Nyx, the Greek Goddess of Night

Greek Mythology: Description and signification of Nyx in combination with the night, shadows and obscurity.

The night is not only the absence of sunlight. It symbolizes as well the obscurity filled with mysteries and the protective mother's breast. In Greek mythology the night represents a conception where it signifies the great goddess Nyx who is wearing a black dress ornated with stars. The night dispenses the sleep and allows to forget the pains. It is the mother of the sleep, the dream, the love-pleasure and also the death. Because of its disquiet aspect the night is sometimes considered as mother of corruption and vengeance.

In many different cultures the rituals dedicated to the earth and to the dead were celebrated during the night just as in primitive Christianity where the reunions of the faithful and interments took place in the night. Later on, it was associated with witches who celebrated nocturnal orgies likewise the Night of Walpurgis.

Concerning a second signification the night becomes a true mystical symbol. That is the reason why the night is to be found often in the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the immediate sense, the night provides the levels of examinations and tests the soul have to pass on its way to the union with God. When there will be an obscure night, when sometimes exist as well an illuminated night: This is the night when to discover the pilgrimage of the soul and the "midnight sun". After this illuminated night can exist a new black night again that symbolizes God's most guarded truth: The light of the lights and the shadows are balanced in opposite conjunctions. It's in the silence where the secrets of this divine shadow can be learned that shines in the brightest lights at bossom of the blackest obscurity.

As black forms a couple of opposition with white, it forms as well another one with its proper significations. It also refers to the chaos and the death up to the unity where the whole life is issued. All ambivalence of the notion of obscurity can be found which can likewise represent the absence of all light. It remains only one light that is to pure that it blinds the people and seems to them being a shadow.

In the Apocalypse the shadows announce the imminence of the World's end. The Masonic Mystery Circle lights up the most painful enigma of life: The light and the shadows are one. Life is likewise death, the shadows are also light.