Shadows of Shadows

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.
Carl Jung in Psychology and Religion (1938).

In response to yesterday's post about the need to do shadow work, one of my readers asks about how one actually does such work. It's a good question. Jung, himself, is not particularly accessible to laypersons. So where to begin? A number of years ago, several friends and I worked through Dark Moon Mysteries by Timothy Roderick and I found it a good place to start.

While I am definitely not a psychoanalyst (and don't pretend to be giving psychological advice), I have spent -- and will spend, until I die -- a good amount of time doing shadow work. Shadows, by their nature, have this conflicting desire to stay hidden and, yet, to make themselves known. So catching one in action, shining a light on it, and inviting it to come openly to the table to share what it knows, is, in my practice, at least, a big part of the work. Once aware that there's a shadow in action, most Witches and magical workers are pretty good at figuring out ways to trance, journal, do directed dreaming, do Tarot work, dance with, paint, do spell work with, and generally tease the energy bound up in a shadow out into a space where that energy can become available for productive uses.

I've found two pretty reliable clues that I've got a shadow issue. When something always bugs me inordinately, the reason is almost always bound up in a shadow. For example, having to deal with customer "service" of any sort tends to drive me completely crazy. (Comcast, I'm looking at you. But I'm also looking at the IT folks at work, the receptionist at the dishwasher-repair shop, the person who invented "Press 1 if you want to . . . .", and, well, you know.) Lots of people get frustrated when dealing with this stuff, but they don't get almost hysterical and obsess about it. I do. All that excessive-to-the-actual-cause energy is coming from somewhere. In my case, I think it comes from a shadow issue bound up with feeling that I may be powerless and that I won't be able to get the help that I need. There've certainly been incidents in my life that I can point to that seem likely to have caused more suffering over this issue than I was able to effectively process at the time, which is often what causes a shadow.

My experience is that it's often a lot easier to sense when someone else has a shadow issue than it is to identify our own. But sometimes learning to see when others may be tripping over their own shadows can help me to realize how to look for my own. When I see someone who gets really worked up over some issue in ways that don't make sense, I wonder if there aren't shadow issues involved. The classic case is someone who gets hysterical over gay marriage. It's odd; other people getting married would seem to hardly impact you. What is it that makes you get so upset about it? What need gets served by trying to control that aspect of others' lives? What is it about sex, marriage, family, homosexuality, etc. that triggers such a strong over-reaction? Because none of the "reasons" offered -- it will destroy "traditional" marriage, it's bad for "the children," it will lead to polygamy, incest, etc. -- make any sense.

And that's the second sign, to me, that I'm probably dealing with one of my shadows: when the "reasons" that I give myself for why I just can't [do X, get over issue Y, face problem Z] simply don't make much sense, when I step back and cross examine them like the lawyer I am.

How do you do shadow work? What resources have you found useful? Do you agree with Vaughan-Lee about the need for shadow work?

Picture found here.

Shadow Work

Know What I Love? I Love How "The Shadow" Is Such a Part of This. Literally.

Flight From Embodiment from Alliance for Wild Ethics on Vimeo.

Shadows WILL show up and make themselves known, no matter how hard we try to squish them down. It's not just what they do; it's who they are.

What A Witch Does

Earlier this week, I wrote about the relationship between control over our emotions and the ability to, right to, advisability of doing magic. I've seen, and I imagine that you have, as well, people who had some native ability to direct energy but who had almost no ability to control their own emotions, their tongue, their actions. My advice: Shield. Move Quickly Towards the Door. (And of course, we're all on the journey; I've never met the completely evolved human. But it's part of my work, as a Witch, to keep working on myself and to keep searching for those who have danced a bit farther down the path so that I can learn from them. It's one reason why doing magic in a community of women is so important to me.) And epic poetry and national legends are full of stories about those who were corrupted by their native ability to do magic, those who didn't do the interior work needed to create a safe container for that power. So it's not that you can't do any magic until you've spent years doing the alchemical work of turning the impulses of a two-year-old into gold. But your ability to do effective magic and to step into your true power as a priestess, mage, magic-worker, Witch does depend on a growing ability to control yourself and your emotions.

While someone studying the art of magic might gently yet thoroughly become aware of each potential stumbling block that remains in [her] soul, the [W]itch within all of us may not learn how to do this with such discipline or studied attention. [Hopefully, the passage of time and] the roads of experience . . . with luck and a fair wind, allow us as women to know ourselves better, acknowledging and accepting who it is [that] we are. We grow more emotionally intelligent: the ability to identify an emotional energy when it is triggered, with a sense of where and why it was sourced, allows the [W]itch to understand its force, its reason, its craving and direction.

Emma Restall Orr in Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess and the Unacceptable Nature of Women.

I owe my friend S., one of the most intent-upon-knowing-herself people I've ever met, for my real introduction to Jungian concepts, including shadow and projection. There are dozens of books, courses, psychotherapists out there that can help each of us to identify -- and learn to dance with -- our own shadows, to show us when that inexplicably strong reaction we have to something that someone else does is really projection (our own shadows' way of saying: "Hello! I'm still here and I'd still prefer to remain hidden, even though I also long to be known. Look! Over there! Someone else doing [insert reflection of shadow]! Go get them!" It's often some of the most valuable information we ever get -- if we learn how to use it.) Learning to, in Restall Orr's words, "identify an emotional energy when it is triggered, with a sense of where and why it was sourced," is one of the most important ways that a Witch acquires control over herself. Shadow work with a good psychotherapist can help, as can dream work, daily practice, journaling, art, meditative dance or other exercise, working in community. How are you working on this? What has worked for you in the past? What shadow within you keeps distracting you from your true work as a Witch? How would sitting down and having dinner, doing ritual with, making love to that shadow enhance your work as a Witch? When do you lose control?

Restall Orr explains that emotion:

doesn't overwhelm [a Witch] or take the ground from beneath her, but instead she contains it without a struggle, pausing to consider the wisdom of any action she might take, pausing until her view is extended in every direction. Nor does holding the emotion for a moment, a day, a year, dissipate that energy; when she is ready, the [W]itch has the ability to direct that emotional energy, with all its force intact, in a perfect vibrant stream of creativity.

It takes practice.

Id.

LOL. Yeah, it takes practice.

May my practice be in the service of the Goddess. May your practice be blessed.

Even If We're Just Dancing In The Dark

In Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess & the Unacceptable Nature of Woman, Druid priest Emma Restall Orr writes:

[D]arkness is not evil; it is simply the not knowing. Throughout the history of our people, as far back as stories allow we see evidence that some have explored the power of the dark. In the long barrows and passage graves of Britain and Ireland, five to eight thousand years old, we find clues as to how peoples reached out to understand the forces of darknesss and death that loomed over them. . . . [I]t isn't just courage that is needed. Courage often comes with limited sensitivity. It takes a mindset that is willing to perceive and accept the unknown, the unknowable, that which is almot unthinkable, and find a language to explain [that] to those who can't.

Looking into our own dark places (part of the work of a Witch) is, I think similar. Courage is needed, but also an ability to come back and translate and explain to our Talking Selves -- our active-in-the-world rational selves -- what it is that we've discovered in the dark. And then to figure out what to do about it. I find that, when trying to help my Talking Self to use what I've learned in the dark, sitting in meditation helps. Journaling helps. And then, letting the images, dreams, odd phrases and feelings just sit (maybe my grandma would have said "letting them gell") is what really helps.

Picture found here.

How do you help all of your "selves" to integrate wisdom about your dark spaces?

Soul Work

Just a few days until Samhein.

For me, this time of year is about introspection. Samhein is the beginning of a new year for witches, and the days leading up to Samhein are a time to pause and consider what I've accomplished over the past year and what I failed to accomplish. And the "why" behind the things that I wanted to accomplish and, yet, didn't accomplish is an important question for me.

It seems to me that when I want to do something but "just can't" quite "get around to it," a Shadow is often involved. (Assuming, of course that I really do want to achieve that goal and didn't just adopt it because I thought that I "should" or because others wanted it for me.) And my Shadows will, if approached gently, respectfully, in a light trance, talk to me. Those are important conversations for me, not easy or fun, but important to the process of becoming who I want to become, to the process of stripping off the layers and revealing/becoming my Better Self. I sometimes ask a Shadow for its name, ask if we can do a joint Tarot reading, ask what I can do to help the Shadow feel safe enough to let me make desired changes.

The Shadow that I worked with this weekend showed me her picture: the Two of Pentacles. How do you read that card?


Art found here.