Dark Night of the Soul

In 2019 I went to Rythmia in Costa Rica to do the plant medicine ayahuasca. During my second trip in July I experienced my first "death", also called "living death" or "ego death", a form of briefly crossing over and feeling incredible intense feelings of love and bliss and sometimes some visuals.

Two weeks before my third trip in December I had a vision of sitting in front of the shaman and stating "my intention is to die." For those two weeks I kept seeing an image of a snake shedding its skin. By the time I arrived at Rythmia I knew that the intention stated was for the entire week. I did not know how it would play out and had no expectations. I experienced seven deaths over a five night period. Most of them were quite spectacular. One of them I saw myself buried and was told "know when you die that you are loved."

Since returning home from that December trip I have made some major life changes including disposing of most of my personal possessions, moving to another state to live with the woman I love and retiring from the corporate IT world after over 40 years.

Almost six months has gone by since returning and what I am experiencing is that the eight deaths on ayahuasca were only the beginning. What is happening is that I am going through a process sometimes called the Dark Night of the Soul. I have gone through periods of intense emotional release, other periods of intense dreaming. A couple of weeks ago I dreamed that I was driving in a car on a street I knew growing up, it was snowing, the car kept accelerating and went out of control and I knew that I was going to die. I screamed and woke up my partner.

What I have learned in the last six months is that all must enter the Dark Night of the Soul or spiritual crisis, perhaps many times during the cyclical process of evolution during the spiritual ascension process. This ascension process or path is what we, my partner and I, are being guided on daily and the various things we do take up most of our day.

The planet too is undergoing a global level of the Dark Night of the Planetary Collective Soul during this current "ascension cycle", a cycle which occurs once every 26,000 years, and is a fascinating concept to study and experience on a daily basis.

In meditation today I learned that my Dark Night of the Soul is going to last a while, maybe a year or more. My partner went through it a few years ago and it took her a while too. To go through this is in one sense an exercise in trust and surrender. We have surrendered to the process and that sustains us during the difficult moments.

I believe that a lot of people may be experiencing something similar during this time on our planet. If you are, hang in there. This too shall pass.