Kissing the Dark: Connecting with the Unconscious

The century we are leaving behind was probably the most disturbingthe planet has endured. Of the discoveries that marked its prowess, access to the underground world of the unconscious was probably the most disturbing. This new dimension made everything we had thought about the world up to that date anachronistic. Every country, every person, has to undertake the archaeological probe which will open up that world. Ireland, as a small, discrete, self-contained unit, can be a useful paradigm. Like most of our contemporaries at the beginning of this century, we refused to acknowledge the darkness that was an essential part of our human condition. From politics to religion, everything was a halo of light. The reality of what we are, socially, psychologically, sexually, was left untended and the world of the unconscious sealed off or ignored. This is one of the reasons why we find ourselves in such turmoil and confusion at the end of the century, with scandals and skeletons emerging from the attics, closets and cellars, and through every crack in the architecture designed for the angels. One of our major tasks at present is to acknowledge and appropriate the darkness which is an integral part of what we are as human beings. This book is an attempt by one Irish monk to articulate the problem and to discover ways of facing our own peculiar darkness. Kissing the dark means caring for it, reaching towards it, welcoming it, reassuring it and taming it.