Are you ready to enter into the tomb/womb?

TO KNOW THE DARK

To go into the dark with a light, is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark.  Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

For as long as there is a human record, humans have been going into the earth for sanctuary from the wild elements and animals, but also into sacred or spiritual space. From our cave painting ancestors found all over the planet, to the Taoists, Buddhists, Gnostics, Phocaens and the Greeks like Parmenides, and Asklepious and his healing dream sanctuaries, the mystics have been going dark. By entering into these dark spaces, humans have entered into altered states that allow for a softening of the edges of our rigid sense of reality, aided by a fasting from distractions of our day world that also affirm the rigidity of our identities.

In my spiritual journey, I have found myself drawn to these underworld chambers, and the practices that go with them. There are countless ceremonies and practices, like vision fasts, the long cloistered retreats of eastern and western monks, and those of the Kogi people of Columbia, as well as the plant medicines of peoples all around the world, and they all invite us to step out of our comfortable states of consciousness, to loosen our grip on a consensus based reality, and confront what lies below the surface of our personal and cultural identities an the attitudes, biases, blind spots, and personal and collective shadow.

The abaton, a greek word for sacred place or portal to the sacred, has been used in dream incubation for the sake of healing, as well as touching the divine, accessing the Apollonian mysteries, entering into the underworld by the grace of Hermes, and being gifted deeper personal and collective gifts that has shaped the foundations of our world. They intuitively knew as Einstein did, that you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it. They knew that to move into an uncertain future, they needed to seek truths beyond the limited scope of their imagination, what was historically possible and familiar, and certainly beyond reason.

I use the abaton in my personal practice in the same way, both for the sake of personal growth and evolution, but also for the collective. Some courageous clients have also used the abaton under my guidance and companionship as part of their deeper journey.