What Color is Your Shadow?
Q: What Color is Your Shadow?
A: Beyond the lit candle sparkling a dance upon the cloth circular womb of this Mongolian yurt I write from tonight, there lies the shadow, inevitable in nature. This time of year aches for deep reflection and with 2020 coming to a close, there is endless material to digest in contemplative thought. While many of us seek refuge from the exposure of such density and corruption that has literally come to light in recent times, I find myself invited to explore more of what lurks underneath.
A dear friend of mine who has passed through her share of Pluto transits in this sacred life of hers once offered me a glimpse into the work that accompanies such a journey. “This is the time to explore your shadow,” she shared, “the part of yourself that contains emotions from other lives and which their very existence in your deep unconscious realm is so very difficult to accept.”
Years of self-study feel like mere breadcrumbs leading me to this current threshold. Daunting, piercing, and inviting simultaneously, I feel ready and in good faith to accept this invitation from Lord Pluto to enter into his unknown lair. In the past few days, of which I have claimed some necessary silence from the external world, I have begun to note that which is awaiting my attention. Regardless of how deeply embedded I may be in the servitude of something greater in my life and projects, the layers of beingness present an even more delicate and nuanced reality that constantly and gently tug on my inner perception, awaiting their turn to have my attention.
I find myself seeking ever more deep states of relaxation in this process. Long and windswept rivers of exhales move through my physical body, molding me anew. Tensions are presented as I compassionately witness a holding out of fear. Inquiries of unimaginable context surface in the search for origin to the constraints of self-imprisonment. Why do I grip onto my occipital ridge weaving through my clavicle and into the source of my shoulder blade with such imminent terror as if my life depended on it?
While only four and a half years have passed since living through the intensity of public humiliation and psychological trauma, I recognize I have been able to transmute that energy into something powerful and worth fighting for. I’ve had tremendous help on the inner planes as nothing of this stature can be navigated through alone and I am nothing without my Lord in Heaven. And even so, the true inner journey continues to reveal itself with every step of such great magnitude just as my archetypal Capricornian goat cousins place their hooves with such strategic care as to not fall into the abyss below them.
There is much more healing to experience and equally, if not more, work to be done. The paradox of this moment offers such sweet surrender in the face of the opportunity to rectify my errors through unspeakable mercy felt in the presence of His glory. I don’t know what is true for you, yet for me, having the chance to dance in the light of my inner being’s fire and to see the erroneous actions of my past, provides me with possibility, regardless of how painful it can be. Now I can see, when before I was blind. Now I can change course and align with my North Star again. Now I can get up from where I have fallen and rinse in the cool streams of pure consciousness. Now I can learn from my mistakes and make efforts to change my mind.
There is time for everything, one of my teachers has shared, even to be lost. I am coming to understand subtleties around how even with, or perhaps especially with, such immense love for God in my heart, that the road is not an easeful one when traveling upon the earth as we know it. Tests, tribulations, plot twists, and unnerving characters await me behind every corner of the psyche. I am not special in this scenario, it is the backdrop of every hero/heroine's journey once we truly begin the quest and answer the call.
Memories that reach further than my current conceptual self are brought up to the surface. How to reconcile with who I have been beyond who I know myself to be? When I get very still inside the beating heart of my lifeforce and dip into timelessness, I can ease into the knowing that holds me afloat in the vast ocean of my awareness. It is there I can withstand any storm, it is there I can relax into truth.
This new moon solar eclipse in Sagittarius sets the tone for this moon cycle, the year ahead, as well as invites us to review where we have been. The essence philosophy of this potent zodiac warrior centaur is to point your arrow towards the highest of the high. May we align our vision with the truth that calls us all the way from the underworld roots pulsing upwards through our veins materializing into fire and bursting into stars reminding us of the blazing light we truly are in the heart of our hearts.
We cannot change the world until we accept we are the world. This is the new conversation.
