Dark Night of a Lightworker

Walking the Spiral

This year I am older than my Dad ever got.

It is making my personal walk into the labyrinth more challenging than I have experienced in a while.

When you are on a healing path, towards self-awareness, and expansion, facing your traumas becomes more of a detached observance than a full stripping of your defenses. One can look, with more healed, and grounded eyes at your life and experiences.

That is the moral compass of spirituality. Have you released, forgiven, let go, surrendered, and moved on?

It has many times been a question I have held myself to account for…

So for the sake of authenticity, I am sharing my own dark night of the soul, or more correctly, my third.

Yes, senior lightworkers have them as well!

Also, don't go thinking you're done with shadow work after your first Dark Night.

I have learned through this process, that letting go is sometimes a gradual release, more than a sudden and finite moment. There is a trick to it, of not wanting it, or striving for it, or trying to grasp it. It is the art of surrender. The art of acceptance and the art of flow intertwined.

Urging people to forgive is one of the most spiritually bypassing ideas, we as well-intentioned friends often advise.

As I approached my 50th, I looked back to what I thought 50 would be, in my thirties. I thought, wow, I have come so far already, I will be a spiritual Rockstar at 50. Two years into regular attendance at ceremony, as well as the beginning of my shamanic training.

My ego is still at play, both high and low.

In the spiritual community, you will find all types. Some beautiful souls, some misguided souls, some imposters. False light is the cardinal sin of spirituality, for which we are of course VERY forgiving. Yet aware.

Healing is a lifelong commitment. Expanding your consciousness and understanding is the focal point of it all.

Many will realize quite quickly, that it is never a straight line. More like an ascending, and sometimes descending spiral.

We will also realize, as we emerge from these dark nights, that we are renewed, restored, and often shinier than ever.

I remember contemplating suicide at times, prior to my dad's death. After his death, I was thrown into a depth of sadness so deep, I vowed never to think of it again. The pain I was feeling was so shattering, that I would never, ever, opt out and leave my son alone in this often cruel world.

My 49th walk around the spiral that is this embodiment, has been rigorous and difficult. I realized this was not my first dark night of the soul. I can track back through my past, two more, before this one. One at 18 after giving birth to my oldest son. One at 23 after my Dad's suicide, and the family aftermath connected with that.

Abusive relationships and toxic experiences became my entire life for the better part of the decade following these tragedies.

Then I found the Sweatlodge…or maybe it found me? Either way, I found deeper, more meaningful healing through those healing ceremonies, than I ever found, anywhere in the world up to that point. From 18 to 28, I was an absolute mess.

I crawled on my hands and knees out of those lodges. Those Galactic Wombs of All that is Sacred. Collapsing onto the muddy ground, as the creek roared heavy with rainfall. My perspectives renewed, and my spirit reconnected.

I will walk in reverence and deep gratitude to all the elders who showed up for me for the rest of the time, this walk and the next.

Today, I can feel my light returning to me ever so tentatively. The last three years, so full of segregation, and global distress, mirrored within my own constructs. The inner wrestling match on this particular dark night has been deemed necessary.

I mean this was deep, invasive, and ugly.

Literally. Matted hair, and unstoppable tears.

I have been forced to face all remnants of agony I had not yet had the strength to process. It was ruthless. It was terrifying. It was necessary.

In the thick of it, i realized, that this wasn't just my Dark Night…it was humanities. That all Lightworkers, all the good people and newly waking people of Earth were collectively plunged into these realms.

And, like my own preference to walk the ascending spiral, we had to backtrack a little to be propelled forward exponentially.

This is where I am…This is where we are. On time and in excellent standing to expand towards our highest potential…Together.

Thank you for reading my Dark Nights Journey. I hope you will come along as I continue to grow towards the light. Embodying, anchoring, and assimilating the vast array of experiences that go towards each of our contributing forces, that ARE the eternal library of humanity.

Bless each and every one of you, my human family, as we navigate sometimes unspeakably hostile realities, knowing, there is a light within…that will NEVER be extinguished.

With All my Love and Blessings

Sarah St. Erth