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.
