The Dark Void

There is a Light Void, one of infinite love and bliss (called Heaven normally). It is infinite because it has no shape - that is why it is called Void.

For me however I fear there is a chasm that lies between me and this world of light, a Dark Void. Maybe it is just me; maybe it is a universal experience? We know that Buddha defeated the demons and brought light to this darkness. We know that Jesus did the same.

In particular I first encountered it on a walk in 1995. My first self-organised adventure with my girlfriend. Nothing miraculous but some good distances covered at low level in the Lake District. On the third day I think I was physically tired and we had strived to reach a camp site (not free camping in those days - my approach has evolved over a long time). Arriving we found it full. We walked to the next site about 6 miles away. I was already exhausted. When we arrived this was not even open. There was another camp site, but pushed to the limit we decided given that no-one was around to camp on the hill behind. We erected the tent, my inside energy was far down like an empty battery. I climbed into the darkness of the tent to spread out our things and I fell, not into a tent but into a dark hole as though the ground has opened up beneath my heart and I was falling. It was like drowning. Expecting relief if not exhilaration after the walk, I was met with complete despairing emptiness. This is the dark void. It is endless loneliness, it is depression, sadness, profound melancholy. Its not terminal, like sinking in the sea you eventually find your feet on a sort of bottom (that moment in the film Abyss) - and then there is relief and strength again.

My girlfriend was extremely supportive and realised something was up. She dragged me off down the hill to a pub and we had fish and chips twice and a beer. A glow began to flicker in my heart again and I began to pull myself out.

I've just gone through the backlog of 6000 photos amassed over the last 4 years. Extraordinary how I can remember almost every single picture. But this has always been a tricky place for me. As a child I had a rule never to photograph anyone because I knew that in the future looking at that picture I would miss them, I would miss that time. Time is this Dark Void, while Time brings new things, for me this is overwhelmingly dominated by the sense that it will take away everything, both what you have had and also the things that it promises you. I've been born with this sense - I've no reason to be sensitive to loss. Lost a few pets but nothing unsual. It is bittery ironic then that this sensitivity has been played out in reality - the loss of "my muse" in a thousand different ways - from parting at the end of an evening out, to parting for good, to parting for good again. I knew this was going to happen, it is like I've watched this film before but forgotten what happens. Am I repeating a past life? The Dark Void has taken her like it does everything.

Anyway there is a risk in dwelling on this too much in one go, of slipping of into depression, not that this matters, its just a bit difficult to be enjoy one's social duties when depressed. That's the battle, but looking at the war The Dark Void poses an intriguing quest, a chance to don the armour and get some action. I make forays into this place regularly. A lot of my solo walking must have been inspired by this. When one enters the Dark Void with head up high, a religious icon as companion and in my case the watchful eye of Nature with you there is not much that can go wrong. What looks foreboding becomes a source of great achievement and peace. Certainly we know that through this dim place with only fragile flame for light lies the land of infinite bliss and light. Sounding a bit Pilgrims Progress here but faith in that is the strongest weapon. Of course the darkness will fight back with its most powerful tool which is doubt - if you give into that the flame goes out and then it's a very very much longer journey!

So that's a note on this aspect of the situation - the quest for a path through sadness and loss. I've no way of knowing if this is a personal or universal quest now.