thomas Moore. 2004. Piatkus Books Ltd.