Towards the Night - Laughing Brook - Poetry podcast - silhouette of a man with a candle
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Towards the Night

Why venture into the dark

Dark and light are intertwined – like in the Yin and Yang symbol. There is power and strength in walking towards the dark deliberately and consciously. And this has nothing to do with being masochistic. It is simply that a lot of things can only be gained for a price I have to pay.

And there is a magic ingredient to it. In the Yin and Yang symbol there is a tiny spot of light in the dark. That is the spark that shows us the direction in which to go, and in it lies all the difference for why I may choose deliberately to walk towards some darkness.

Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:00:26 Towards the Night – Solo
  • 00:02:50 The Dark holds a Secret
  • 00:09:51 Towards the Night (KAS Remix)
  • 00:13:40 Outro

Transcript

Towards the night

Towards the night
The Darkness
The Black
The ultimate ending
grave’s blackness
The Desperate Void

Towards the night
the dance in the clearing
of a forest so dark
cold is the moonlight
licking old blood
as I dance
so silent
so lonesome
forsaking all day
all hopes
all sorrows
all I wanted to be
all dreams
and all me

earths wetness
and coolness
welcomes me in
come back whence you came from
let go
give in
breath out
unbecome
towards the night
towards the night
towards the light

©️ Laughing Brook/Peter Müller 2025

The Dark holds a Secret

The pursuit of happiness, as it’s stated so nicely in the American constitution, is something that is inherently human. We all want to live a good life, not a hard one. One in which we prosper, not one in which we suffer. In a way, just like plants, we’re all craving for our spot in the sunlight. 

Yet, there are a lot of good reasons to sometimes say no to something I am drawn to. To directly walk towards suffering, toward forgoing something I crave for, to accept a loss. Does that sound weird and masochistic? The curious thing is, that very often we feel that suffering is very normal for some things, or that it’s not even suffering at all . For example, going to the dentist and having my tooth drilled. Or torturing myself through pushups. Not getting that really nice jacket I see in the shop window. I do accept all this suffering because I gain something that, for me, has a value which outweighs my suffering – healthy teeth, strong muscles and a good physique, a balanced bank account.

Sometimes people take on a suffering that feels so immense that we may question their motives.

From what I can see, it takes a great amount of consciousness and heart to walk with open eyes into suffering. A lot of people will probably say it’s a crazy thing to. They may have said that to Nelson Mandela or Alexei Nawalny. Mahatma Ghandi faced fierce resistance against the path he chose and has been called stupid. And even in the Bible you find Jesus’s closest friends rebuking and resisting him when he let’s them in on his plan to go to Jerusalem to die. They all did it anyway, and made history by doing so. What they achieved was way beyond them, and yet it is inextricably connected with their brave conviction with which they put everything on the line. They said no to even their own lives.

In verse 41 of the Tao Te Ching the ancient Chinese sage Laozi describes following this sometimes very enigmatic call towards a higher principle – to put it in most abstract terms – like following darkness. It looks like bad luck, like becoming a looser, to follow through. Yet it is not, it is an awareness of a higher principle, and that is the very power of why seemingly self-destructive paths can change the world.

For those moments of darkness, of starring into the abyss, are at the core of creation and creativity. You will encounter them in creative processes, in group-building processes, inescapably in personal development of any kind, in all kinds of learning where you push a boundary, it is what John of the Cross has named The Dark Night of the Soul. If you’re interested to dive deeper – no pun intended, or, do I? – into the subject, listen to the episode called New Moon, which describes this process of going through the dark. And there’s another episode, Thru that Darkest Door, that looks at it in a more over-arching perspective. Those moments seems to teach and show us, that despite all our clinging, true life and love and boundless capacity are at the core of how the world goes round.

Yet there is this moment when you turn towards the dark, which ever form it may take in a given situation, with some sort of death waiting for you. And often it is not clear what this ”some sort“ really means – not even when going to the dentist. There is this peculiar, lonely moment of making that step, of following through on your conviction and decision, and then turning towards necessary evil and suffering. Or even death. 

It’s a ”floor drops out from underneath me” moment, a ”pee my pants” moment, a “hold my breath” moment. It’s the moment of my greatest weakness and vulnerability, and it is the moment of my greatest strength and of irrevocable power. It is the moment of truth.

Outro:

So we ventured into the gloomy today. But never forget, there’s a light shining in the darkness that may seem pale and weak, but actually leads to the end of the tunnel. If you care, I wrote a poem about this tiny light of which I am very proud, it is one of my favorites. It’s called Light So Small and is the second episode of this podcast. You’ll find it on laughingbrook.net or wherever you are listening to this one.

For this episode I want to say thank you to Michael Mondenschein for helping me to sample some of his wonderful sound devices. You’ll hear gongs, an empty electrical tube and a water phone. Also, the basic synth sound of the remix has been created by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – a composer and musician somewhere on the very curious edge between synthesizers and the organic. You’ll find links in the show notes. Native Instrument had sent me a link with  an article about her. It also had a competition to hand in a piece that has been done with the sound she created for the Massive X synthesizer. That got me going and today’s poem almost jumped at me to combine it with Kaitlyn’s sound. As I finally tried to hand it in, though, I learned that the competition was in 2020. Duh. Alas, it was the creative spark that brought you not only the remix of this episode, but in a way, the whole episode. I had this poem sitting around for a long time, not knowing how to go about it. And voila, here it is! So, this one is dedicated to you, Kaitlyn.

You’re invited to comment, I love to hear your comments, and to tell a friend about it. Leave a rating as thank you.   

My name is Laughing Brook, I am a poet, dancer, mystic, nature coach and man whisperer. And until that next one, keep on bumping and jumping with the stream of life. 

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