Stations in the Night: Reflections on the Poetry of St. John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross was a Spanish priest and mystic in the era of the Spanish Inquisition. His deep spirituality led to having visions for which he was branded a heretic and imprisoned and tortured. It was during his near-death experience that he evolved from his former common understanding and evolved into what today might be called "non-dual" thinking. The purpose of the dark night of the soul (as John describes it) is to strip us of our incessant need for meaning making and (perhaps more importantly) to rid us of our attachments to what we have made these things in our lives mean. There, in that cloud of unknowing, we can truly experience - we can actually have an experience of our experience, unfettered by words, beliefs, concepts and analytics. Stations in the Night is a set of reflections on one beautiful poem from among the many written by John of the Cross that describe that wordless and indescribable place of discovery.This book is meant to be picked up and put down and taken in pieces; to be read and reread multiple times. Each time you go through the book or one segment of the book, you will most likely notice a different object or section of the picture and your mind will be triggered or pause over a different phrase. It is not that the writing or the pictures are sacred or special so much as your soul is hungry for a different food each time and will somehow find what it needs through the process.