Sweet darkness

I was introduced to the work of David Whyte in the 1990's-- in corporate America of all places. 

At the time, I was a young project manager in a leadership development rotation through our training and development department. My primary mentors, three profoundly generous and wise women took me under their wings like the baby bird that I was. Each of them not only illuminated the technical aspects of adult learning protocols and processes, but who they were as human beings. It was a life and career altering rotation to say the least.   

As a young professional I hardly had the depth nor maturity to understand what David Whyte was talking about or what most of it meant. But when this poem, Sweet Darkness re-found me in 2009 it both haunted and changed my life. Today, I understand and have lived every single word and maybe you have too.  



Sweet Darkness (in the collection The House of Belonging)

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. 
There you can be sure you are not beyond love. 

The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. 

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up on all other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. ― David Whyte









By Mayra Porrata ©2026 Solara Publishing, LLC
Location: United States

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