Dark Night was accompanied by a walking Die-off, where there was an extended
period of catabolic breakdown of the body via the immune system but I was not
forced into bed rest.
The second Die-off was a month after attending an Alex Grey workshop in
November 1999...this was a 4 day somatic collapse and more emotional than
electrical and mostly spent in bed. It was accompanied by intense grounding,
fatigue and heart expansion. The third was November 2000 after 3 months of
the main influx phase of fire and heart expansion after being in my initiators
presence...and this was atomic and cellular, an almost complete collapse of normal
faculties for 6 days. The sensation of the body eating itself was so apparent in this
Die-off that it was this experience that made me realize the role of the immune
system in metamorphosis. Ego is suspended, there are mild hallucinations of voice
and image, often blissful and a holy sensation, sometimes incredibly painful as the
transmutation is working on a particularly congested or damaged part of the body.
For me this was the right side of my face and head which felt as though it was being
dissolved by acid for a day.
Seems to me that after experiences of radical expansion and extreme euphoria,
we tend to compare the difference between where we were in mystic revelry and
the condition most of us live in—it is then that extreme cathartic anguish occurs
as we mourn the sorry state of our collective human condition. This is one of the
hyperbolic curves that occur during the first stages of the alchemy, especially if the
realization is around ones family situation. After time I suppose our compassion
takes on a lighter air as our own physicality loses its dross and heavy nature and our
faith becomes unconditional...ie: detached from worldly appearances. The evolution
of faith probably goes from blind faith, to informed faith, to unconditional faith.
But it’s doubtful that any of us can proceed in this development without periods
of the obscuring or loss of faith, for we have to die to our former stage of faith to
move onto the next.
Usually what bought us to this impassé is the pull of the heart and psychic
intuition and profound spiritual illuminations. So to be plunged into space where
we can no longer rely on our conditioning, and Spiritual illumination seems to have
left us can constitute an extended period of dark night--usually about 5 years as the
body recovers from the extreme chemistry of the peak. This is the period in which
spiritual practice, sangha and ‘listening’ to Spirit for understanding, meaning and
direction is most important. We feel as sense of loss during the exhaustion phase
when we have lost our “magic” and extrasensory abilities and are temporarily even
more mortal than we were prior to our awakening. We all have to come down.
This loss feels like losing oneself, ones lover, ones muse, ones God. The difference
is shocking and if we do not do the work to rejuice ourselves then life feels like it’s
not really worth living. What was given to us so abundantly by Grace, must now
be won by discipline, hard work and character development.
November-December is the most pronounced Die-off time in the Northern
Hemisphere. It has to do with the earths movement round the sun, ie: just prior
to solstice and the gravitational forces of the earth turning into the bend of the