Into the Heart of Darkness

There's a scene in my novel, The MoonQuest, where one of the characters, horrified by the tyranny that has overtaken neighboring lands, describes the land itself as inherently malevolent.

"I will never set foot in that place again. It is evil. The land itself is evil," Fara says to Toshar, the book's main character.

I thought of that scene a few days ago while driving through Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas.

So called because it follows a dramatic bend in the Rio Grande River, the park is a vast and remote desertscape of mountains, plains and river oases — awe-inspiring in its natural beauty.

Is beauty, however, wasn't what prompted the realization that struck me so forcefully last week.

Beauty often suggests light. The catalyst for my Aha! was anything but.

As I drove east along the park's flatlands that day, an ominous complex of craggy cliffs captured my attention. Rising menacingly to the south and scraping the storm clouds that hung low in an unfriendly sky, these mountains felt, as my eight-year-old daughter would put it, "creepy."

The energy felt dark, forbidding, inhospitable. And although a road offered access, I felt reluctant to follow it.

Yet, even as I drove past the turnoff, an inner voice urged me to reconsider.

Reluctantly, I turned around and headed south. After a short straightaway, a series of hairpin turns carried me up and up and then, surprisingly, down — into a basin-like valley ringed with mountains.

If my passage along the road into the Chisos Basin was dark, gloomy and threatening, the basin itself was bright, sunlit and welcoming. The sky, far from stormy, was largely clear. From this perspective, the mountains were gentle, embracing and enfolding.

Far removed from the prison I expected, this was a sanctuary, its soaring walls cathedral-like.

I stepped from the car and all the heaviness lifted so rapidly, it was as though it had never existed.

Later, as I drove out — back into the still-overcast "outside world" — I remembered Toshar's response to Fara:

"The land mourns, Fara, for all the blood that soaks into it. The land weeps, for all the hatred that desecrates it. The land rages, for all the malignance that grinds into it. But the land is not evil, Fara. M'nor smiled on Q'ntana once. She will again."

And as I remembered that, I realized that this land — as menacing as it still appeared — was not evil, was not possessed by the dark forces I first ascribed to it.

Rather, the land was a metaphor for my own dark forces, my own fears.

When I drove into the darkness of the Chisos Mountains, I was driving into the darkness in my own heart. And when I reached its light-filled center, the heart of this mountain cluster, I had actually reached the center of my own heart, itself always filled with light.

You see, there is no darkness outside of me — not in the land, not in another. All the darkness in the land and all the darkness in the world exists within me or it could not reflect itself back at me through outer means.

The call to drive up the mountain was not to confront and transform some shadowy Dark Lord of the Rocks. It was a call to enter into my own shadowy self, into the fears that, as they do for Toshar, still tug at me "with tiny crab claws."

Only by acknowledging my own shadow can I reconnect with the light that always lies at its center. Only by entering into the heart of my darkness can I be embraced by the eternal flame of my own divinity.

Does that mean there is no darkness in the world? Of course not. But that darkness cannot exist independent of the darkness we each carry within us.

It's easy to demonize those who rape, torture and kill, those who abuse the Earth, those who disparage, disrespect and disempower. Too easy.

What's hard is to remember that nothing can exist outside us that doesn't live within.

What's hard to remember is that only by acknowledging those inner demons, only by walking through our fears, only by driving into the heart of our darkness, can we touch the light that always resides at the center — of each of us.

The Heart of Texas

"You either trust or you do not. There is no halfway in between."
— M'nor (the moon), in The MoonQuest

My week in Texas, now drawing to a close, has been an experience of deepening trust and fuller surrender and, as I spoke of in my July 22 talk at Santa Fe's The Celebration, giving up that very human "need to know."

There were no dramatic divine revelations explaining why I was drawn to one town or another...why I drove through Austin (twice), Houston and Corpus Christi, but bypassed Dallas...why I slept in Alpine, Temple, Elgin and New Braunfels...why I felt compelled to visit the McDonald Observatory...why it was necessary to talk to Apple technicians in two different cities...why I felt called first to Fredericksburg but couldn't find a place to park and later to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center only to arrive when it was too hot and humid to spend time in the gardens.

As one of you reminded me after my July 22 blog post, it's not always easy to remember that, even as the mind struggles to know the unknowable, there is more under heaven than we are able to understand...than we need to understand. Thank you, Ina.

To read Ina's comment or the blog post that inspired it — which explains what got me to Texas — visit my New Earth Chronicles blog.

Also visit New Earth Chronicles to see photos of my time in Texas, including some of Big Bend National Park. (Even if you subscribe to the blog posts, you will not receive this particular photo-post in your inbox because of the size of the photo files.)

You Want Me to Do What!!??

An earlier blog post on July 12, You Want Me to Do What!!??, chronicled how I was unexpectedly guided to publish a second book: The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Until now this book of writing inspiration and practice has been available only as an eBook. By year's end, it will be in print as a trade paperback.

As a result, I'm discontinuing the eBook, which will only be available until the few copies still in stock are gone.

Unlike the printed book, which will be sold without an accompanying CD, the eBook comes with a CD of recorded meditations.

The two-CD sets (book+meditations) are available at The Writer's Store on my web site...until they're gone. (The other writing CDs will also likely vanish once the book is out.)

The MoonQuest — News Update

The MoonQuest is more widely available than ever!!

New Leaf (America's foremost distributor of New Age books) has picked up The MoonQuest, which will make it easier for you to special order copies from your local store....and will make it easier for me to get it onto the shelves of those stores.

Meantime, copies are now available at these retail outlets...

Arizona — Sedona
• Crystal Magic
• Golden Word Book Center
• Sedona Heartwalk Center
• The Well Red Coyote

Michigan — Lansing Area
• Lakeside Garden Gift, Floral & Cafe

New Mexico — Albuquerque
• Borders Books & Music — Albuquerque West Side
(Shelved under Local Fiction)

Connecticut — Norwalk
• Pymander (coming soon!)

If you don't see your local store here, please ask them to carry it!

The MoonQuest is also available online through
• Amazon.com
• Alibris.com

Coming soon to barnesandnoble.com, booksamillion.com and, in Canada, chapters.indigo.ca.

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