The Night Sea Journey

I realize that many of my recent posts have focused more on exploring ideas found in religions than on classroom teaching. So I decided to try to think of something more concrete and usable for a world history or religion teacher.This could be applicable to any course with a mythology component:

I have been thinking about the archetype of the night sea journey, or dark night of the soul. We see it in ancient sacred histories such as the Egyptian story of Ra and the biblical story of Jonah, in the writings of St. John of the Cross, and in the narratives of the lives of Jesus and the Buddha. Like all archetypical stories, it reflects something about the human psyche.

Carl Jung writes,

"The night sea journey is a kind of descensus ad inferos--a descent into Hades and a journey to the land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious." ["The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 455.]

While the night sea journey story may literally involve a dragon or giant fish, it may be a symbolic monster, internal demon, or watery place. In any case, the one taking the journey undergoes a temporary death in anticipation of a rebirth or renewal.

 

Dr. Thomas Moore, therapist and author of Dark Nights of the Soul, offers an interesting way of thinking about it for individuals who are experiencing it: 

"A dark night of the soul may feel amorphous, having no meaning, shape, or direction. It helps to have images for it and to know that people have gone through this experience and have survived it. The great stories and myths of many cultures also help by providing an imagination of human struggle that inspires and offers insight. One ancient story that sheds light on the dark night is the tale of the hero swallowed by a huge fish.....Because the story is associated with the sun setting in the west and traveling underwater to the east to rise in the morning, this theme is sometimes called the "Night Sea Journey." It is a cosmic passage taken as a metaphor for our own dark nights, when we are trapped in a mood or by external circumstances and can do little but sit and wait for liberation.  

"Imagine that your dark mood, or the external source of your suffering, is a large, living container in which you are held captive. But this container is moving, getting somewhere, taking you to where you need to go. You may not like the situation you're in, but it would help if you imagined it constructively. Maybe at this very minute you are on a night sea journey of your own....

"In your dark night you may have a sensation you could call "oceanic" - being in the sea, at sea, or immersed in the waters of the womb. The sea is the vast potential of life, but it is also your dark night, which may force you to surrender some knowledge you have achieved. It helps to regularly undo the hard-won ego development, to unravel the self and culture you have woven over the years. The night sea journey takes you back to your primordial self, not the heroic self that burns out and falls to judgment, but to your original self, yourself as a sea of possibility, your greater and deeper being."

I like Moore's explanation for potential use in the classroom because it is relatable and lends authority to the point that sacred histories reflect the human psyche and can be read symbolically, not just literally. If you are interested, click here to read a longer excerpt from Moore's book.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated topic... Go Duke! :)