Sailing For The Darkness by Mary Gelfand

As I write this, it is August and very much high summer. This time of year always reminds me of my old life in New Orleans, before I moved to Maine.  David, my first husband, and I were sailors. I never planned on becoming a sailor, but once I mastered the basic skills I found I quite enjoyed it.  Furthermore it became an unexpected source of spiritual insight. I’m inspired to share a piece of that here.

One spring over 25 years ago, David and I and a group of sailing buddies made our usual summer passage in the Gulf of Mexico, from New Orleans, Louisiana to Pensacola, Florida.  By car this trip was 200 miles. By sail it took two to three days. Around midnight, as we were entering the last leg of this journey, I took the wheel.  We were exiting Mobile Bay, heading east, and this should have been a fairly simple passage. There was plenty of depth, adequate wind, the boat was sitting in the water well, and I had Barney, a dear and trusted friend, as my navigator. I’d been at the wheel for fifteen minutes or so when I noticed the many lights we were approaching and asked Barney what was going on.

Until then, I had not really focused on the fact that offshore oil drilling was allowed along this part of the Gulf coast. The waters were cluttered with oil rigs—huge, noisy, glaringly illuminated, and dangerous. It seemed like the rigs were on all sides of me and I immediately became anxious. So many bright lights interfered with my night vision—that was risky in itself. But even more frightening was that the lights seemed to draw me to them.  When you’re on a boat offshore late at night, the darkness that surrounds you is immense. It can be hard to resist the safety and security represented by light—by knowing where you are. 

Most spiritual traditions extol the virtues of light and encourage followers to seek illumination, something I was definitely doing at that point in my life. It was hard to avoid looking at these lights and feeling their call. But I had learned on a different midnight sailing adventure that following the light can be deceptively dangerous. Two or three years earlier, we had spent a couple of hours sailing towards what we believed to be a lighthouse near our destination, only to discover that it was a huge coal barge heading right towards us. 

I told Barney I needed to avoid the oil rigs and was relying on him to tell me which way to go. He briefly studied the chart, looked around him, and said, “Sail for the darkness, Mary. Just sail for the darkness and you’ll be fine.”

Sail for the darkness! I couldn’t believe it was that simple, but I decided to trust him and sailed for the darkness. It became a magical night on the water. There was a steady off-shore breeze of about fifteen to twenty knots coming over the port side and filling the sails.  The boat sat well in the water, slightly heeled to the starboard. The stars shone brilliantly overhead.  The sound of the wind and the gentle murmuring of the waves blended sweetly in my ears. Through my bare feet I could feel the water streaming under the hull. I was aware of being surrounded by the Elements of Life—earth, air, fire and water—and by the synergy between us. 

After a time, the waning gibbous moon rose before my eyes and I watched it get higher and smaller as the night went on. As a moon child, this made the passage even more special. Barney and I talked from time to time and I sailed for the darkness and the rising moon. When the sun rose, we were in Florida. 

Just sail for the darkness and you’ll be fine. There are ways in which I’ve been sailing for the darkness—seeking the mysterious unknown—ever since. 

In our culture, darkness and the mysterious unknown carry many negative connotations. For millennia, patriarchy has connected women and our sacred bodies with darkness, sin and Satan. As seen by many religious traditions, our mysterious and ‘sinful’ bodies tempt men away from the paths of righteousness. Childbirth is a female mystery and miracle which patriarchy seeks to control, in part because of our associations with darkness.  

We are a people for whom the unknown is threatening. As our cultural addiction to all types of divination suggests, we want to know what the future brings. Not knowing is frightening. 

Just sail for the darkness and you’ll be fine. 

Darkness is also a metaphor for our shadow side—something many of us seek to avoid. Your shadow represents the parts of yourself that are deemed culturally inappropriate. However, as anyone who has done serious shadow work can attest, it can also be illuminating. The late Jungian analyst Robert Johnson once observed that “God loves your shadow more than your ego.” 

In our fascination with illumination and light, it is easy to forget the many blessings darkness offers. All life begins in darkness—babies and plants and life itself. Darkness encourages our bodies and brains to sleep and rest—two essentials of life. Darkness creates the container in which  two humans explore the beauty of physical and spiritual intimacy.

This evening of sailing for the darkness with Barney was a peak experience in my life. The next day we spoke of it together in awed tones—almost unable to put into words what we had experienced. Barney died of cancer in 1999 and I still think of him and that night—of his wisdom and my willingness to trust it, and the beauty it produced. 

Since this magical experience I have been working to become more accepting of the unknown—more willing to engage with the mystery of life.

I believe that it is only when we sail for the darkness that we deeply engage with the mystery of our spiritual selves and the journey of life.

I’d like to leave you with a closing thought, from sailor and author Richard Bode.  “For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.” 

 Blessed be our journey.