Always Three O’Clock in the Morning. The Dark Night of the Soul by Thomas Moore

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day‘. Scott knew something about it, indeed, with all of his problems. In this wonderfully helpful book, More calls us to go beyond the clinical psychological categories of depression and personality disorder to explore the gift of the dark night of the soul. If you’re wise, it can be a period of transition, transformation, reintegration and even creativity. He uses examples of famous people, such as Oscar Wilde and Nelson Mandela, to show how their ‘dark nights’ transformed and strengthened their characters.

The chapter that I found most helpful is the one about journeying into the dark night, and facing your shadow side. More describes the whole journey as like being in a vessel, and that it’s important not to resist it. Let the ‘dark angel’ of the night guide you into the essence of your soul. He also writes that we’re all complex people, and that in the ‘dark night,’ we should try to face our fears, and the emotions that we repress, finding a way to let them become part of us. If we don’t, theymay find a way to destroy us by alcoholism, mental health issues and even suicide. He provides the example of a married couple who couldn’t communicate with each other, and had an empty marriage. He wasn’t surprised when one had an affair.

‘A dark night,’ Thomas Moore writes, ‘almost always has these two qualities: focus and attention’. The best way to deal with the dark night is  to explore it fully and enter into it. Grief is one example of a dark night. As a dear cousin told me after my father died: ‘You can’t go above it, below it, or around it. You just have to go through it’. Her words have helped me through many other deaths of loved ones since. (I also read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, which is definitely the best book on grief that I ever found).

Exploring the dark night might involve getting in touch with your ‘inner child’ as Jung did when he had his mental breakdown by going back to playing with building blocks again, or even deepening the mood by listening to sad music, reading sad books, or watching tearjerkers. Moore listens to the St Matthew’s Passion every Good Friday, and reflects deeply on the Crucifiction. Travelling to beautiful places also soothes the soul.

Moore advises us to try to be vigilant in watching what is going on with your soul. If your self-interest can turn into ‘a positive kind of self-love, …that is the beginning of healing’. You may have to confront your dark side to learn to accept yourself, a long and difficult process. In the end, it’s an opening up, an awakening of new thoughts, an ability to engage with life more deeply, and to face new possibilities. In Dickens’s great book, A Tale of Two Cities,’ Dr Manette is ‘recalled to life’ after spending eighteen months in the Bastille. This is what the dark night of the soul should be - a recall to life.

NB: I read this years ago, but I’ve had it on my Kindle for years as well, so it can be included in the Rose City Reader TBR 26 in ‘26 Challenge