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Calling Forth Our Deepest Longings to Care for Each Other

Rob Brezsny
3 min readJun 4, 2020

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This devastating moment in history has the redemptive effect of calling forth our deepest longings to care for each other.

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Psychologists and spiritual teachers speak of the “dark night of the soul”: an unprecedented period of crisis and difficulty and distress in a person’s life; a time when nothing makes sense, when all one’s values and goals have come into question.

We are now experiencing, all together, America’s collective dark night of the soul.

There’s no use in pretending otherwise. We shouldn’t try to be falsely optimistic or pretend the collapse and breakdown that are happening aren’t happening. The only way to survive a dark night of the soul and ultimately become available for redemption is to fully acknowledge it’s upon us.

One set of useful responses:

* Don’t go numb

* Be willing to dwell with poise and grace amidst the fear and uncertainty

* Don’t indulge in primitive, runaway thinking that concocts crazy stories

* Stay anchored in the quizzical here and now

* Honor your grief and anger. Avoid doing a spiritual bypass that tries to skip to the end when everything’s better again.

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Rob Brezsny
Rob Brezsny

Written by Rob Brezsny

I write the column Free Will Astrology and wrote the book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings

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