The Shadow Effect - reflections

 "Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."

   Carl Jung

"You must go into the dark in order to bring forth your light. When we suppress any feeling or impulse, we are also suppressing its polar opposite. If we deny our ugliness, we lessen our beauty. If we deny our fear, we minimize our courage. If we deny our greed, we also reduce our generosity. Our full magnitude is more than most of us can ever imagine.”   

  Debbie Ford

I was remembering "The Shadow Effect"  (see trailer  below about the movie), which was mostly narrated by, and based on, the work of psychologist Debbie Ford, who wrote "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers", a book I've liked since I discovered it in the late 90's.  I enjoyed the movie, particularly the appearances of Deepak Chopra and James Van Praagh.  I admire Debbie Ford's work, although I have to confess, all that hugging in the workshops would no doubt drive me up a wall.  I'm just not a hugger.  And sometimes I get annoyed by the "do these exercises, make this realization, and you'll fulfill your destiny and be all you can be" idea..........I don't really believe in destiny any more, and trying to "be all you can be" can have some serious setbacks, like exhaustion, arrogance, and self-delusion. Which is "shadow", now that I think about it.   Sometimes the prize is not about getting richer, more love, or a better job, not about "getting" anything - it's about deepening our souls, and in the end, that's all that matters.  But I'm a crank sometimes, and what this movie has to say is  nevertheless vital, pragmatically, personally, and collectively, because it's about the essence of integral consciousness.

"The well of your joy is as deep as the well of your sorrow" 

 Kalil Gibran

 I've often written about the importance of the The Dark Goddess, and the importance of the Dark Goddess to all of planetary life now.  In other words, it's urgent that we develop true compassion for ourselves, and thus, each other, holistic compassion.    As individuals, the scales of Maat tip when too much of ourselves are unconscious, hidden away in the so-called "shadow" aspects of psyche. That's the true meaning of balance.

 Perhaps I should begin with one of my own "shadow" aspects, the "victim" archetype. I felt like sharing the following quote from Carolyn Myss because I agree with some (not all)  of her observations about what she called "woundology".

"One day, in passing, I introduced a friend of mine to two gentlemen I was talking with.  Within two minutes, my friend managed to let these men know that she was an incest survivor. Her admission had nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation we'd been having, and what I realized was that she was using her wounds as leverage. She had defined herself by a negative experience.  In workshops and in daily life I saw that, rather than working to get beyond their wounds, people were using them as social currency.  They were confusing the therapeutic value of self-expression with permission to manipulate others or define themselves with their wounds. Who would want to leave that behind? Health never commands so much clout!"


Carolyn Myss,  Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

  I want to comment first, as she does, that actual victimization, and the psychic wounds that arise from these experiences, should not be negated, nor should the "blame the victim" phenomenon ever be allowed to occur.   Further, a sense of victimhood can be learned from our parents, and can have roots that extend far back into family and cultural history.  Having said that, I also believe, from my own experience in therapy, that healing and self-understanding comes from being able to tell our painful stories, and by the telling we can integrate those stories into the larger story, developing compassion for ourselves and strength from those experiences.  We "fore-give", and move fore-ward.  The question of whether this role is a shadow issue arises when one lingers in the role of "victim" because it is familiar, and more importantly, it has great power because it  allows one to avoid responsibility for anything, and even provides a kind of social currency with others. To put it another way - you can't win with such  a "victim".

In the past few years,  entering my 60's and becoming a SAGA (no "crone" for me.  Saga is so much better, a Finnish derived word that means both "old woman"  and "long story") I've been noticing how much the "victim" or "wounded" archetype has big real estate in our world, as well as my own past persona.  It's a shadow aspect that is rarely spoken about, because, frankly, it has so much leverage and ambiguity attached to it.  I've also had to notice that there are individual interactions with people and groups that are about supporting each other's insecurities - and success, leadership, or individual accomplishments can be punishable by ostracism.  Believe me, I've been in circles with "victims" (myself included) that could deflate any natural leader or brilliant contributor in no time flat, and continually reduced the group to a comfy  "circle of mediocrity". 

Shadow Work is harsh.  I think a stubbornly internalized and unrealized  need to retain the role of  "victim" is on the same page as the unconscious need to dis-empower or denigrate the perceived gifts and strengths of others.  We cannot afford to genuinely victimize ourselves by clinging to the exhaustive role of  "victim" at a certain point in the quest for maturity - equally, we cannot afford to "make ourselves small" and hide our light so that others will "like" us, nor unconsciously coerce this tyranny on others so we won't feel "threatened".  Empowerment is like the symbol of the Tree of Life - as above, so below, as without, so within. The roots run deep, into dark waters.

 "He governs the flowing of all waters, and the ebbing, the courses of all rivers and the replenishment of springs, the distilling of all dews and rain in every land beneath the sky.  In the deep places, He gives thought to music great and terrible; and the echo of that music runs through all the veins of the world in sorrow and in joy; for if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomed at the foundations of the Earth."   J.R.R. Tolkein, "The Silmarillion"

"Accidental" Yonis - What would Jung Have to Say?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/qatar-accidental-vagina-stadium-al-wakrah-world-cup-stadium

Al-Wakrah stadium.       Photograph: Aecom

The design for Qatar's new Al-Wakrah sports stadium has quickly gone viral: with its shiny, pinkish tinge, its labia-like side appendages and its large opening in the middle, the supposedly innocent building ("based upon the design of a traditional Qatari dhow boat") was just asking for trouble.

A while back I wrote about Yoni stones, the documentary "Half the Sky",  and the strange "Black Stone of Mecca", once apparently  dedicated to an ancient, pre-Islamic  Arabian Moon Goddess, and its amazing silver "yoni" container.  Hmm.  In the context of such a phallic, patriarchal world, one wonders what Jung might have to say about it all..................or Marija Gimbutas.

 

Black Tara

Ture, Dark Mother of Bones & Blood Silent night and smoldering ruins

Teach us the Sorrow path of letting go

Of howling pain & rage releasing the Wheel always turning

Black heart center of understanding.

Grant the art of Letting-go in the still silence of your dark smile

Om tare tuttare ture soha 

 Silverstar

I've begun work on a new sacred mask. I haven't made a sacred mask in years, although I've made a lot of commercial masks. "Sacred" is a word with lots of meanings, but to me it means making a mask through a process that is "In-vocational". 

Invoke comes from the same root as "yoke" and "yoga", to join with , unite. In my experience, when intent is given to create a sacred mask, it becomes an invitation and a prayer to the deity (ancestor, power animal, or for those who are uncomfortable with anything touching on religion or shamanism, "archetypal power") to enter this world. To interact with, inform, bless, and transform in some way, the maker, those who use the mask, and ultimately, the audience as well. This was well understood in indigenous cultures, where masks are regarded as power objects, and are not used lightly. But because we've lost so many of our shamanic/magical traditions, the idea is generally not understood in today's world. In my own experience, like in Kevin Costner's 1989 movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come". This mask may be the first of 21 masks for Prema Dasara and the "21 Praises to Tara", the beautiful Mandala Blessing Dance that she has been creating with groups of women for many years. It will be an honor to meet this dedicated spiritual teacher.

Engaging in the spirit of the dance she has devoted her life to, making these masks will be, for me, also a devotional meditation for Tara, who is the female Bodhisattva of Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism. More on this later......there is far too much to say to write about Tara and Prema in passing. To share with fellow devotees a sacred invocation, a ritual dance, the creation of sacred and devotional art, can be transformative, a great blessing. Tara is celebrated with a long prayer called "The 21 Praises to Tara". The Goddess has 21 manifestations - peaceful and wrathful - all different expressions of divine mercy and wisdom. In the painting below, Tara is surrounded by smaller figures, each representing a different aspect of the Goddess (such as "White Tara", "Red Tara", etc.)

Black Tara is a wrathful manifestation, identical in form and, no doubt, source, to Hindu Kali. Like Kali, she has a headdress of grinning skulls, like Kali, she is black, like Kali she has three eyes. Like many Tibetan deities in the wrathful aspect, she has the fangs of a tiger, symbolizing ferocity, a ferocious appetite to devour the demons of the mind. Her aura or halo is fiery, energetic, full of smoke symbolizing the transformation of fire. Kali is the great Dark Mother of India. 

In Hindu mythology, when the world was being devoured by demons, there came a time when even the great Gods couldn't battle them. And so Kali the terrible manifested, the "last ditch savioress". Kali is the One who brings the forest fire, levelling the ground so new growth can occur, the surgeon who cuts cleanly away morbid tissue so flesh can heal. The icon of Kali, dancing on the prostrate body of Shiva, is a strange and horrific image to the western sensibility. Christian theology is dualistic, but Hinduism and Buddhism are not. In Bali, the curbs of Ubud are all painted like a checker board, black and white, as are the altar clothes. This is to remind those who walk down the street continuously of Sekala and Neskala, the continuing balance of Dark and Light, the yin/yang of life.

Kali appears in Bali as the dreadful, fanged, bloodthirsty Rangda. Battles with her are always fought by the benign dragon, the Barong, in dreadful graveyards. But no one ultimately wins. Because, perhaps, the battle must continually be fought. And Rangda, work done, often then returns to the heaven realms, to become beautiful, peaceful Uma, wife of their version of Lord Shiva.

Kali, whose name means "Time" (Kala) lives beyond form, beyond the pairs of opposites, the truth beyond the skeins of karma and time................ So, what can happen when we, even unconsciously, In-Voke a great Deity, an Archetypal Power.............a Goddess? Well, as I said, "if you build it, they will come". These things really shouldn't be done lightly. Tara has been my revered and mysterious divine teacher for many years. I won't presume to say I can understand a Goddess ......... their purposes being collective and far beyond my personal understanding..........but if I was going to make a tenuous statement, it would be when you call on a Goddess, She's not going to give you a polite reply that's been spell-checked. 

The ineffable forces work with us in the arena of energy, in the field of dreams and soul language. So, I began work on a mask for Black Tara..........not really thinking about why I chose that particular manifestation, just drawn to the image. 

Without going into particulars, I've been miserable. Too much death, overwhelming family needs, feeling trapped, loss of what I consider personal integrity. I've been resigned, paralyzed by it all, unable to see the necessary changes. So, a few days ago, I became a lunatic. It was nothing I planned.... I stayed up all night, pacing the floor. The darkness and solitude was deafening. I walked around and around the block, yelling at the damn yapping ubiquitous dogs. Yelling at the walls. I pulled out cups and plates and shattered them around the house. (Pottery therapy can be very satisfying. White china is especially good.) 

I screamed at people who fortunately weren't there. I raged, I spit, I cried and wiped my nose on my shirt, I drank too much vodka, I looked in the mirror and called myself a lot of names. The sun came up, I drove around and around, and screamed some more (in my car), because I felt like I had no where to go. But finally, I looked up a friend. I didn't clean up the mess on the floor for several days. Visiting my friend, who is also having a hard time these days, sleeping on her couch, talking all the next night...........was more important. I thought it was worth keeping that pile of shattered pottery there for a while, a silent witness to the passing of a storm. 

How do I feel now? Actually, I feel great. And, I think I understand some things about myself, and my authentic needs, a lot better now. Black Tara, dancing Her tough love, crimson lips full of that vast, vast laughter. 

There's a great film called "The Shipping News" (with Kevin Spacey). Towards the end of the movie, a storm has destroyed his old family's house, a weary old house haunted with too many secrets, too much ancestral karma. Moored atop a crag, literally tied down with ropes, the ropes broke at last, and the house has been blown  into the ocean below,  to vanish beneath the waves. 

Confronting the littered place where it once stood, Spacey (who has become a newspaper reporter) comments:

"Headline: House disappears in storm. The view is great."

** I am embarroused to find this worthy commentary about Kali in my files, and not the credits. I hope, should the author ever find me, he or she will accept my apology, and appreciation for the wise scholarship.

"Kali's black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her".Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness." Her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature —her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'. Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness. Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness."

Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. "

Another Jungian moment.....

or, "Me and my shadow hit the trail.........."

"Everyone casts a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individuals conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

My therapist, Dr. Jeaneen Vogal, is facilitating a Jungian group this coming month, with it's central focus being Shadow work. One of the things she said to me this morning is that, by middle age and beyond, Shadow becomes persistent in it's demand for attention. What was in youth a "Freudian slip" is now a sledgehammer attempting to break through the concrete layers of your calcifying self. Why? Because as we age, perhaps the soul's need to integrate personae, for the psyche to mature into wholeness......."shadow work" becomes imperative. Jeaneen is 85; I feel very privileged indeed that she has chosen to counsel me. As sh e also said this morning, aging isn't for sissies, and you can either get acquainted with your shadows and change, or look forward to a miserable, unenlightened (or un-endarkened) old age. I'm beginning to see what she means.

To Dr. Jung, the Shadow represented the dark (un-illuminated), rejected parts of the psyche. As a mask artist, I've sometimes envisioned "shadow selves" as personae that disrupt the show my ego persona likes to think it's putting on. They are the selves that are disowned, unloved, shameful, inadequate, obtuse. As such, they also are also depositories for reservoirs of huge energy, clamoring for attention. Shadow can also be positive qualities that are repressed because of societal pressure. It's a potent workshop to make masks of Shadows, and put them on, seeing what they have to say.

"The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves. .....we cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow: so, we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people."

Carl Jung

I never intended this blog to be "Lauren's therapy page", but Spider Woman's path to wisdom is not always bright. The weaving is sometimes about re-weaving, patiently trying to untangle skeins and threads in order to make a new fabric.

I don't dream very much, so when I do have a memorable dream, I figure it's my unconscious doing the equivalent of throwing a brick at me. The dream below occurred around the new year, and I've been contemplating it ever since. While this blog is also not a "dream journal", I feel it's worth meditating on, because it's a classic "shadow" dream.

In my New Year dream, I was in my car confronting a descending road high on a mountain. I stopped with trepidation; finally I drove almost vertically down that very steep road, to find myself on a cliff with a magnificent view of the ocean far below. It was obvious there would be no going back up that impossible road, so I parked my car. There was a woman there, and she let me know that in order to proceed (and there was really no other alternative) we had to go down yet another intimidating chute or narrow tunnel.

The woman went before me, which was reassuring. At last, down the rabbit hole or chute I went, to find myself standing again with a view of the ocean, and a narrow trail now ahead of me. I watched the woman again go before me. But I lingered, fussing about my backpack (did I bring everything? Where did my purse go? Did I have food, a sweater?). Somehow, from having a car and purse, I had been reduced to a small backpack. There seemed to b e familiar but annoying voices jabbering at me as I fiddled with it. And they kept calling me "Shane". I realized "I" was no longer Lauren, but had become a man named Shane.

Finally, tired of the inertia, I stopped fussing, put the small pack on my back , found I had a walking stick in my hand, and set my feet on the first step toward the path ahead. Then I woke up.

Dreams, of course, are multidimensional in their meanings. To keep descending into the underground is archetypal. The woman going ahead of me can be previous selves. Exchanging my car and personal assets....on this trip, one has no choice but to travel light, and there is no surety that what one needs for comfort will be available.

That the "I" of the dreamer ceased to be Lauren and became a man called "Shane" was the mysterious aspect of this dream. I looked up the name and was delighted to learn it was an Irish rendering of John, meaning, "God is Gracious", or simply, "Grace" . I assumed it meant that as I processed on the path unknown, I would be given grace.

Which is true. But as dreams are multi-dimensional, there was another side it took me a while to examine. Shadows, after all, don't reveal themselves easily.

Because of my abusive father, I have never really felt at ease with the masculine. I think for many women who've grown up with tyrannical fathers it's so. The "Shane" I have become in the dream could be my "animus", the male self I need to be as I proceed down this new trail. "Masculine" can mean many things. If the woman I used to be when I took former "leaps of faith" valued being receptive, psychic, instinctual and intuitive, perhaps the "male" self means being, now, also discerning, analytical, assertive, and, most importantly, self-protective.

After a while, I also began to allow that the only "Shane" I know is someone I intensely dislike. An opportunistic young egotist who has profited greatly by taking credit for my ideas and work, which I imagine he does with any generous or talented person he encounters. None the less, my aversion is out of all proportion. When one encounters something like that, it's sure to be a shadow lurking in the recess. It took me longer to realize that "Shane" represents all the people I've "given myself away" to.......because I never thought I was worth much, or because my mother, trapped in a harsh marriage, taught us to be "selfless" without an appropriate instinct for self-preservation. I complain about the exploitative "Shanes" in my life, and yet I have reached the point of (uncomfortable) self-awareness where I can no longer render over responsibililty and personal power in order to see myself as an "innocent victim" - what I complain about I create. When you actually see that phenomenon in process, it can really piss you off.

The path ahead now requires simplifying to what is necessary and no more, and bringing to awareness, indeed recognizing that I am, my "shadow self". I can no longer get away with projecting it outside of me. I don't know where the trail ahead goes......but, on top of that mountain with the ocean far below, the view it affords is magnificent.

All of which, ultimately, is Grace.

"Most of us encounter our own shadows in the form of projection. That is to say, we disown the characteristics and behaviors we cannot stand about ourselves and project them onto others. We then insist that they carry our shadow for us and may even punish them for the things we hate about ourselves. One example of this might be a minister who openly despises gays while privately engaging in closeted homosexual activity. Those who can not accept their shadow will reject it in favor of embracing their Persona. The persona is the idealized image we present of who we really are. And still ... The Shadow Knows when we are lying to ourselves and those around us. The shadow contains our every fear, our every terror, it knows our every truth -- especially the ones we can't stand to face about ourselves."

spiritualemergency.blogspot.com/2006/07/proce