Dark Night of the Soul – Christine Valters Paintner 

“[During the Dark Night of the Soul] we either relinquish our attachments or they feel stripped away (usually we experience both) and we move toward greater freedom. These can include our ideas about God and how the world works, our theological framework, and even a sense of God’s presence, so that we can experience it as a time of utter loss and abandonment. Yet all these things are stripped away to move more deeply into an experience of the love that dwells within us and in the heart of all things.”
.— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Online Self-Study Retreat ~ A Midwinter God: Making a Conscious Underworld Journey