“Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing.”
I have just returned from a rather epic road trip to the mountains of Austria, and back again. Our little Skoda Fabia not only carried us rather majestically through England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Austria (now clocking over 119,000 miles under its splendid silver belt) – it also created the confines for some necessary silliness, silence, conflict, contemplation, conversation and psycho-analysis.
Indeed, we were fortunate enough to be joined by Dr Orna Guralnik, James Hollis and Esther Perel via our highly unreliable car radio apparatus. Yet, despite the imperfection of the sound system, the message (to me) was loud and clear: you are more unknown to yourself than you think.
Now, it’s a little early to go into all the dark details here, but the last podcast we listened to really hit a nerve, or two, or three, or four. And as I confessed to my wife the extent to which I related to the psychological problems of the male in the therapy session, she said: ‘well, yeah, that’s why I put it on. I have wanted to play you this episode ever since I first listened to it.’
The whole experience was profoundly revealing, humbling, awful, and wonderful. Partly, I was just freaked out that such fundamental patterns, roles and responses were so blind to me. But I also had a feeling of awe and wonder in discovering these unexplored and expansive catacombs in the dark crypts of my Kingdom Within.
Now, for Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Christian Mystic and Neo-Platonic Philosopher) unknowing is the way to God. Makes sense. If God is beyond our understanding, then me must go beyond our understanding to encounter God. Otherwise, we stay stuck in our knowing. So, we must unknow to reach The Unknown.
And perhaps unknowing is also the way to encounter The Otherness of our own psyches, partners, children and friends – as so often our certainties, interpretations, beliefs and knowledge get in the way of a genuine encounter. Sadly, it would seem, I have been having a relationship with a tiny aspect of my historical self! How tragic!
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s Via Negativa, or Negative Way, may be a practical tool to use in disrupting our dogmatic beliefs, that lead to an anxious and angry rigidity in our relationships with our Significant Others - a rigidity and irritability that so often kills the mystery, wonder and growth of life.
In short, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite invites us to speak and think in a way that doesn’t claim knowledge. But rather, he argues, our language must reflect unknowing. We must speak in negative terms.
What follows is me playing around with this method, with regards God, Self, Partner, and Children (all of whom were in our Silver Skoda Fabia for both the Outward and Return journeys):
God is not a Christian
God is not a Muslim
God is not a Jew
God’s first language isn’t Arabic, Hebrew or Greek
God is not my Theology
God is not my Parents
God is not a Republican
God is not a Democrat
I am not my Mistakes
I am not my Childhood Roles
I am not my Fears
I am not my Ideas
I am not my Job
I am not my Bank Balance
I am not my Wounds
I am not my Parents
My Partner is not my Saviour
My Partner is not my Healer
My Partner is not my Mother
My Partner is not my Father
My Partner is not my Fantasy
My Partner is not Me
My Partner is not My Shadow
My Partner is not My God
My Children are not Here To Please Me
Mr Children are not Here To Look Good
My Children are not Mouthpieces for My Ethics, Politics & Theology
My Children are not Here To Validate Me
My Children are not their Future Qualifications, Professions, or Marital Status
My Children are not their Struggles & Successes
My Children are not Me
My Children are not My Partner
The Via Negativa (my style) is one possible way of loosening the dogmatic grip of our fearful, rigid and flawed forms of knowing, and edging us towards a more spacious place of wonder, mystery and unknowing, where genuine encounters with The Other can occur.
(However, it might be far more effective to ask your partners, friends, and children to tell you what annoys them about you; what they think your blind spots are; or indeed just ask for impertinently pointed suggestions on podcasts, books, and Substacks. See if anything touches a nerve or two, or three, or four!)