Reflections on Feminine Intuition in the Writing Process

by Deborah Eden Tull

Just before the start of the Covid pandemic, I led a New Year’s retreat on the coast of California. On retreat we had circled at the edge of the Big Sur cliffs at sunset on New Year’s Eve, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. With no idea what 2020 would bring, we felt a sense of all possibility about the year ahead. Supported by the vastness of the sky, the shimmer of the ocean, and the stillness of our meditation practice, we shared a feeling of openness and acceptance towards life… a sense that anything could be… and that we could welcome anything. 

When I arrived  home to our wooden cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, life organically arranged itself for me to settle into the writer’s den…. where I began to receive intuitive instruction to write about darkness. I never expected to write a book about Luminous Darkness and the wisdom darkness has for us in these times. Despite my initial resistance, however, I let myself listen deeply to the messages I was receiving… and followed my intuition. This intuition came through as a felt sense in my body, image, words, metaphors, symbols— all inviting me to be curious about the darkness of night and the deeper, darker undercurrents of my human experience at the same time.

The pandemic soon began, within a short few months, and as my writing process deepened, it became clearer and clearer why I had been called to write about the dark. There was value in exploring our collective relationship with the unknown rather than the known, the invisible rather than the visible, intuition and dreaming in a world so focused on rational mind, and the slow dark processes of nature and consciousness in a world so fixated on speed and bright lights.

The pandemic commanded so many of us to s l o w down as global uncertainty descended… plunging  us into not knowing what was to come…. while, at the same time, not being able to rely on systems and social habits we were all used to. As we entered a portal of disruption, I found myself writing in a different way than I had in the past. I had already authored two books by that time… but now I was made much more aware that writing itself involved a meeting with the Muse of Darkness. Though I resisted at first, I gradually surrendered to this meeting and let myself write completely from the dark.   

What does this mean? Sure, all writing involves an idea or concept, editing, perhaps research, and organized effort; but perhaps  the most important component is our willingness to listen in the dark. To honor our intuition. To make space for the poet within to be heard. To surrender to not knowing what will come through us each day. Writing asks us to empty. To let go of expectation and control and let intuition guide us. In my experience, writing calls us into play the synergy of dark and light, through meditation, journeying, dreaming, poetry, and subconscious churnings alongside compassionate discipline.

I wrote Luminous Darkness backwards into the present, allowing this book to reveal itself to me. This is how we walk through life—backwards into the dark. Into the unknown. We lean into the support of those already behind us. 

I think as women, we have an especially rich capacity for intuition and relational forms of knowing beyond the rational mind. And, I think this can become greatly discounted in a world that is so conditioned by the rational mind. It’s as if the dominant paradigm holds such an attachment to light as the lamp of knowledge that we are afraid to let go. Many of us have been conditioned to label life, to try to understand life, to stay in control of life. But real power lies in our willingness to be awake to the hidden dimensions or magic that make up the creative process. 

As a female writer and spiritual teacher, darkness has been my greatest teacher… but I so often undervalued it or even judged it in a world that celebrates light and the rational mind. Darkness points to what we can’t see, don’t know, the unfamiliar, the mysterious, as well as the spirit of rest, slowing down, and deeper listening.

For those of you who resonate with these reflections about darkness in the creative process, I offer a short excerpt from Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown: 

When immersed in a creative project, patiently bring that project into the restful state of incubation. Do not dishonor creative energy with undue force or excessive mental assessment.

When in conversation with one another, allow yourselves to rest in the spaciousness from which connection arises. Beyond the assumption that words are better than silence, beyond any pressure to connect, beyond fear of awkwardness, trust the empty space of intimacy without trying to fill this space.

When making love, slow down radically and let go of the script. It is the meeting point between spaciousness and erotic curiosity that allows every move, touch, and expression to be electric and healing.

In meditation, do not exert unnecessary effort to try to attain the light. This, too, is a way of filling space. The light was never lost, so it cannot be found.

—

Deborah Eden Tull is a Zen meditation/mindfulness teacher, author, activist and sustainability educator. She spent seven years as a monastic at a silent Zen Monastery, and has been immersed in sustainable communities for 25 years. Eden’s teaching style is grounded in compassionate awareness, non-duality, mindful inquiry, and an unwavering commitment to personal transformation. Sheteaches dharma intertwined with post-patriarchal thought and practices, resting upon a lived knowledge of our unity with the more than human world. She also facilitates The Work That Reconnects, as created by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy. Eden has been practicing meditation for the past 30 years and teaching for over 20 years. She lives in Black Mountain,North Carolina and offers retreats, workshops, leadership trainings, and consultations internationally.

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Illuminous Darkness

A resonant call to explore the darkness in life, in nature, and in consciousness—including difficult emotions like uncertainty, grief, fear, and xenophobia—through teachings, embodied meditations, and mindful inquiry that provide us with a powerful path to healing.

Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within. Welcoming darkness with curiosity, rather than fear or judgment, enables us to access our innate capacity for compassion and collective healing.

Dharma teacher, shamanic practitioner, and deep ecologist Deborah Eden Tull addresses the spiritual, ecological, psychological, and interpersonal ramifications of our bias towards light.

Tull explores the medicine of darkness for personal and collective healing, through topics such as:

• Befriending the Night: The Radiant Teachings of Darkness
• Honoring Our Pain for Our World
• Seeing in the Dark: The Quiet Power of Receptivity
• Dreams, Possibility, and Moral Imagination
• Releasing Fear—Embracing Emergence

Tull shows us how the labeling of darkness as “negative” becomes a collective excuse to justify avoiding everything that makes us uncomfortable: racism, spiritual bypass, environmental destruction.  We can only find the radical path to wholeness by learning to embrace the interplay of both darkness and light.

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