Shadow Work #3: Shadow Play, Separateness and Practicality

Years ago, in the deep woods on another mountain, I played frequently with my shadow. I studied It’s nature. My shadow was on the ground in front of me…or behind me… I watched the patterns change throughout the day as the sun would slide into the horizon. Short silhouette shadows or long scrawny grey ones stretched across the ground the on long evenings of summer. I began to see outside the world of my own reality by sitting with shadows, as they presented in nature. To the mind of a child, with little else to amuse her on that contemplative level, it was Pure Magic! Especially as she contemplated that simplicity with the complexity of what she found in the actions around her, how they oriented to something other than how they were speaking. She observed here actions made words lie. Separateness didn’t just occurred outside of oneself, she learned. It happened inside too.

Some would say Shadows are full of drama. Others find shadow work a beautiful practice to behold. In my reality, Shadow work is only seen dramatic from the slightly smug (aka also still shadowed) spiritual side. It’s separateness colliding beautifully with Oneness. Either way you look at it, either as separateness joining back into Oneness or separateness splitting off until it’s been divested of all of its “notnesses”, the outcome is the same. Right now we have separation. Where we are heading is to Oneness.

We are peeling back the layers of our NOTness (conditioning and states of victimhood), to reveal our ISness. In doing so we begin to see how we got here, happenstance, coincidence, theft and victimhood are all vehicles that time uses interchangeably.
“Terrified of the dark; so the darkness I became

scared of my own demons, so I learned them all by name.

I was fearful of monsters; so I became one too.

I was frightened by ghosts until I realized…

I’m the Ghost who’s haunting Me.”

(Author Unknown)

Artis: Megh Curry

The Rewind…

Forgive the monster you’ve become and the monsters that taught you how. Forgiveness… from our perspective, is simply the result of the action of acceptance. It’s when your mind stops trying to find reasons why something is “WRONG” and just accepts what is “IS”. Acceptance is key here; forgiveness is a natural course of action once acceptance has been achieved. You don’t just achieve Forgiveness, you must CHOOSE acceptance, then forgiveness flows free. Forgiveness doesn’t take things personally. Forgiveness is seeing another’s reality bubble from within your Own, seeing its differences and its samenesses and seeing them as perfect. Forgiveness is stopping the blame game, because there’s Nothing Really Wrong, even if Better is Now a Necessity. Forgiveness is no longer judging or holding account of wrongdoings. Forgiveness is to stop the war cry of “Wrong” and replace it with a yearning and a cry for “Let’s do Better”. Better is not a judgment; it’s setting an intention of choosing a way that’s more in alignment or a Higher Frequency Response next time.
Remember the Ghost from the poem above? When we choose Not to Forgive, we Remain in our Shadow Frequency. We become ghosts over time, fearful of our own shadow, lacking in luster and life glow, depressed, lost, feeling wounded or deeply dependent on others to a detriment. That’s what the inside of THAT reality can feel like. The Outside… The outside is an altogether different matter

“The Monster I created to protect my inner child is difficult to manage” ~Marc Maron~

Artist: Sako Asko

This simple dramatic depiction of multiplicity within individuality profoundly speaks to the complexity AND simplicity involved in shadow work. How do I get past my beast, why suffering? THESE are the important questions. Though seeing it in this level of simplicity is merely the raft we have gotten on to lead us to the other shore. The shore of Oneness. This level of authenticity in our pain gives as a base understanding of Why Separation, so we can get to the place where Separation is no longer necessary, so thus we choose a different way

This is the crux point in our shift between Matter and Spirit. Our physical bodies, MUST matter, they are Matter. And. They are not the heart of the matter, they are not the end point, and yet, these bodies are how we are here to Experience, so that makes them sacred. Sacred tools for spirit to use to Experience this realm. These shifts in humanity I speak of occurs slowly and yet not. You can find it spread through history, folklore, society, and now most prevalently in our political system and communication in social media.

WE have to live to this life of separateness in these human bodies for the purpose of returning to Oneness, the Consciousness Collective. Which while a beautiful concept that Leads to deep understanding and many needed layers of acceptance, is frankly a thing that takes place over thousands of years as humanity shifts through its phases. It’s the living of it day to day that actually causes the shift over time. We each do our part and the whole collective changes, slowly, perhaps almost imperceptible so, but it Does Change!

Let’s Look At Shadows As They Exist Visibly

Shadow is formed when a solid object passes in front of a light source, casting a distorted illusion of separateness. Looking at that reality from a scientific observational perspective, we can make the following conclusions about shadows

• A shadow is ‘Root Sourced’ in origin, attached as it is to your feet. (Try it! Look down at your shadow, attached at your heel. Now play with the following…)

• A Shadow is a distorted illusion (separateness) of the real object. Wave your hand, it’s You, but it’s not you… Or so your brain thinks.

• Shadow Distortion is directly related to the angle at which the object is standing in relation to the light source. This becomes important when we begin talking about Being IN Alignment, later on

• Shadows are a natural occurrence in nature, they happen organically, and Everybody has one, so no shitting on your shadows

• Its very existence represents that light does indeed exist, in case you’re the pessimistic sort.

• You can’t cut it off, unless you shut off the light or your self

We are stitched together – our shadow and solid self! It IS a part of this human experience. Instead of ducking from it, or trying to cut it off from ourselves, let’s turn and embrace it. (Insert funny commentary regarding Peter Pan and his attempt at removing his shadow…snicker snicker)

The concept of Separateness is prevalent all through history, Jungian theory, Norse, Greeks, and even more recently, human design and gene keys, have all explored these concepts over the years. It just needs to take root in more minds to become a way we shift the world. A note on separating oneself from one’s shadows. Before we get to far, I can already hear the commentary,”well, I’ll just rid of it, or ignore it’s complexity, that will make it go away.” Well I’m here to tell you that just doesn’t quite work. Much like you can’t just cut off your shadow in the physical realm, you can’t cut off your internal shadow. Though if you try to, this is often where Soul Loss can happen. In abstract facts, there’s even author’s notes of immured (trapped) shadow being used in Bulgarian folklore* to increase the structural support of specific types of new building construction leading the consequent death of the human

This shadow in the physical gives us reference to understand the internal shadow, which is much harder to tangibly discuss, as in each person it represents so uniquely, though also quite predictably so, which we will continue to discuss at length in subsequent articles. Regardless of it’s complexity, the simplicity of it all, is that it is here to teach us the concepts of separateness. Before we can attain higher frequencies we MUST embrace just how Separate we have become! It’s not hard to do… Just look inside at your fantasies, your private yearnings, your dark secrets that you just don’t even think about yourself, or maybe you do, and they float around the inside of your brain haunting you. This Separateness is, in my belief, the WHY we are here, to understand it and then move beyond it, back into connection, Back into Oneness. You see None if this is religion based… You could be moving back into the arms of God, or good relations with your priests, back into the arms of your community, re-embracing your salvation, your commitments to ______.  t’s not the thing that we’re returning to that matters, just that we Are Returning.
(If you have benefitted from or enjoyed this Series, please share this Medicine!))

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Mountain Woman Medicinces, “Mountain Medicine Spoken in the Language of Science” is an experience based system of using scientific approaches to understand and convey concepts in its basic context, then That lay against individual human experience, gaining a dynamic understanding and a contextual language.
* “The Immuring of a Human Shadow is a well-known feature of Balkan folklore. It is done in the belief that a bridge, a church, or a public building will stand longer if a person’s shadow is built into the structure. Such a person languishes and soon dies. His spirit then turns into a talasŭm (hobgoblin). People avoid passing a new building whose masons are trying to measure the shadow of a human being and immure it into the foundation.” – Nicoloff, Bulgarian Folkore, pp. 61-2 (1983)

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