As the years slip by, uncertainty creeps slowly and namelessly into our lives until we find ourselves wandering about in the dark skirting imagined obstacles and stumbling over blocks that foresight could never have seen. Confusing the wandering for progress toward some goal we continue further and further into the mire.

Our true goal, to know who we are, becomes lost in the enveloping darkness. Foreboding shapes of doubt and guilt and obligation haunt our nights and weave incomprehensible patterns over our days.

The opening line of Dante’s Inferno speaks to this stage of life with beautiful potency:

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In a dark woods, the right road lost.

Clarity comes with hindsight and that can propel us toward a growth and renewal of our lives. But first we have to stop and consider the road that has led us into this dark and silent wood. There is no other way out. As our eyes grow accustomed to the surrounding dark, faint lights grow brighter; rousing us from our sleepwalking and guiding us toward true self-knowledge.