Opening to Darkness

“…thought-provoking offering, ideal for those willing to unpack her dreamlike, dense text. Evocative and strange, Manuel’s latest will fascinate spiritualists willing to do the work.” —Publishers Weekly

"Supported throughout with first-person experiences, blessings, and guided meditations, the seeker is called to form the darkness, once a stranger, into the type of friend you might invite for tea. This new relationship will go a long way to ease our fears while positively impacting our ability to coexist harmoniously on the planet.” —Spirituality & Health

“Opening to Darkness is beautiful, wise, magical, earthly, and utterly necessary for our time.” —Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP, bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands, The Quaking of America, and Monsters in Love

“Zenju shines a contemplative light on the wisdom of sacred darkness, offering a journey of returning to what we have forgotten and must now remember that heals and unites humanity. This book offers life-giving practices to those seeking the revelations of wholeness and belonging.” —Ruth King, author of Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out

“In these times, what some might call . . . ‘dark times,’ Zenju Earthlyn Manuel does not offer us a sun, starlight, or even a torch, yet in this book we are lovingly led. As we stumble through the void, running into trees and away from ourselves, we are reminded that, yes, this too can be divine direction. This book beckons us to remember that the sacred nutrients of wisdom, creation, and transformation dwell in blackness, in darkness. Who might we become? What miracles might our world give forth if we learned not only to make peace with the dark but to honor her for all she teaches us about this glorious enigmatic existence of ours? Opening to Darkness cradles us with grace in the womb of that ever-pregnant possibility.” —Sonya Renee Taylor, activist and author, New York Times bestselling author of The Body Is Not an Apology