Opening to Darkness: Eight Gateways for Being with the Absence of Light in Unsettling Times

(Paperback)

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We are born from the darkness. We return to the darkness. And throughout all of our lives, the darkness is ever present. Yet do we really understand the dark With Opening to Darkness, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel explores darkness as a cosmic landscape for transformation within unsettling times, rooting her teachings in indigenous earth-based wisdom, her Buddhist practice, and her lived experience. For Manuel, darkness is both a universal concept and embodied experience-and she's witnessed firsthand how our cultural rejections of darkness can have painful, real-world effects. Here, we're asked to confront the questions: What has been lost in our pursuit of the light And what has or has not been born into ourselves and our world because we fear, oppress, and misunderstand the dark Here, Manuel introduces eight deities who guide us through gateways into different aspects of darkness, providing reflective inquiry, blessings, and meditations through the essence of Buddha's Eightfold Path: Haitian Mama Dantor helps us face childhood fears of the dark, West African Mami Wata embraces us while dwelling in darkness, and forest-dweller Mama Black Panther senses the truth of what lies in the shadows. Opening to Darkness is a profound invitation to explore our collective and personal relationship with darkness and blackness, so that we are skilled, intuitive, and awake in the absence of light.

Reviews

"Opening to Darkness is beautiful, wise, magical, earthly, and utterly necessary for our time." --Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, bestselling author of My Grandmother's Hands, The Quaking of America, and Monsters in Love "Zenju shines a contemplative light on the wisdom of sacred darkness, offering a journey of returning to what we have forgotten and must now remember that heals and unites humanity. This book offers life-giving practices to those seeking the revelations of wholeness and belonging." --Ruth King, author of Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out "In these times, what some might call . . . 'dark times, ' Zenju Earthlyn Manuel does not offer us a sun, starlight, or even a torch, yet in this book we are lovingly led. As we stumble through the void, running into trees and away from ourselves, we are reminded that, yes, this too can be divine direction. This book beckons us to remember that the sacred nutrients of wisdom, creation, and transformation dwell in blackness, in darkness. Who might we become What miracles might our world give forth if we learned not only to make peace with the dark but to honor her for all she teaches us about this glorious enigmatic existence of ours Opening to Darkness cradles us with grace in the womb of that ever-pregnant possibility." --Sonya Renee Taylor, activist and author, New York Times bestselling author of The Body Is Not an Apology

Author Bio

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, PhD, is an author, poet, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, artist, and drum medicine woman whose diverse background, education, and experience all provide a unique integral and cultural perspective within the space of spirituality. She is the author of The Shamanic Bones of Zen, The Way of Tenderness, The Deepest Peace, and more. Manuel is a native of California and now resides in New Mexico. Learn more at zenju.org.