Book Review: Waking Up to the Dark

Waking up to the Dark: The Black Madonna's Gospel for An Age of Extinction and Collapse

Clark Strand

Tags: Mysticism, spirituality, nature

Book Cover Summary: Is darkness synonymous with ignorance and evil? Or is it the original matrix from which all life emerges, and the Mother to whom it returns? Higher and higher levels of artificial illumination have suppressed our contact with the numinous since the Industrial Revolution, with dire consequences for society, our planetary ecology, and our souls. This mystical testament weaves together paleobiology, memoir, history, science, and spiritual archaeology to lead readers back into the lost mysteries of the dark. Not since The Teachings of Don Juan or Ishmael has a book diagnosed with such urgency and cultural coherence the problems at the heart of modern life.

Reinventurer’s Book Review: Living in the country as I do, it has been a delight to look up in the sky at night to clearly see the Milky Way, the constellations, and cyclical meteor showers I never saw when living in the city.  Over thirty years, the darkness has been diluted by the encroaching city lights making it harder to see the wonders that live above and beyond us.  This distancing from the dark is what Strand speaks to, and our need to connect with the nature and wonders we can no longer see with the naked eye and make no time for in our busy lives.

Here's what stuck with me after reading this book.  I no longer fight the insomnia I get sometimes between two and three in the morning.  This is part of an ancient circadian rhythm we have lost.  Now I get up and read, write poetry, meditate, or, best of all, step outside.  There in the dark I breathe in the fresh night air.  Listen to the night sounds happening all around me.  Look up into the sky and connect with something greater than myself and my problems. And, more likely than not, I crawl back in bed and go right to sleep. For this alone, the book is worth your read. 

Questions to Ponder and Discuss:

What is your relationship with the dark?

What types of rituals and habits have you created for getting the rest you need?

In what ways does nature support your spiritualism?