What On Earth Is Endarkenment?

Spiritual enlightenment is the attainment of Divine Light.

Spiritual endarkenment is the experience of the Sacred Dark.

While at first glance, endarkenment may seem to be in polar opposition to enlightenment, this is illusion.

Finding the Balance of Light and Dark

Taiji: Yin-Yang Symbol © Wicca-Spirituality.com

Like the yin-yang symbol, enlightenment is incomplete without endarkenment. Both are necessary to the evolution of your soul and spirit.

After all, a bird with only one wing cannot fly.

What Is Spiritual Endarkenment?

Spiritual endarkenment is the full embodiment of the Goddess within you.

Yet even Wicca, with its celebration of the Sacred Dark and the Goddess, has so far only minimally developed the practice of incarnating the Divine.

The potential for so much more integration of the Goddess in the world is exhilarating. It's a natural outgrowth of Wiccan philosophy, and a crucial step in full self-realization.

For ways to experience the Goddess Within, please see this article.

The Dark Has Gotten A Negative Reputation

Although culturally, and almost worldwide, there is an association of darkness with negativity, harm, ignorance, and evil, this is too simple an interpretation.

Our perception of blackness has been flavoured by a cultural rejection of material life in all its forms . . .

Earth,

Body,

Feminine,

Goddess.

Yet the Dark has a beauty and power all its own.

It's ironic that this culture — which is so based in materialism that it acknowledges the existence only of what our senses can perceive — simultaneously derides the material realm, as listed above.

The Potent Beauty Of Blackness

White materials reflect all colours back; they are impervious to the subtle nuances of light. Black materials take in all the colour-variations of light.

Light reflects. Black absorbs.

This hints at the Power of the Sacred Dark . . .

It is the power to take the Divine into yourself . . .

the ability to yield your "self" to Something greater.

This is usually understand, in spiritual practices, as emptying yourself of personality aspects and ego-attachments, and letting the Divine Light fill you.

But the Dark is just as sacred as the Light. It is part of the Light. You can no more achieve Light without Dark than you can get strength without nourishment.

Can't Have One Without The Other

This is the fatal flaw in the escapist religions. They've attempted . . .

to attain Spirit by alienating the embodied Soul,

to achieve Light by repressing Darkness,

to reach Heaven by destroying Earth.

But if we ignore spiritual endarkenment in our pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, we end up spaced-out, in denial, or repressing . . . and acting out our "dark side" on innocent bystanders.

Balancing The Wheel

As Witches, we honour both sides of the Wheel, the Yin as well as the Yang, the Dark as well as the Light.

So Wicca makes it clear that spiritual enlightenment by itself isn't enough. We also need spiritual endarkenment.

It is the equal balance of the two that frees us!

Neither the Light nor the Dark is dominant.

Beyond Light And Dark

What is there past the boundaries of the physical universe, the boundaries of material existence and time? Only Energy and Consciousness.

It is ludicrous to try to establish one as primary.

That presupposes that they can be separated, when in fact Consciousness is Energy, Energy is Consciousness.

That is why we can't reach full self-realization without embodying both the Light and the Dark. Without one or the other, we only experience half of Divinity, only half of Reality.

Incorporating the Goddess Within

Spiritual endarkenment is the full embodiment of being alive, being human, being animal, being Divine Made Manifest.

This is the process of immersing yourself in the Manifest Goddess — Divine Mother as She appears in material form.

This is true not only in Wicca but in all spiritual evolution. The difference is, Wiccans reclaim the Dark, while other traditions use different words.

In Eastern yoga, for instance, there is much talk of enlightenment, and also much talk of devotion and service to Divine Mother.

It is clearly understood that you must . . .

Take the Divine Mother within you,
Offer Her your body, mind, and speech to enact Her will in the world, and
Acknowledge Her existence in — and thus the divinity of — all beings, animate and inanimate.

This devotion makes every breath, every thought, every action in the world sacred.

This is the practical worship of the Great Goddess, and it is the fulfillment of spiritual endarkenment.

With Brightest Blessings,

erin Dragonsong