I have been pondering the over-the-top, sometimes vitriolic, reactions people are displaying in response to social media posts aimed at promoting a more enlightened approach to the environment and animals, our co-walkers on this Earth – this Earth, our Mother who supports and nourishes us all. Watching a short video that documented the destruction of forests and species; the horrific conditions in which we confine animals for food production, ignoring completely their sentience, their needs, just as valuable and real as ours, to express natural behaviours, and feeling saddened and ashamed, I scrolled down to the comments, and to my amazement and horror they were almost all vicious attacks on the poster and those who had made comments such as I have above, citing man’s dominion over the earth, man’s justified position at the top of the food chain – often quoting religion as a justification – and accusing those expressed sadness at the behaviours and destruction of hypocrisy given they had a tablet, computer, cell phone on which to view this post. The force of it all, the energy behind these comments reveal the strength of people’s shame and shadow, unowned aspects of themselves, parts that remain unconscious.
These unowned aspects are often projected onto others, and typically trigger very strong reactions. It seems the collective shadow has grown so large, so dark, these storm clouds are rumbling ominously across the skies of the earth, across the political stage, the corporate world and society at large. Recently we had a lunar eclipse in the first Full Moon of 2018. Lunar eclipses cast the Sun’s shadow on the Moon , causing expression of shadow masculine energy and behaviours – aggression, dominance, rigid control. This is followed today by a partial solar eclipse at the New Moon, when the feminine Moon casts a shadow on the masculine Sun, enabling expression of the feminine shadow – passive aggressiveness, use of sexuality to meet survival needs, emotional drama, numbing of emotions. It is an auspicious start to a year that promises change and a rise in consciousness. I feel we are at a tipping point; a world fuelled by anger, shame, fear, envy, greed, the need to control must inevitably burn itself out. Balance must be restored.
Embracing the shadow aspects of ourselves is how we start to become more conscious, how we start to heal, how we start to become more compassionate, to others, but even more importantly to ourselves; true healing begins there. An African proverb states “Where there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do no harm”. As Jung, the father of shadow work said, “Where there is light there is shadow..and where there is shadow there must be light.” And in the wise words of Richard Wagamese, Ojibway author; “Darkness doesn’t kill the light; it defines it.”
Dive into your own Darkness and define your Light. It is a journey worth taking.
Sawubona!