“When you are in this state, you walk with poets, saints, and revolutionaries—anyone who has ever been forced out of his or her customary life by sudden loss and was made stronger by it. These great souls are your compadres now, and they include our greatest poets, sages, musicians, and artists. Identify your own brothers and sisters of the Dark Night. They’re definitely out there. Ask yourself: Of the songwriters, painters, saints, and revolutionaries I know of, which ones experienced what I am experiencing now and returned to teach about it? Whose art or life expresses what I feel? Who has encountered the Dark Night and faced it with the kind of courage and openness I aspire to?”