When Spiritual Travel Breaks Down in the Dark Night
Why Pilgrimage Suddenly Becomes Impossible
There are phases in spiritual life in which what once carried us suddenly no longer does.
What was once self-evident feels foreign. What once gave meaning feels empty. And things that used to be light suddenly become heavy.
For many, this does not only affect prayer, meditation, or inner practice, but also something very concrete: traveling.
Travel was once more than mere transportation.
It was transition, movement, transformation.
For some, it was even a quiet form of prayer—being on the way while inwardly accompanied.
Yet in the so-called dark night, this experience changes radically.
The Dark Night – a Silent Rupture
The term “dark night” comes from Christian mysticism, above all from John of the Cross. But what he describes is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon. Similar experiences can be found in many spiritual paths—even among people who have little connection to religious language.
It refers to a phase in which what previously created connection is no longer experientially accessible. God is no longer felt. Meaning feels hollow. Even one’s own inner world appears strange or empty.
What is important is this:
In these phases, something is not necessarily lost.
But it withdraws from experience.
What once felt like a sustaining field—a quiet love, a sense of being held, an unquestioned feeling of connectedness—suddenly is no longer available. Not destroyed, but hidden.
When Connection Disappears
Many people know from earlier phases of life a feeling that is hard to name, yet clearly present:
One is connected.
With oneself. With others. With life. Perhaps with God.
This feeling can be very subtle, yet it carries. It is like an invisible layer of trust running through everyday life. Decisions come more easily. Transitions feel meaningful. Even being on the move has an inner grounding.
In the dark night, precisely this fundamental feeling breaks away.
Not only does God seem distant—other people also become hard to reach. Conversations feel hollow or exhausting. And sometimes even the connection to one’s own inner life is lost. One still functions, but without resonance.
One is present—yet inwardly cut off.
This experience is often difficult to put into words. And yet it is central to understanding why travel can become so burdensome in this phase.
Why Travel Normally Carries Us
At its core, travel is not a logistical process.
It is a state of transition.
Traditionally, travel was always associated with something beyond mere purpose:
One left something behind. One was on the way. One did not know exactly what lay ahead. And precisely in that uncertainty lay a form of meaning.
Pilgrimage, wandering, spiritual journeying—all of this lives from an inner movement that keeps pace with the outer one. The body walks, and the soul walks with it.
As long as a sense of connectedness is present, this works almost by itself. The path carries, even when it is strenuous. In-between spaces are permeable. One is on the way and at the same time inwardly held.
When the Carrying Falls Away
In the dark night, this balance shifts.
Travel loses its inner quality. It becomes functional, mechanical, often unpleasant—not because it is objectively more difficult, but because what once cushioned it inwardly is missing.
The path itself no longer carries.
Train stations, trains, roads, waiting rooms—all these in-between places suddenly become dominant. They are no longer threshold spaces, but empty zones. Places without meaning, without resonance, without direction.
What once was transition becomes mere interruption.
And it is precisely here that an inner conflict begins, one that affects many spiritual seekers in the dark night:
One wants to travel—but can no longer make pilgrimage.
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| Picture: thanks to iam os on Unsplash |
Transportation Without Pilgrimage
A decisive distinction that becomes clear in this phase is that between transportation and pilgrimage.
Transportation moves the body.
Pilgrimage moves the soul.
In the dark night, often only the former still functions—and it is precisely the latter that is missing.
The body can be moved.
But inwardly, one remains standing still.
Or worse:
Outer movement becomes an inner imposition.
This explains why many people in this phase:
can barely tolerate crowds,
experience in-between spaces as especially burdensome,
long for places of retreat, yet can hardly endure the journey to reach them.
The Exhaustion of In-Between Spaces
Train stations, trains, roads, waiting rooms—all of these are places of the in-between.
Normally, they are permeable, almost incidental.
In the dark night, they become dominant.
They offer:
no anchoring,
no stillness,
no meaning.
What once was “transition” becomes emptiness without purpose.
And emptiness without purpose is harder to bear than pain.
Historical Parallels
A look into history shows:
Many mystics traveled little—or only under very protected conditions.
Monasteries offered:
continuity,
rhythmic structure,
spiritual community.
Pilgrim routes were:
slow,
ritualized,
embedded in networks of hospices and monasteries.
Modern mobility hardly knows such protective spaces anymore.
It demands flexibility, adaptability, endurance.
Precisely what is lacking in the dark night.
The Paradoxical Experience
Many experience a painful paradox in this phase:
One longs for movement.
But movement tears one open inwardly.
One wants to be on the way. But being on the way overwhelms.
One wants to be a pilgrim. But one cannot walk.
This is not a personal failure.
It is a phase of spiritual disintegration.
Not Regression, but Transition
The dark night is not a regression.
It is a transition—albeit without a handrail.
What falls away is not truth or meaning as such, but the experienced form of it.
The old no longer carries.
The new is not yet there.
Travel becomes a touchstone in this phase:
Where do I seek support?
What carried me before?
What of that was feeling—and what was foundation?
A Cautious Interpretation
Perhaps this phase is not a time for outward travel.
Perhaps it is a time of waiting, of stillness, of inward gathering.
Or a time of traveling in very small stages.
Or a time in which pilgrimage is temporarily relocated inward.
Not as a retreat out of fear.
But as a necessary form of protection.
An Open Ending
The dark night does not demand that we function.
It demands honesty.
Perhaps we may acknowledge:
that pilgrimage is sometimes not possible,
that transportation alone is not enough,
that spiritual maturity also means respecting limits.
And perhaps a time will come
in which paths open again—
not because we have become stronger,
but because something deeper carries us once more.
Authored by Rebekka Waldesruh
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