Embrace your shadow to embody your power. The year 2024
It happens for each of us, cyclically, to be faced with our own hidden, dark, concealed, repressed, oppressed or ignored parts. Carl Gustav Jung would say that man is cyclically called to make contact with his own shadow. In the Western world, strong precedence is given to everything that is yang (therefore light, masculine, visible, material), consequently creating strong instability in the unconscious psychic tank, where everything that does not respect certain social and moral standards is categorised as evil, wrong, not right and is finally to be omitted and condemned.
In this way the coniuctio oppositorum, also called mystical nuptials or alchemical marriage between our various parts becomes very arduous and difficult. The social world with its morality has become antithetical to the entire natural world and therefore to the soul, and the majority of people are strongly imbued with moral or spiritual-popular concepts and beliefs which get transformed into behaviours that create a barrier and division between the most authentic and true Self and the staged one, enabled to be and feel adequate to certain standards.
In an interview by Pier Paolo Pasolini to the poet Ungaretti, the latter said: “Civilisation is in itself an act of violence towards Nature. Man is therefore in himself against nature. And the most authentic and precious nucleus remains that of fantastic, pre-cultural, pre-rational language." The imaginal language, as coined by James Hillman, a student of Jung, is precisely the code of the soul: symbolic, and a harbinger of a message or, if you prefer, of a spirit, of a deity, to see it like the ancient Hellenic people and all the animist traditions. Shamanism is that philosophy and approach to life, where the harmonisation of existence in its indisputable and here (on Earth) inevitable polarity is based on the laws of Nature (in Tengrism called Yasa) into which all shamanic and spiritual practices are contextualised and inserted.
The existence, the incarnation of a soul and therefore the formation of an individual is not a linear path; it is rather a journey with obstacles, trials, struggles, battles, open-air landfills and/but also wonderful panoramas, crystalline springs that flow strong and spontaneously, precious encounters that in their few moments become eternal, the Great Mystery that makes itself felt by its ecstasy when we truly feel that our breath is that of the forest, and the sap of the trees is our blood. If we begin to judge our every action and internal movement morally, this journey becomes full of brambles and ivy that envelop, wrap up and block the explorer themself. If, however, one manages to maintain a state of equanimity, without abandoning one's profound inner discernment, then every experience becomes an initiation that punctuates this epic adventure that is our life.
Jung listed 12 archetypes related to the development of consciousness in what was called the Hero's Life by Joseph Campbell. These archetypes are: the Innocent, the Orphan, the Warrior, the Guardian Angel, the Lover, the Seeker, the Destroyer, the Creator, the Sovereign, the Magician, the Wise, the Fool. Why is it sometimes so difficult to face life's trials? On my behalf, together with many others, I believe it is the split between one's conscious part and one's shadow that creates so much friction and fragmentation. Embracing and integrating one's shadow is fundamental and this does not happen through the beatific-palliative imagination of figures of light, but by totally immersing oneself in one's shadow, making the so-called Chthonic (subterranean) journey and bringing to consciousness what is there present so it can return to be part of us to taking us back to a state of union and wholeness.
Perhaps not everyone knows that the Power (to choose, create, realise, manifest and do) comes from "below", from one's personal earth, and therefore from that aspect of the Mother which is shadow, yin, womb, underworld, underground world, uterus, nourishment, roots, soul and unconscious. The Guidance instead comes from the Spirit, from "above", from the celestial world, from the Father, the yang. The deeper the roots, the better a tree can stretch and reach towards the sky, from which it will receive light and air while it will get earth and water from the roots. Together they will collaborate and unite in the union of the two worlds. If a pole is disconnected from its complement, both will manifest themselves in an unbalanced and harmful manner. If, however, communication and union is maintained between the two poles, then both will contribute to a third element in balance and harmony.
Being able to see your own shadow means being naked in front of yourself, surrendering (which is not resigning) completely to what is, not fearing your emotions whatever they are, and give voice to every part of us that asks for expression. The psycho-spiritual-chic "catholic new age" or even a more brisk supermarket-psychology that meets much consent and gets wide support prevents the true contact with the shadow, throwing a veil or a whole lotta blankets over it (it depends) of condemnation and negative judgement, thus leaving the individual fragmented but convinced that he behaving as "the good evolved disciple." A very misleading postulate of certain psycho-popular worlds is that one must "get along with everyone". This is detrimental to one's soul, one's internal structure, conscience and every other part of us. This means being totally disconnected from one's own feelings, from one's natural sense of smell which tells us what is for us and what is not, it means amputating parts of ourselves in favour of...? A spiritual ideal that wants to fly without touching the earth inclusive of both its lights and shadows? In favour of acceptance from the social world? Or to get back into the pre-established tracks of our family tree without betraying it, thus remaining entangled in endless dynamics that life will promptly show us more or less kindly?
Another example of fast-psychology is: "when something makes you feel bad, try to understand what lesson/message it is giving you". In doing so, however, the regulatory and analytical mental part goes to sedate and plug the entire bowl of pain which, if welcomed and gone through, brings us into contact with our most authentic depths that are and will always be part of us from which we can draw on our own, true, forgotten and hidden power. And don't worry, by doing this the lesson/message will still arrive, and even in better and clearer way if we reach it by going through the emotion without covering it and dismissing it.
Pain always comes to awaken us and never to simply make us suffer gratuitously. A myth that represents this narrative very well is Ariadne, when she is betrayed by Theseus. In the onset she helps him killing a part of herself that is represented by the minotaur, her brother and subsequently Theseus, after having promised Ariadne to marry her he abandons her on the island of Naxos. Ariadne, desperate and torn, feels alone and cries out all her tears, she doesn't run away from her pain. Dionysus sees her and goes to her on a chariot pulled by panthers; he wants to marry her and so it happens in a hierogamy where all the Olympic gods are present. The diadem created by Hephaestus given to her by Dionysus, once thrown into the sky, becomes the constellation of the Corona Borealis. Dionysus is that part of us with which we can unite when we enter an expanded state of consciousness through a poetic, creative mind that connects us to our divine spouse. (read in this regard the article I wrote on the “Ongon or underworld spouse”)
The shadow must not be denied, the shadow must not be cleaned, the shadow must be integrated and transformed. You have to immerse yourself in the shadow, go through it, get to know it without mental barriers, and talk to it, listening to its voices. A wonderful practice is the immersion and knowledge of the Blessed Tremendous, found in the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.
In this practice we immerse ourselves in the dark part of each element, since each element has its own darkness: earth, water, air and fire. Very often they will talk to us about our pains and wounds, self-sabotages, senses of guilts etc which if they are not integrated will continue to create events in our lives aimed precisely at soliciting them specifically to remind us of the work we are called to do: integrating and being the administrators of our own shadow. By doing so we feel that all those aspects of darkness of the soul linked to the elements, earth water fire air, are transformed into constructive, positive forces, into Love that leads us to freedom; it is precisely by recognising these shadows that they are now transformed into forces; precisely because they are included and admitted, these shadows are transformed into possibilities, gifts, abilities, knowledge, energies that will help us on our path towards the final liberation. You will have thus embraced your shadow, and you will have embodied your power.
Love is a roar, it is rebellion, and it also carries within it the dimension of battle (like the one of the seed that makes its way through the dark earth in order to sprout). Jung said: “Love is an extensible concept that goes from heaven to hell, bringing together good and evil, the sublime and the infinite.”
Becoming the wise adult-parents of ourselves means accompanying ourselves through the trials that we are called to go through, loving ourselves unconditionally while also recognising where our healthy folly (not madness) needs to express itself.
For example: this does not mean staying silent when we want to speak, on the contrary, since if a part is repressed and denied it will continue to grow and expand until its voice, in one way or another, comes out (in this regard you can read my article from Body to Soul which you can find on my blog); but it means first of all admitting and listening to what our inner voice has to tell us, speaking honestly to ourselves and then give ourselves the opportunity and permissionto choose whether and how to communicate to the outside what we have inside.
The much followed Italian blogger Maria Rosaria Iuliucci tells us here that in 2024, according to the law of the elements the new ten-year cycle will begin on February 10th, and that 2024 will be a year connected to the gallbladder (as is the month of December 2023), and the years 2024/2025 will ask for a review of all the work done regarding our third chakra.
The gallbladder organ is connected to the third charka together with the stomach, liver and pancreas. In Sanskrit this energy center is called Manipura, "city of the shining jewel", it is refers to the solar plexus and tells us about our personal power and our ability to choose. In the shamanic tradition this is the seat of the Magician, Shaman, Woman/Man of Power, Curandero/Curandera. When we nourish our inner Magician our Personal Will meets and is in harmony with the Will of the Cosmos. To nourish our Magic we must free ourselves from the idea of being obligated, forced, judged, of having limits that prevent our authentic expression, and therefore we’re called to face and transform all those agglomerations of beliefs represented by the "unattainables" and "unacceptables" that we have been carrying with us for long long time and which separate us from what we really incarnated for in this present time. It is in the third chakra that the idea of space and becoming is born, that you have to make an effort to achieve your goals, that you have to change and improve yourself. In reality, the winning vision, once seen, understood and accepted, is already here and is already present, it simply needs technical times of manifestation in the 3D world, and it needs to have the way open, free from limiting blocks and schemes. In my book “Throw the Scale! Transform excess weight into creative energy" there is a specific practice to nourish and revive your third chakra, included in an even broader practice: "Nourishing the seven main chakras through the invisible" which goes through and includes in fact all our main energy centers.
Embracing your own shadow, which is not the absence of light, but rather the dark night of the stars, the moon and the fireflies, allows you to truly and totally embody, without fragmentation, all your power to Be and Act in accordance with your own Essence put into existence; with strength, serenity and the joy of feeling alive and whole.
Maddalena Premuti Bonetta - Holistic Imaginal Counsellor