The true Word of eternity will be spoken only in solitude, where people are made desolate and estranged from themselves. This emptiness exerts a profound influence. For if something empty existed under heaven, no matter what you wish and no matter whether it be large or small, love would either carry it to heaven or have to come down and fill it with love. The purpose of emptiness is to receive, to be filled ... God needs nothing more than for us to offer a quiet heart.
We have entered a time of descent that takes us down into a different geography. In this shadowed terrain, we encounter a landscape familiar to soul—loss, grief, death, vulnerability, and fear. We have, in the old language of Alchemy, crossed into the Nigredo...This is a season of decay, of shedding and endings, of falling apart and undoing. This is not a time of rising and growth. It is not a time of confidence and ease. No. We are hunkered down. Down being the operative word. From the perspective of soul, down is holy ground.