The Shadow
Shadows have always been fascinating to me. As a child I would lay in bed at night, transforming the shapes from the light & dark patches reflected on my bedroom wall.
I remember being out of doors, watching the light change, paying attention to how the different shadows formed, depending upon the time of day. Playing in the shadows, while creating inner worlds from them.
“That girl is scared of her own shadow!” I remember hearing my grandmother say. Yet I cannot remember if it was me she was referring to. Now as an adult, the shadow, has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I had known for a time the “shadow” was an integral part of everyone. C Jung wrote about the shadow as archetype. The shadows exists in all of us. It is universal.
To fear the shadow is to suppress a part of one’s self all that influences what we do and what beliefs we hold true. Our actions are proof of this. When the shadow rears it’s head, hovering over our shoulder, one needs to make friends with it, in order to find out who that shadow personality is. Why is this important? Because the part of ourselves that we do not know, the part that stays in the darkness, has the greatest influence over our lives.
