As long as we have a body, there will be shadow. The goal isn’t to “get rid of” the shadow or even to “fully integrate” it, as its emanations are ever-emerging by way of psychic creativity.
Rather, to illuminate and engage it more consciously, as partner, emissary, lover, and friend. At times emphasizing our union while at other times privileging our separateness and personal integrity.
Here, multiplicity is as holy as unity; differentiation as sacred as oneness.
It is only through cultivating a conscious, embodied relationship with the unfelt, marginalized, and the unlived that we will come to know the light held within the black sun, a region of the heart that contains the opposites of shadow and light.
The shadow is not some worthless, neurotic repository of unenlightened thoughts, feelings, and impulses, but hidden expressions of wisdom, creativity, and soul, awaiting redemption and a sanctuary in which it can unfold and disclose.
That which falls into the shadow will inevitably be evoked, enacted, or somatized, for that is its nature.
It does so not to harm or take us down, not as an obstacle to the path but as the path itself, as a wrathful emissary of it. It, too, longs to return to its rightful place in the larger ecology of what we are.
The purpose of shadow work is not to eliminate shadow, but to open space in which it can reveal.
My next live online course will start in September - The Soul Alchemist: Trusting Your Inner Guidance. To receive information about the course, which will be sent out later in the summer, please sign up for my mailing list below.
