Dark Super Bloom
Dark Super Bloom
By Laura Reece Hogan
Here in Southern California we do not like to admit we live in a desert. We aqueduct, we plant, we water feverishly; we are caught by surprise when things catch fire and, on the breath of howling wind and low humidity, burn all the way to the ocean. Yet the terrible wildfires of November 2018 yielded to an unusually wet winter—for a desert, anyway. The extra inches of rain converted into a spring super bloom, an exquisite abundance of wildflowers across the state. Thousands flocked to see fields aglow in orange poppies, lavender lupine, desert sunflowers, chocolate lilies, and the flaming red blooms of ocotillo. This surge in wildflowers led in turn to a different sort of super bloom—a massive spike in butterflies, specifically in the population of painted lady butterflies. We experienced a remarkable migration of painted ladies across California. These indomitable wayfarers, attired in their jaunty orange and black wings, streaming northwest across sunny California landscapes of wildflowers, billboards, traffic, and backyards, struck me powerfully—and not so much for what is seen of their journey, as for the darkness and unknowing that lie beneath it.
On the one hand, it seemed that everyone in Los Angeles stopped and stared at the beauty flitting by; there was a sense of the miraculous in this plentiful torrent of butterflies after the drought, the fires, the winter. Yet like any miracle, how much aridity and ash, how many floods and mudslides made way for the abundance of bloom and wings? And not only were these particular painted ladies born from this dark underside of a super bloom, they echo this darkness of unknowing in their own innate programming to abandon all they know and migrate, to follow a homing instinct that drives them away, away, away—in utter abandonment—and likewise toward, toward, toward— in complete trust of an unknown destination. Vanessa cardui (literally “butterfly of the thistle”) leave—permanently—the land of their birth. They travel energetically to an alien land which they have never known. They follow an unfamiliar path, a way which may or may not present them with food, water, rest, predators, winds, or wilting heat. They know, it seems, only one thing – the direction. They do not know what following it will bring, or what the end point may look like. And yet they unerringly journey on, at speeds remarkable for such small wings, up to thirty miles per hour, covering up to one hundred miles per day. The whole of this sweeping migration exhibits a remarkable conviction in the path forward.
Photo by Lina Verovaya
To me, this super bloom of painted ladies, born of darkness and leading into darkness, points to a path of utter unknowing not unlike the Christian via negativa. The apophatic theology underlying the concept of the via negativa—the negative way—suggests that God is radically unknowable. Because the divine is uncreated, transcendent, and infinite, and we humans are created, immanent, and finite, we cannot know God, yet somewhat paradoxically can know something of God through God’s creation; that is, by way of the via positiva or a kataphatic grasp of what we may see, hear and experience of the goodness of God. Expression of these complementary theologies dates back to early Christianity; Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, in particular Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite treated these themes.
In one classic expression of apophatic theology, fourth-century theologian St. Gregory of Nyssa in his Commentary on the Song of Songs likens contemplation to the path of Moses’ entry into “the cloud where God was” (Exod 20:21)—the experience of increasing darkness in the approach to God, moving successively from light, into cloud, and finally at the highest level of contemplation, into darkness. The anonymous fourteenth-century English author of The Cloud of Unknowing takes up a similar theme, suggesting that the successful contemplative places a “cloud of forgetting” between oneself and things of the world, and focuses completely on contemplative penetration or “beating” of the “cloud of unknowing” which lies above, between oneself and God.
The sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite friar St. John of the Cross also sought God in and through the via negativa. In the theology of John of the Cross, the divine Living Flame of Love shines such a powerful and overwhelming light that the soul undergoing purification experiences pain and blindness, and therefore darkness. For John, this divine ray of light first purifies, then ultimately unifies the soul with the divine. On the one hand, the soul in the purifying dark night of the soul experiences total darkness; the soul can only long for God, orient itself to God, and trust in the action of God to draw it onward to belonging. Yet on the other hand, even the soul who has gone through the dark night and is in a state of divine union cannot truly know or speak of God. In his poem “The Spiritual Canticle” we find the speaker so overcome by love for, and total focus on, the Beloved, Jesus Christ, that he knows nothing: “I drank of my Beloved, and, when I went abroad/ through all this valley/ I no longer knew anything.” So we find in the theology of John of the Cross a complete expression of the via negativa in all stages of spiritual growth and maturity, each enigmatic step of the way.
How do the painted lady butterflies find their way? Scientists have found that painted ladies with access to the sun can orient themselves to the north; by contrast, those without the sun cannot find their way. Within each butterfly lies a figurative drop of sun, a solar compass, the key to knowing which way to trust, which way is forward. The sun itself provides the bearing, even though the resulting path is uncharted and mysterious. And how do painted ladies survive along the way? They consume the most ordinary of plants such as daisies, ironweed, and clover, and especially the plant for which they are named, thistles. In scripture thistles serve as a symbol of desolation or wilderness (e.g., Isa 34:13). Yes, our painted lady butterflies are fed by the commonplace, the everyday, and that which is associated with hardship and endurance.
The via negativa is characterized by this sort of everyday obscurity. It is a path born from the underside of our human frailty and limitation, and leading forward into the unknown. Yet it is also a path which recognizes the immensity of God, a Love which is so overwhelming and bright that it may appear to us to be darkness and absence. It is a path almost impossible to speak of, in its incomprehensibility, gritty endurance, and wordless trust.
Some correlate the via negativa with mysticism, or an extraordinary contemplative path which few walk. This is simply not true, as this metaphor of the painted ladies suggests. No, the apophatic way is encountered by all who seek God in the silence, the spaces between, the daisies and ironweed, the dirty dishes and laundry. The apophatic way is the waiting on an empty street corner in prayer. It is the patient and habitual turning toward the One we love, even when the One is completely hidden. It is the contentment with not knowing, because we totally trust and love the One beyond knowing. It is being completely filled with and carried by Love when we have no idea how or when or what is the operation of this Love.
Of course, our lives are complicated and filled with challenges, and so also our spiritual lives; the via negativa may seem by turns painfully harsh, tedious, empty, or uncomfortably unfamiliar. When I consider the difficulties of the via negativa which we all face at some point in our spiritual lives, I find the persistence and resilience of the painted ladies in the face of the utter unknown inspiring. They dine on the ordinary, the difficult; they keep on moving, mile after slow mile. They take their direction from the sun alone. They are equally at home on a freeway or a schoolyard, in a parking lot or a garden. Like Moses, they see a cloud as an invitation. Like the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, they are not afraid to keep beating on the cloud to make some forward progress. Like John of the Cross, they are irresistibly guided by a golden light of love. Like you, and like me, they keep following the terrain, rustic or urban, rough or smooth, dull or exciting, alone or accompanied. The orienting drop of sunshine throbs within, urging us forward on a sure path through the darkness.
Laura Reece Hogan
Author & Poet
Photography by Ida M. H. Perez