“Light and shadow are forever paired, the yin and yang of describing form. Without light, shadow is a meaningless void; without shadow, light is only a bright glare.” Price, Maggie. Painting Sunlight and Shadow with Pastels. As a painter, I know too well the importance of shadow. It enhances the painting by giving it depth. This understanding about how shadow and light serves each other well and co-exist all the time might be the reason that has led me to ponder over the inner shadow, repressed instinctual energies that inhabit our subconscious minds and program us to negative/ violent behavior patterns. Is our shadow side innate? Have we always had to repress aspects of ourselves? For example, sexuality, the most potent of all human drives after survival, has been strongly repressed with the emergence of early state civilizations (4000 BC). Primal people (our hunter-gatherer ancestors) tolerated premarital sexual freedom, and had an easy-going attitude regarding extramarital relationships… With civilizations, adultery, particularly by women came to be severely punished (stoned to death). Sex before marriage came to be severely censured, punishable by death for sullying the family’s honor… In primal societies that had few taboos about sexuality, rape, sexual abuse, perversions, and pedophilia were rare. Various studies have shown that societies characterized by permissive sexual behaviours had a low level of physical violence while societies which punished pre and extramarital affairs (sexual freedom) were the most violent. So there we are… repression of instinctual energies is at the origin of our shadow side. And no, it has not always been like that! In the Age of Ancient Darkness, there was Oneness. And when there was Oneness, humans had no shadow side. The Age of Ancient Darkness (Stone Age – Palaeolithic) that lasted well over 95 percent of our time on the planet is believed to have been humanity’s Golden Age. Steve Taylor in his book The Fall writes: “There would have been an ancient time when human beings lived in harmony with each other and with nature, when life was much easier and more pleasant and when there was no war, and no selfishness or fear.” Daniel Quinn also agrees that primal people, our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have lived perfectly well for thousands of years without agriculture or civilization. In the Age of Ancient Darkness, also called the First Creation or the Age of Perfect Virtue, humans felt no sense of separateness from the cosmos, from nature, from each other… There was no duality. Nothing was judged as good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly… People could be their natural self without fear of judgment. Expressions of instinctual energies were neither repressed nor denied.
In short, when humans lived in darkness, they didn’t have a shadow side. Shadows are tricks of the light and don’t exist in darkness. Shadows are created by the light. Our shadow side emerged with the beginning of the Great Civilizations that revered Sun Gods. While primal people had always worshiped dark goddesses in the gloom of the forest, civilizations born in the arid plains of Central Asia venerated the light of the Sun. With light appeared duality/ separation. To see is to divide. And therefore, with duality appeared judgment: right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly… And with judgment appeared repression/ denial of what in us had been pronounced negative. “It appears that the source of violence and evil is ungoverned human nature, but that is a delusion. The source is the opposite: human nature denied.” Eisenstein, Ascent of Civilization Our nature-denied is at the origin of our shadow side. And as the blazing lights of civilization floodlit the world, the shadow within the human heart and soul grew unfathomable. What had been tolerated in the Age of Ancient Darkness was now severely punished. “The greater the repression, the louder our shadow has to yell to be heard and the greater its chance to become demonic.” A. Judith But however demonic the shadow can become, it has had an evolutionary purpose. When humans lived in the non-dual world of the Ancient Darkness, there would have been peace but it would have been a great status-quo… a world so perfect that it left very little scope for something to ever happen... Human evolution precipitated when the light/shadow entered, when the dynamic dance of opposing values appeared. It is this dance that is pushing us to evolve. Celebrating light is also about getting intimate with our inner shadow. The shadow is real and it’s not going to go away. When we continually judge it and push it away, we can never be whole… our conflicts will never get resolved… true forgiveness will never be possible… © Muriel Kakani
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When life pins us down mercilessly, having to face grave injustice, terrible losses, illnesses… and we experience the unpleasant and downward journey into darkness, we shudder. We feel rage, fury, sorrow, fear, pain and despair. Why me? What crime did I do? Why this punishment? Oh yes, few of us tumble into darkness without protest! “In the Underworld, you don't relinquish your attachments. They are pried from your dead, cold hands, destroyed before your very eyes, amputated without anesthesia.” A. Judith We just can't make sense of all the pain we feel... It is then important to recognize that the journey to the Underworld has a reason and blessed are those who make it. Treasures are found, not in the broad daylight but in the depth of the dark Underworld! Moving through darkness is therefore an initiation into power. “When we face our shadow, we are initiated into our deepest powers. We may be afraid of these parts; these howling, undernourished, repressed, and rage-filled aspects of ourselves that demand to be heard, but which we cannot bear to face. Perhaps we are comfortable in our denial or deadened enough to simply tread water, keeping our head up, looking toward the brilliant sky and sun without realizing the murky water is damaging to our being and needs to be made clear.” Koda, Katalin. Fire of the Goddess. Listen to the story of Inanna, the Summerian Goddess who decided to make this dreadful journey to the Underworld and after three days was reborn anew. The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the great goddess and Queen of Heaven Inanna’s journey from heaven to the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. Inanna is dressed in her finest attire and wears the crown of heaven on her head, beads around her neck, her breastplate, golden ring and carries her scepter, the rod of power. Just before she enters the underworld, she gives Ninsubur instructions on how to come to her aid should she fails to return when expected. Upon her arrival at the gates of the underworld Inanna knocks loudly and demands entrance. Neti, the chief gatekeeper, delivers the news to Ereshkigal that Inanna is at the gates. The Queen of the Dead does not seem pleased to hear the news. She tells Neti to bolt the seven gates of the Underworld against Inanna and then let her in, one gate at a time, requiring her to remove one of her royal garments at each gate. Neti does as he is commanded and, gate by gate, Inanna is stripped of her crown, beads, ring, sceptre, even her clothing. Inanna enters the throne room of Ereshkigal “naked and bowed low”, and is hung up on a nail, corpse-like, by Ereshkigal. After three days and three nights waiting for her mistress, Ninshubur follows the commands Inanna gave her, goes to Inanna’s father-god Enki for help, and receives two androgynous demons to aid her in returning Inanna to the earth… The journey to the Underworld involves terrible losses… being stripped down… and it undeniably implies suffering, agony. There are seven gates and therefore seven kinds of losses to endure. The seven gates remind of the seven veils in the Biblical story 'The Dance of the Seven Veils'. The seven veils represent the seven layers of illusion that fall away during the descent into the darkness of the Underworld. The seven gates also remind of the seven chakras and the seven corresponding identities (social identity, ego identity…) that imprison us in roles, in patterns all through our lives. The seven gates are also symbols of the seven Medicine Wheels found in the Native American tradition. And there also we find the concept of loss. The Grandmother explains… “Each time we step around the wheel and rebirth through the east, we leave a little behind. As you get closer to the seven, there is more to leave behind. The first losses are nothing compared to the last losses. At this stage you will feel you are being stripped of everything, including and particularly, your identity." Crossingham, Lesley. Ocean of Stars Stripped down of our various identities, attachments… what some call the breakdown of the ego… is the most essential aspect of our descent into the Underworld. It is the necessary breakdown that precedes breakthrough. "The breaking down of the personality, therefore, is regarded as inevitable and essential in magical growth. What remains are the individual archetypes, resonating in harmonic pattern attuned to the Life Source." R. J. Stewart Archetypes are universal psychological patterns that have been with us since the dawn of time. They reside as instinctual energies within the unconscious. When we repress these energies because less likeable, loveable, or spiritual, they express themselves in their negative forms (shadow sides). Shame is what keeps the shadow archetypes caged in the dark and unconscious realm. Although we might refuse to see the shadow archetypes in our lives, others may see them clearly as the unacknowledged shadow is projected onto others in the form of judgments, criticism. If we suppress our emotions, we will have little tolerance for those who are strongly expressive. If we live in denial of pain, we might judge tears as a demonstration of self-pity. It makes us feel very uneasy to be around someone expressing our shadow energies. “As we shine the light of consciousness upon them (archetypes), recognizing that they are within us, they awaken to enrich our lives. If they are already active but in shadow form, consciousness can turn the beastly side of the archetype into the royal, prospering prince or princess it could be.” Pearson, Carol. Awakening the Heroes Within That is when the archetype becomes an inner guide with a lesson to be learned and a gift or treasure to enrich our lives. Journeying to the Underworld, going into darkness is not a curse, a punishment (for bad karma) but rather a chance to reclaim the shadow/the rejected self and become whole again. This process dissolves judgment and brings greater acceptance of self and others. It is the gift of empathy. And in a world disintegrating from conflicts, it is an important gift… the most important may be… We can learn to accept others only when we fully accept ourselves, our darker side first of all. © Muriel Anamika |
Muriel facilitates Reconnection Circles in which through guided meditation, stories, rituals, art therapy exercises, we explore the healing qualities of nature, the forest, ocean, desert and mountain archetypes.
Read more... Soulscape Journeys. Using archetypes, images, metaphors of the natural world (landscapes, trees, animal totems, moon cycles, seasons…) as well as myths and stories from indigenous cultures around the world, we discover the Sacred Circle of Life and how our soul journeys are so amazingly embedded into it. Read More... .
Explore the Forest Soulscape... Reconnecting with the Forest is regaining our lost Oneness with the whole creation… Read More...
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