C.G. Jung understood alchemy not only as the proto-science
of chemistry, but also as a psychological and symbolic art of
transformation/transmutation relating to the process of psychic development. In
alchemy, Sol niger (Black Sun) signals the initiation and, at the same time,
the culmination of the first stage of Opus Magnum (Great Work), the path to
spiritual wholeness - the Nigredo (Blackness) stage associated with the
disintegration, decomposition and death of previous attitudes, views, ways of
functioning, with splitting, loss, annihilation - the ‘dark night of the soul’,
without which, however, rebirth and growth are not possible. Blackness here is a
psychological metaphor for the unknown, the unseen, the rejected and suppressed
- also in the social and political sense. Sol niger is blackness that shines
with its own radiance.

It is known from alchemical symbolism and analytical work
that when one learns to lean into and bear the weight of one’s personal
darkness, or binds the wound of cultural trauma, the ‘dark night’ begins to
emit ‘dark light’, confirming what the poet Theodore Roethke reminds us of: in
‘dark time …. the eye begins to see’. Individual people, as well as groups
and cultures, are subject to this process.

The symbolism of the alchemical process illustrates the
necessity of darkness and the relativism of all valuing: sometimes a minus is a
plus and sometimes a plus is a minus.

Interestingly, in the Shinto religion, contrary to European
symbolism, the sun is considered a goddess. In other words, the black (yin) sun
that shines and inspires creative works is Sol niger acting as a muse. Where
darkness is respected, the fear of it is overcome and the black sun becomes the
creative fire that heals.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry