Easily Amazed

[fiz]

I have been reflecting more than usual lately on my "shadow", and how it informs the way I hold myself in relation to others, particularly in the context of sharing presence.

The term "shadow work," as it's sometimes called, can quickly become rote in my mind -- as in over-used, and superficially so. Some folks have even introduced this phrase as a "module," in which "shadow work" is envisioned as part of a portable array of practices to be self-administered as needed, out here in our contemporary postmodern landscape, otherwise known as Flatland.

I personally resist this kind of thinking stylistically. I recognize that in Flatland, any number of different styles of being are possible, with none of them being necessarily better than any others. So for those of you doing 'shadow work' in portable module fashion, I am genuinely interested in your growth and your work in Being, even though I differentiate myself from that style in which you are choosing to Be.

Why do I bring up this matter of stylistics? Because it is germaine to my own shadow, of course! For I recognize in feeling my shadow over time just how closely related it is to my ongoing work of differentiation from others at the level of our seamlessly shared Being. Indeed, it does seem to me that the more I deepen in my sense of open Being, the more I am equally drawn to differentiate my style of being from others. What helps me do that is my shadow: that living ganglia of deeper instincts and impulses that I would normally avoid feeling in myself, which, when attuned to and felt directly, seem to draw me only that much more richly into the nurturing soil of my own individuality, differentiated entirely from that of all others.

Shadow work and creative differentiation go together for me in this way, to elicit a honed style of being that is completely my own.

That all said, I do not view my shadow as something I will ever finally integrate once and for all. Rather, I view my shadow as a function of my Being, and a living component of it, full of essence and information I need if I am to trust myself in relating others in a way that is free of power struggles and gameyness.

The value of working in and with my own shadow is not that doing so will make me more whole, but that it will allow me to hold you, whoever you are, before me in a way that is truly free of my projections, of my content, of me altogether. By learning to onglingly stand in my shadow and feel it directly, I sense the possibility for holding others before me more as real beings and less as projections of my own unseen being.

My hope with this initial post on shadow is to get at the feeling and flavor of this subject without delving into the personal content of my shadow. To be able to articulate this edge is of particular interest to me, as I long to find a communicative language for this work in shadow that doesn't merely point back to me and my shadow. Rather, I guess I am looking for a way to speak of shadow in a way that points from me to you in a way that implies a transparent quality of self-holding that liberates us both from each other enough to the point where we become that much more free to pursue our individual styles of being beyond any and all previous models, modules, or styles previously given.

Shadow differentiates, to a potentially exhaustive degree, when felt and held in Being, with style.

Chris

[christy]

Dear Chris,

Here, just a quick reply for now, to your rich post which deserves a good long sitting-with:

You remind me of a bit from an article by herbalist and therapist Stephen Harrod Buhner, author of The Secret Teachings of Plants, about a certain kind of "intangible touch":

[cathy]

Chris, I may not be a good foil for your words of wisdom-
so deep and wonderful your words are. My articulation will not be as rich - I am a simpler word person myself. But the essence of what you are speaking of - that shadow - I have been exploring myself.
I have been finding that in reaching inward and going into that infinite place, inside that shadow place, that mysterious me, helps me to clarify things outside of me. Somehow when I listen to that voice that calls me from very deep within, I have a greater strength and calm and serenity to bring to those outside of myself. I feel like it is a work in progress, much like my artwork, where I keep going in more and more. I have heard the voices from the time I can remember anything but the big difference is that I give them more of an audience now. I love that feeling of going within, because in doing so, I am more complete with those around me.
Thank you for your amazing words!
I am more of a visual person, but I will try to connect with you with words.
Cathy

[cathy]

Chris,
I had a flash. I was looking out my window this morning and a butterfly landed on the window, wings spread and very still in the sunlight. The thought of a cocoon reminds me of that shadow space. I love the idea of what a cocoon is and how the butterfly emerges - a law of nature I suppose. Somehow in that instant of looking, and thinking about your words from yesterday, I feel a connection. I think there are visuals that are playing in my shadows from moments like that and they need to come out. As a visual artist I felt a lot of power in the words you shared. I am dancing around the topic and somehow that little instant of the butterfly illustrated something for me. My question is how to sum it up in words instead of images. I walk on that edge alot I suppose.
Good morning,
Cathy

[cathy]

I take a cue from Christy's quotes.
Intangable touch-
Cathy

[ashley]

The shadow points to where the sun is... following the shadow's shape and direction on the earth is a guide to finding the source of light. On a cloudy day when the shadows are hidden and hazed over, it's harder to locate exactly where the sun shines. And on crisp clear days when we are fortunate to play with our eyes open, recognizing the beauty of what-is, we can notice the spectrum of light reflecting and shadow casting decorating existence.

And so it is in our internal landscape. My style of embracing what-is includes noticing signs (shapes) within me that point to 'shadow' and embracing them too as I know that following their guidance will lead me to the brighter light. At this moment's reflection, I recognize 2 ways in which I get tuned into the presence of my shadow. The main one is whenever I feel a strong charge around some interaction/engagement -- If I feel triggered, if I feel a real sense of being subject to some deep emotion, a sense of indignation, a feeling of emotional arousal, or something that creeps over me and seems to absorb me. When I notice that I am so strongly in my own experience, absorbed by my own perceptions, charged by this presence, then I know that there is something here for me to 'investigate.' In a state of being absorbed, the light dims. The moment of recognizing the dimmed light grants me an opportunity to expand my vision, open to allowing in more air, more room to move, more perspective, more than just little old me attached to my ways of being and doing and afraid to step out into an unknown.

When I recognize this dimming or subjective addiction or attachment and then follow it's pointing to what is beneath it, usually something gogeous and fresh emerges. The darkness has pointed me towards the light. And I feel such a sense of awe, love and apprecaition for the opportunity to discover this hidden place in my being waiting to receive my attention

Cathy (with slight remixing)

[thomas]

Ashley:

[fiz]

one thing that Easily Amazed teaches me is the power and value of the light touch....

i sense among folks here an easy understanding of what it means to suggest one's world to another, and trusting that to be enough.

my appreciation of the potential value intrinsic in holding my shadow -- while honoring another's -- has intensified and increased since my first post on this thread...

here in the land of Being, i find anew that i have the capacity to hold my shadow in a conscious way, and invite its slow, ongoing revelation before me.

as i do so, i feel my belly cook with the heat of this peculiar process,...for i do find my shadow to be an ongoing feast i am learning to prepare, replete with its own difficult delights, its tangs of truth and spicey failures.

given the endless banquet shadow always promises to be, once again i am drawn to ask myself how to wed the desire to speak fully through my experience with the gentle art of hinting at a world that online space seems to uniquely invite us to do. in the context of shadow, this seems a very tall order indeed!

so i will be led by a series of open questions:

might online space present us with a unique way to feel shadow's presence amidst the intimate, yet distant space of shared experience?

in holding shadow and hinting at its presence in my experience online with others, am i calling myself forth into the world in a uniquely quantum way?

what is this horizon between shadow and online sharing that seems so potent?

does shadow offer a unique promise of transparency here online?

by making shadow present, even if only indirectly, through hinting at its presence, what other aspects of Being am i inviting forward in kind?

[fiz]

i want to follow my abstract ramblings above with a quick sketch of an experience i had tonight, to illustrate one way in which i am learning to listen and feel my shadow's ongoing presence in my everyday experience...

it was around 8 p.m. or so, and i had just finished splitting a frozen pizza with michelle before hauling over to the big blue pillow in the living room for a late evening nap. when i awoke over an hour later, i felt my awareness humming with intensity, and took note of the content informing this intensity in the moment. i reviewed my day, the visit with my mom over breakfast, the putzing around the apartment afterwards with michelle, and the current state of the uncertain world informing the wandering sparks of my life among a few others. then, i felt myself plunge into the deeper layers of feeling, pain and confusion beneath and between my personal life, the people i live with, and the world as a whole. cascades of shadow rippling outside the light of my everyday awareness became known to me. i let them move in me consciously, and said a slow, careful and wide hello in response. i felt the emotional reality of these charged depths, and their essential place 'behind the scenes'. i felt my shadow present in my relation to time, to doing, to being, to failure, to loving, to living and to my death. i felt, in short, the entire unspeakable conundrum of the vast whole burbling away in its incomprehensible reality, surging in my awareness, somehow contained in this particular moment, and somehow completely beyond me, with a life of its own, godlike in a way -- to be completely respected.

"is that all?" i sort of asked myself, as i turned over onto my back, getting ready to rise and make some coffee. nope, not quite.... for then it was that i glimpsed how my awareness itself, this roving directional focus of presence capable of illuminating and recognizing each detail of my experience, itself is blind, itself is a kind of shadow -- somehow bound by, limited to the ways of being and knowing that characterize this wondrously ignorant act of living. i wondered to myself, could conscious light itself possibly an intrinsic creator and projector of living shadow? is shadow somehow a necessary and essential substance of Being itself? not shadow as mere unconsciousness, but shadow as what presence creates, even in its greatest moments of clarity? for is it not almost always the case that my deepest, richest meditations leave me invariably cranky when facing the world? this question kept me on my back awhile longer, before i headed into the kitchen to make some coffee.

and now, with coffee in hand, i find myself wondering -- if shadow exists multidimensionally in my experience, at both personal and impersonal levels, and is something i may even be actively creating in the act of my being here, well, is there an artful way for me to live in and through this essential substance and emotional texture that might bring to life these oftentimes difficult regions of pain and zones of difficulty that i might otherwise wish to minimize or simply overlook in favor of some other more glamorous experience in their place?

here i think of mike's recent post about awakening downward into life...and of thomas' incredibly vulnerable explorations...and i ask myself, "what are the ways that my shadow longs to be expressed, publicly and in solitude, that it may become a source of truth, strength, and life?"

how do i hold all this? how do i be it?

[fiz]

it is now monday morning,
and i, with tea in hand
return to my saturday night ramblings
with a mellow eye

how to hold so much...
indeed, this always seems to be the question
of the hour, the moment, the dissolving instant

but it is an indirect question,
a question for the imagination rather than the mind alone:

how to Be
all this?

[fiz]

michelle has felt the Crone present
in the air lately --

the New Moon constellating
a balancing point
between maid and mother...
between past and present...

between knowing and unconsciousness
awareness and shadow

...

is there not in this reading
of the stars and the heavens
an adequate container
for imagination to hold the burgeoning whole?

[fiz]

my question
to space
and to time
in this moment
is:

what does the vast vision of shadow
and Wise Grandmother (Crone)
call forth
beyond itself?

what does a mere awareness of shadow
allow to transpire?

[fiz]

a few things come to mind....

in Ashley's "blankey"
is, for me, the presence of the Child
and the Heavens:

a blanket of stars
swaddling the cosmic Child

perhaps in my merely being aware of
the vast depths of shadow's many-layered presence
vision and imagination are deepened
and felt to be more real

[fiz]

also,
i wonder:

how does awareness of shadow
call forth its own balance?

all this depth, for chrissakes!

what about the tingling surfaces of things?
how about a Slurpee from 7-11?

the cosmic Child winks
and says,
"let's go play!"

Shadow's heaviness is thus met
by an adoring feminine sigh:

Saturn's Lead is met by Venus' Hips

the world turns anew
light plays in the shadows
my eyes widen with wonder:
my mind wet with it.

[fiz]

Towards the end of last evening
five stones surrounded a lit candle
in a darkened room...

(Correction: four stones---
the fifth a clear sphere)

It was then I noticed
how the shadow
of a transparent sphere
is luminous at its core.

[fiz]

Another image now comes to mind:

that it is possible to hold shadow
to the point of transparent luminosity.

[thomas]

Hey Chris,

Beautiful. Luminous at its core. The first time I played with that sphere was on a warm, summer day in the arboretum many years ago. After practicing for an hour I set the ball down and in about 15 seconds sun rays focused through the sphere started burning my blanket.

[Meredith]

I have enjoyed this poetic turn on shadow.

Unpoetically, recently I heard this definition of ego: