a lonely night with shadow work - 🌘 22 july 2022
so i’m going through another relatively lonely night during which i studied the fool from the threads of fate weaver tarot and a card called ‘shadow work’ from the moonchild tarot. i should really expand on that last card because there’s so much shadow work for me to do in about every aspect of my life. i have been doing as much as i can stand, but i find that it’s easier when i can focus on one specific thing or area. like tonight. i’m doing shadow work with my actual shadow self. i’m interfacing with the shadow version of me and i’m looking into zir eyes. my own eyes are met with scorn but they are met. the shadow-self cannot help it. zi wants to connect with me if only to drain my essence in full. but this i will not allow.
shadow work on the self is the most personal work you can do. it gets right into the roots of your uncolored, unwashed hair and digs its fingernails into your scalp. it separates your clothes from your body, not in an assaultive way but in an honest way, taking you down to no coverage and no protection, not even a little mugwort dust on my fingers. so it is, so it goes. you have to be naked with your shadow-self. you have to be 1:1 with your shadow-self. there’s no room for hiding, not when you’re down to this level. your only tools are your mind and your heart and your hands, if you’re lucky, because trust in everything you know, your shadow-self will be equipped far more efficiently than you ever could manage. that’s just the way of these things. we give more weight to the shadow, so our shadow-selves must therefore be greater than us. only those of us who’ve faced our shadow-selves and shaped them down into what we want them to be can speak of it.
and i? i am not that close. every time i think i am, something else pops up to show me that i am wrong. that’s the other thing. your shadow-self will be tricksome, like a trickster god, like Hermes, like Loki, and you must be ever-watchful. but you also must approach with the highest form of love in your heart. Aphrodite demands it, because ultimately this is lovework between your shadow-self and you. ultimately this is about getting your shadow-self on the same level as you, or vice versa - because the shadow-self can definitely develop beyond our own positions. clever and advanced are they, to a one. so we must, in turn, be prepared. this never-ending duty that is shadow work is never easy, but it is always worth it.
i often feel like i’m bound up with my shadow for most of my day, that i cannot function as a normal human can when i am trying to keep my shadow-self occupied and away from my throat. for they do so love to go for your tender heart’s blood. our challenge, then, is to meet them on a different level, one that won’t suck away all of our potential, light, and magick. it’s like finding a pacifier for an infant, something that can quell them for a time until you can give them the proper care and attention they deserve. and they do deserve it, no less than that hypothetical infant.
it’s a process, shadow work is always a process. and that has to be okay in the general hanging scheme of things. i picture “things” or rather reality, as a great tapestry with many sections as yet unworked. our shadow-selves are inseperable from us. and we can negotiate the kind of healing that they need so that they don’t wreck up the place. for that is their intrinsic power, and they are fearsome when ignored. never ignore your shadow-self. give it the attention it requires, and you will find that you are much happier overall.