Dark night of the soul - companions or a solitary path?

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greybeard

Well-known member
Re: Dark night of the soul

Mexican sayings are an interesting world....

"Entre dicho y hecho hay mucho trecho" -- my good friend, Juan Sanchez Balderrama

Hmm....just noticed the quote from Lao Tzu, on the OP's post........just what he/she needs to put to work. If you're all alone, solitary.....use it to grow, go with the flow. Cooperate with the situations life leads you to.

Mark Twain said, "“Only Bunyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, the author of Don Quixote, & a few other people have had the best of opportunities for working, in this world. Solitary imprisonment, by compulsion, is the one perfect condition for perfect performance ... Then his work becomes his pleasure, his recreation, his absorption, his uplifting & all-satisfying enthusiasm. He is miserable only when the work-day closes. And yet a man so circumstanced need never be actually miserable; for he can weave his fancies & continue his work in his head until sleep overtakes him. He lives in a fairer world than any that is outside, he moves in a goodlier company than any that others know, & over them he is king & they obey him.”

Charles Goodyear spent his many visits to debtor's prison working toward the invention of vulcanization. You can do things in solitude that are impossible in the company of others.

Sometimes I find it hard to understand the attitude of "most people".... we are always trying to impose our personal will on our destiny, make it be what we think we want it to be, or what it "should be." I wonder why Jesus said, "Not my will but thine be done." He was "going with the flow" and subjecting himself to the divine will, the will of the Cosmos. A person can submit willingly and cooperate with destiny, or he can fight it and end up doing what he would not against his will....either way the path is the same. Conscious, or unconscious?

We try to "read into" our horoscope what we think we would like. But the reality in which we find ourselves in the Here and Now is what the "horoscope" intends, and nothing else. Yet we look to the past and its pleasant days, or dream of some future that may never come.....When all we have is Now. What a waste of time and energy, what a delusion we create for ourselves. I wonder why the Hindus and Bhuddists say that enlightenment comes through "overcoming" desire, and The Gita condemns "fanciful hopes".

Food for thought, ideas by which to guide our lives....

You think you have problems? My toilet stopped up. I thought it was a wad of paper...I put the plunger to it, ran a snake down it -- nothing. So I got the torch and crawled under the house and heated the line to the main. "What a good boy am I", I thought. Went back into the house and all the stuff in the toilet came up in the shower. Definitely ice, but not just in the feeder line from the toilet to the main sewer outlet. Hmm.....I have a monstrous ice plug downstream. Hope the spring thaw comes early; I hope I don't have to wait until Saturn (blockage) leaves Scorpio (waste elimination)...

A few years ago one of the water lines under the house froze and split open. I didn't know it for a while, and when I discovered the problem there was a lake of water over a foot deep under the whole house. Snow on the ground almost knee-deep. There was only one way to get at the main shutoff valve under the house. I stripped down to my underwear and went under the house in that frigid water. And on top of that, I live alone and have for many years. Fate is so cruel.

It's just my personal opinion, but I don't think astrologers should have to go swimming in icy water. But, Not my will but thine be done.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
Thanks to all for your lovely replies, all so helpful. I am starting to empower myself now by just taking this time for myself and bring choosy who I spend time with and why. I have to comfort myself at this time, while I deal with what is happening just near me. I do wonder though, if there is a reason why I felt the need to work for friendship, and also love. I have a couple of friends who want to see me, but to get something out of me, whether its to listen to them or to do them a favour. I've known for a long time that one friend I am always going to visit her house, in the year and a half I've been at this address she has only visited me once. I think I have been too giving, somehow slipped into that role over the years. I've always felt the need to say yes as I don't like to feel I couldn't help someone out. I guess that's just the way I am, but now it seems the right time to change this. I think I need to put up some more boundaries in that sense. Maybe that's an effect of transiting Saturn in my 11th house overcoming the effect of my open and welcome and giving ascendant.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
Re: Dark night of the soul

We try to "read into" our horoscope what we think we would like.
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I am unclear as to where I was doing this. This was not the purpose of my original question. I was not reading anything into my horoscope.


greybeard said:
Mexican sayings are an interesting world....

"Entre dicho y hecho hay mucho trecho" -- my good friend, Juan Sanchez Balderrama

Hmm....just noticed the quote from Lao Tzu, on the OP's post........just what he/she needs to put to work. If you're all alone, solitary.....use it to grow, go with the flow. Cooperate with the situations life leads you to.

Mark Twain said, "“Only Bunyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, the author of Don Quixote, & a few other people have had the best of opportunities for working, in this world. Solitary imprisonment, by compulsion, is the one perfect condition for perfect performance ... Then his work becomes his pleasure, his recreation, his absorption, his uplifting & all-satisfying enthusiasm. He is miserable only when the work-day closes. And yet a man so circumstanced need never be actually miserable; for he can weave his fancies & continue his work in his head until sleep overtakes him. He lives in a fairer world than any that is outside, he moves in a goodlier company than any that others know, & over them he is king & they obey him.”

Charles Goodyear spent his many visits to debtor's prison working toward the invention of vulcanization. You can do things in solitude that are impossible in the company of others.

Sometimes I find it hard to understand the attitude of "most people".... we are always trying to impose our personal will on our destiny, make it be what we think we want it to be, or what it "should be." I wonder why Jesus said, "Not my will but thine be done." He was "going with the flow" and subjecting himself to the divine will, the will of the Cosmos. A person can submit willingly and cooperate with destiny, or he can fight it and end up doing what he would not against his will....either way the path is the same. Conscious, or unconscious?

We try to "read into" our horoscope what we think we would like. But the reality in which we find ourselves in the Here and Now is what the "horoscope" intends, and nothing else. Yet we look to the past and its pleasant days, or dream of some future that may never come.....When all we have is Now. What a waste of time and energy, what a delusion we create for ourselves. I wonder why the Hindus and Bhuddists say that enlightenment comes through "overcoming" desire, and The Gita condemns "fanciful hopes".

Food for thought, ideas by which to guide our lives....

You think you have problems? My toilet stopped up. I thought it was a wad of paper...I put the plunger to it, ran a snake down it -- nothing. So I got the torch and crawled under the house and heated the line to the main. "What a good boy am I", I thought. Went back into the house and all the stuff in the toilet came up in the shower. Definitely ice, but not just in the feeder line from the toilet to the main sewer outlet. Hmm.....I have a monstrous ice plug downstream. Hope the spring thaw comes early; I hope I don't have to wait until Saturn (blockage) leaves Scorpio (waste elimination)...

A few years ago one of the water lines under the house froze and split open. I didn't know it for a while, and when I discovered the problem there was a lake of water over a foot deep under the whole house. Snow on the ground almost knee-deep. There was only one way to get at the main shutoff valve under the house. I stripped down to my underwear and went under the house in that frigid water. And on top of that, I live alone and have for many years. Fate is so cruel.

It's just my personal opinion, but I don't think astrologers should have to go swimming in icy water. But, Not my will but thine be done.
Click to expand...



I realise that I am in the now, and my now is the worst place I have ever been, truly. No dreams, no wishes, no pie in the sky. I am at a place stripped bare of any superficialities and nonsense, facing my worst fear which until now I have never been realistic about....

I appreciate your thoughts and will try to flow as my signature says. Its there to remind me to do so! I am worried about loosing someone close to me, someone who is part of me, a huge part of me, which is quite hard for me to flow with just now (to put it mildly). It is the one thing in life that my logical mind knows without a doubt that there is absolutely nothing I can do to change or stop, but my heart, with every fibre of its being, wishes it could change or stop. I can let go of everything, except this. Ironically I teach about letting go in my classes. I can usually flow with anything. I will take all the pain if I could just make this person better.
 
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StillOne

StillOne

Well-known member
Neptune Rising said:
Thanks to all for your lovely replies, all so helpful. I am starting to empower myself now by just taking this time for myself and bring choosy who I spend time with and why. I have to comfort myself at this time, while I deal with what is happening just near me. I do wonder though, if there is a reason why I felt the need to work for friendship, and also love. I have a couple of friends who want to see me, but to get something out of me, whether its to listen to them or to do them a favour. I've known for a long time that one friend I am always going to visit her house, in the year and a half I've been at this address she has only visited me once. I think I have been too giving, somehow slipped into that role over the years. I've always felt the need to say yes as I don't like to feel I couldn't help someone out. I guess that's just the way I am, but now it seems the right time to change this. I think I need to put up some more boundaries in that sense. Maybe that's an effect of transiting Saturn in my 11th house overcoming the effect of my open and welcome and giving ascendant.
Click to expand...
Wow, so much like my experience lately (We're also relatively close in age, I'm 39). I would chalk up the giving and being supportive as helping your karma. However, helping the world starts with helping yourself first. It's a time for personal expansion and empowerment imo. You'll come to find who your true friends are in this time.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
StillOne said:
Wow, so much like my experience lately (We're also relatively close in age, I'm 39). I would chalk up the giving and being supportive as helping your karma. However, helping the world starts with helping yourself first. It's a time for personal expansion and empowerment imo. You'll come to find who your true friends are in this time.
Click to expand...

Oh wow I never realised! Thank you. Very true though and I'm so grateful to have been able to discuss this in this thread, as a way to understand and process.
 
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greybeard

Well-known member
Jeddu Krishnamurti maintained that the ONLY way to know oneself is through relationships.... relationships with people, things, ideas, and even our own inner world. He goes on to say that the only way to grow is by observation...not psychologocial techniques, astrological studies, strict austerities......Observe yourself -- your reactions, responses, thoughts, feelings, compulsions -- and you will find the way through.

You say you would take all the pain if you could fix Whatshername, and that your friends use you...

Is there a pattern here? Is is nicely described by that Martyr on your Ascendant?
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
Caprising said:
I'm not sure that Neptune Rising was suggesting that her friends were using her, I got the impression that she was verbalising her dissappointment that they hadn't responded to her need for support as she would have for them, and how would they know that she needed some support if they don't have a similar makeup/chart!
Moon in pisces conjunct jup. indicates that ones emotional life is tied to ones mothers, not an easy combo when ones mother starts to show the signs of aging. It's frustrating watching them suffer, and forces one to question just what kind of loving god/universe would allow this suffering to span out over weeks/months/years, it's no wonder Nep feels a bit let down/disappointed in this regard. I have spent a few years preparing myself for my parents eventual death but when the time does come I'm sure that I will find myself a bit unprepared, but am thinking that once they do pass and leave their earthly shell behind I will sense them watching over me, they will be free again while i'm still imprisoned, learning tough lessons on the earth plane!
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Yes thank you, I'm trying to get this across. My original question was just a way to discuss experiences in times of crisis, and friendships\support from the outside, whether they were there or not. I didn't intent originally to go into the reasons for my crisis, as its very personal and I only want to draw healing energy to it but after an earlier post I felt the need to bring this up. Thanks for understanding Caprising, you hit the nail on the head and I appreciate that! I am so entwined in the crisis, I feel their pain, I just hate to see them suffer and that's the only person on earth who truly understands me. What happened last year came as a shock, I haven't handled it very well but I know the power of healing, thoughts/intentions, so that's the only place I have any faith in at the moment. Funny you should mention afterlife, I often go to spiritualist churches, and when the mediums come to me, I almost always get a message from my mum's mum. Its comforting, and also frustrating that I cannot also talk to her. But, I've started to understand how they get the messages, and now and then pieces of the puzzle start to fit together and I 'get' something.

But, I understand now and accept this is a solitary path, in truth. Ironically, I decided to turn down a couple of friends in the last few days, and one of them came to my house to bring me some flu remedies today (I had a bit of flu). So I'm thinking I have no support and I do, which was so touching.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
I thought I'd better clarify, in case, that I am not wanting to escape this time myself. I am not inviting it either, it just is and I am in it, that's the way it is. Tears come, anguish, its all part of the process which I am living. One thing its doing, its certainly grounding me.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
All, this discussion has veered off topic now, I didn't want to go into the reasons for why I feel this way, because it is deeply personal and I don't want these feelings just to be stepped on as they have been by one poster. I am in tears. Future posts, if any, please only on the topic of companions on these journeys. My questions though have been answered by some very helpful and compassionate people and I am really grateful for their understanding.
 
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lazarusx

Well-known member
Neptune Rising said:
For me, I love people, but now find myself without what I term, any true friends. Three or four years back, I cut my circle of friends down as my own life path changed, became more healthier and didn't blend with the prior friendship's social activities. Now, I am going through a very painful process and have found, the few friends that I had left, just haven't been there for me. Its been sad as I thought these were true friends, but they've just vanished. I have no one to bounce my ideas off and feel quite isolated. I do have self awareness, through meditation and the energy that creates (awareness meditation opposed to other types), which helps me to step back and see my situation. When I would have loved a friend to just send me a message to ask how I was, there was nothing. Maybe I expect more as I do so much more for my friends, so need to let these expectations go.

For me, I am learning to be content in isolation, rather than lonely, though much of my life has been quite lonely. Or it seems to be more of an emphasis on the lonliness, perhaps because I find that most painful. There have been happy times too. Perhaps that is the lesson of the north node conjunct neptune in the 12th house, square Moon (bla bla) in isolation. :andy: Though at times, I get fed up with it.
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Solitary.

I would say i've been going through this process for close to 2 years now, i wont call it a dark night of the soul because everyone has their own perspectives on what that means to them, but the theme is very much the same.

There's a genuine feeling of isolation and loneliness on a level that even i have difficulty describing, my experience has been that of a relentless stripping away of identity structures; realizing you don't exist beyond your own imagination, while paradoxically struggling to maintain a sense of self.

Last year i made a decision to just leave everything behind.. I went to Europe and spent almost a year traveling around on my own, i felt that i needed to do this; i wasn't sure why but i just had a need to be on my own.. i realized in this time of been alone on a whole new level (non-english countries) that i was learning how to live without attachment; i came back earlier this year quite literally feeling at home anywhere in the world, because the idea of 'comfort' associated through people,environment and routine had been dissolved.

What cut deep was falling in love oversea's, lead by the illusion that someone had pulled me out of the shadows and shun a light on me only to realize that the light was temporary... and only that which is eternal permeates from within.

What i noticed in my experience is the difficulties we encounter during this period are usually lessons in letting go, and it's not until we actually let go that we realize we created all that agony and pain by holding on. That for me is the fundamental purpose of the Dark Night.. the loneliness we experience is divine, we're just unable to percive it from within the shadows.

To sympathize i have drifted from friends, in retrospect i came to realize they were more-so friends out of convenience whereby we shared a common intrest and thus fulfilled a mutual benefit towards each other. Which is generally how friendships develop, as do relationships. But as you let go of old habits,routines and structures so to do you let go of people.

I find this verse to resonate highly with the entire process:

Corinthians 15:31 "I die daily"

Slightly unrelated:

I had an interesting experience which helped me better understand my situation. When i first skydived, i went through the whole process of fear>confrontation>liberation. The fear continued to rise until it hit a climax, this climax created a confrontation and i made a conscious decision to jump, to take a leap of faith.. to surrender control over my life. And the moment i jumped.. i ceased to exist.
 
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bittermoon

bittermoon

Well-known member
wow, lazarusx, i can so relate to your post. your name looked familiar to me and i looked up your chart and then i remembered, we share the same birthday (but not year). you also are dealing with t. pluto opposing your sun, and this will go on for a while.

what you describe is also very plutonian.

"...my experience has been that of a relentless stripping away of identity structures; realizing you don't exist beyond your own imagination, while paradoxically struggling to maintain a sense of self."

i can SO relate to that. i am a loner by heart, and i've never felt lonely up until last year, when it started. i desperately tried to hold onto someone who in the end pushed me off the cliff and it has been a very difficult journey. a wake up call for sure. i often feel i don't belong anywhere. i meet people and i talk to them and i just can't seem to relate to any of them.

i am learning how to live without attachment. am forced to, rather and it's very difficult for me, because deepdown i'm still a cancer sun and a scorpio moon... i hold on, i don't let go easily. i need to learn how to surrender and to have faith in the universe showing me my path. it will be interesting to see how we'll all emerge from this.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
Very interesting lazarusx, I can relate to this feeling at home anywhere. I got a similar thing when I went through a moving house marathon, I think 7 or 8 times within two years.

I totally agree about letting go, except to one person I don't want to let go. I am talking about letting go of life. Someone close, (closer than anyone on earth) to me is not well and is suffering as a result of a near death experience. In this sense, I will hold onto them for as long as I possibly can,or until their wish changes. I know I will have to let go one day, but not yet. I also understand the power of faith and healing, so this is what I am holding on to. It is family (Moon) and I am so closely linked (Pisces) that I may never let go. I don't have a problem with that at all. That's not my query or concern. I can handle my attachment in that sense. I understand about detachment, I've been on 3 ten day silent meditation retreats, which is a total detachment, well that's how I found it to be and I really found myself, accepted myself and understood myself during those times and since - they helped me develop.

Interesting though, I think in some way, I choose to be alone at this time. Even if I was to go round to a friends for a tea and biscuits, I am just not in the mood for chatting. This is definatly a time for processing, contemplating, awareness meditation which I do while doing anything else - just being aware of what I am feeling, thinking, doing, being aware when I am crying, just being aware. Though, I will go to a spiritualist church, I am in the mood for feeling spirit and listening to spirit and maybe receiving a message from spirits. Lol, Neptune is coming to conjunct my already Piscean Moon and progressed Sun, I may even see spirit later!

I know I am going through a painful time, but on the whole, it is ok, I understand it though from time to time, I do drown in it and get engulfed in it and anguish in it. I think today is just a good day and the sun has come out after what seems like months.
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
I can compare what I am going through a bit to this song by REM....
except, that there is no ME, its funny though I feel I am loosing my sense of 'me'. So what I am loosing is almost unfathomable. Perhaps this is the Neptune conjuncting my Moon and prog Sun as well as Pluto square a 9th house Pluto. Heaven knows what will happen when Uranus comes to my Nadir shortly, to bring an earthquake.

Though, as I do surrender to what is happening, as I have no other choice, there is a sense of peace and clarity. I came across this during the silent meditation retreats that I sometimes go on, sitting for 10 days just meditating, no talking, eye contact, writing, nothing, just meditating. Its a total 'let go' and shows just how many attachments we have. But some attachments I am holding onto no matter what the esoteric teachings I have so embedded over the years. I am a sentimental Piscean Moon with Saturn in Cancer, family, history, roots are important to me. Its about finding a balance between letting go and holding on.

Oh life, it's bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I've said too much
I've said enough

That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
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serafin5

serafin5

Well-known member
To Neptune Rising: My heart goes out to you as I have had many of those "dark nights". I was even married during quite a few but I was still totally and utterly alone. Ive lost quite a few people at a pretty young age so I have often thought about being alone vs lonliness and its not the same is it? And yet I know people that dont even know what a "dark night of the soul" is. I was going through a lot of physical pain at these times too so I wasnt good company anyway.....

But later when its over I had such an appreciation for when I was feeling much better that these nights inspired a gratefullness (sp?)!! They are definately times that I reflect on and the thoughts and feelings that I had on these nights.

This will come to an end and people and friends will start to once again show up in your life creating new dramas and situations till the next time you may need to really think about the people in our lives.

God bless
S5
 
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Neptune Rising

Well-known member
Thanks Serafin, I appreciate your kind words.
Its up and down, mostly down. I have never lost anyone really close to me, I can be thankful for that. But I am so attached to this one person and to see them suffer and be powerless to help, well there is nothing I can do but just go through it.

I have always been a little self destructive, more so when I was younger, a little reckless. I am starting to feel that way again now, but being more self aware, I can imagine its because I have lost faith in some goodness in the Universe. So its like, if the Universe doesn't care, then why should I. But it is probably the other way round in reality. Though, I wore myself out emotionally recently, and laid up with flu actually powerless for a number of days. I think that illness helped me to settle a little into a sense of surrender.


I am sorry to anyone if I over reacted earlier in the thread.
 
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