Shadow

Dark Moon Temple, july 9, 2021

With Repetition, we carve the Path smooth and our Souls know the way intuitively….

The Moon Temple is open once again. Welcome back to the Souls that gathered with us last month, and to the new Souls that join us this Dark of the Moon. All are Safe and Welcome within this Sacred Temple.

The Dark Moon Liminal Space ~ every month, we enter here…. (click to read the introduction to the Dark Moon Temple)

The Invitation ~ new, each Dark Moon….

This Dark Moon is asking me to contemplate the projection of the Shadow once again. (Not surprisingly, as Shadow healing and integrating continues to be a foundation of my work). We each hold Light and Shadow within our Whole Selves. We are often so tempted to layer value judgements to the Light and Shadow, looking at them as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – in reality, they are neither. They just are.

We each contain a Light Self and a Shadow Self. BOTH are required to be a whole human, and BOTH have so much to teach us if we pay attention and welcome the lessons; yes, even the painful and challenging ones. It is when we prioritize one over the other that we become unbalanced and send our rejected Self out onto others – what we call projection.

Have you ever experienced feeling ‘triggered’ by something or someone and the roaring of those feelings are so intense, you feel compelled to find someone to blame for them? Casting blame is our favourite unconscious way of soothing anxiety. It feels better to find an outside source of our pain, because then we can organize it, make it fit the lens we’re looking through, and we are not required to look at the actual pain itself.

This is also not to say that there are no outside forces that influence our pain. It’s an AND, of course. Yes, outside forces do in fact ‘trigger’ us or influence our feelings. People can hurt us, that is a fact. AND… our pain, guilt, embarrassment, rage, fear, etc. are OURS to handle, to explore, to experience, and to learn from. AND…they are all very difficult to experience and we often just want to give them away. We dump them onto our Shadow by either rejection and/or projection.

Our Shadow takes these parts of our Self – our wounds, our difficult feelings, our parts of Self we don’t find acceptable – into the vast Dark Waters of the unconscious. The problem is that Shadow knows that we need all of these pieces and will continue to work to place them back in our view – through projection, through uncontrolled flooding of emotions, through dreams and nightmares, through patterns of behaviour that are not consciously understood… until we stop. Until we turn to look at those pieces and welcome them back into ourselves. Until we turn our lens inward, rather than outward at our object of blame. Our work is INTERNAL. That is how we heal. That is how we change the outside world.

Can you validate your own pain? Can you sit with it and welcome it into yourself? Can you allow room for the wisdom that whoever was a part of your pain story is also dealing with Shadow and pain and unconscious behaviour? Can you validate that there is health in setting boundaries around who can be within your intimate space, while still keeping your focus on the work that is YOURS to do?

There is no better time than the Dark Moon to invite Shadow into your sacred space – there is no Light, only Shadow during this phase. Ask your Shadow what it needs you to see right now – what part of yourself are you trying to give away? What part have you rejected or projected upon someone else? Be curious to what would happen if you invited that part of your Self back in – ask it what you are supposed to learn from it? What wisdom, what gold can be mined out of the Dark Waters?

Give honour to this work, and to your Shadow that shows up. Our Shadow is a Sacred part of our Soul and deserves love, kindness, and compassion. It is this connection that we all yearn for – the ultimate Loving Relationship with the Self that is both ourselves and other-than-ourselves, at the same time. The first relationship, that informs all others. Find Kindness within and sit with your Shadow this Dark eve.

Honour Your Own Traditions…

Take these questions/invitations and use them in your own tradition this evening during the Dark Moon. Use art making, journaling, spirit journey, mediation, scrying, tarot, or whatever other way you would like to use in reflection. Create a sacred space where you can safely be quiet, internal, and soft. Ask these questions to your Soul; ask them to your Guides and your Gods. Listen for the answers and any wisdom they may have to assist you in the present happenings of your life.

No matter which contemplative tradition you use, I encourage you to write about the experience (and/or make art) afterwards, so to create a lasting record within the physical realm. So much can be lost so quickly when we do not marry the two together.

You are also invited to share any part of your experience that you wish on the closed Facebook group – thoughts, narratives, photos of art, etc. Please keep to the group norms on respectful and mindful comments on others’ posts. Posting is completely voluntary; please do not feel any pressure.

I honour each of you in knowing your Wise Self and I am grateful to sit in virtual Circle with each of you. Each month there will be a new Invitation to take into your personal practice… a way to keep to and honour the natural rhythms of our world, and our lives, that are so often forgotten.

May your journeys be enriching and exactly what you need in this time.
~ Nikki