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Chuck's Blog

#714 Chuck’s Place: Soul/Not Soul, Uh-Oh! Merging Dreams: Recapitulation

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I was in a conversation about the power of romance. It suddenly dawned on me that the topic that had been coagulating in me, that I expected to eventuate in this blog with the title Soul/Not Soul, Uh-Oh!, was exactly what we were discussing. What happens when our projected soul becomes not soul, when our mate or date disappoints us? I shared this synchronicity. That was Wednesday; today is Saturday. I am confronted with the question: is that title still appropriate, is that the topic today? Do I have to struggle to uphold that dream or has that dream ended?

In fact, that dream has deepened and so that dream merges into this dream as I write this blog today; I am still in the same dream. The rest of the title Merging Dreams: Recapitulation reflects my deepened perspective on soul play. Recapitulation, from another perspective is the ability to merge dreams, to achieve a place of continuity of consciousness where dreams, whether they be sleeping or waking, are all part of the same reality. The fragments of the self, whether they be long stored away, forgotten horror stories or challenging truths in a current relationship, are all allowed to be fully known as a united whole within the self.

It’s early morning, 40 degrees outside. We sit quietly in the hot tub. A subtle mist emerges as cold air meets warm water. I gaze through it as the morning sun gently peeks through the trees. The rays are refracted in a dazzling display of energy. I breathe it in and I am back on the gym floor at UCLA at a Tensegrity workshop, 1996. Lying on my mat, staring up at the lights, it’s the same energy I see, and I breathe it in. You see it too, lying next to me. I can fully hold onto that dream. The feelings I encounter having that dream can stay with me now, even though it is not you next to me now. I can live that dream, I can share that dream, I can live this dream, all together. No need to fragment, file it away, or shut it down. I merge the dreams and experience greater wholeness and continuity

We start to talk. I am animated. I am discussing Jung’s thoughts on anima/animus, soul image. You show great interest, I am energized. Suddenly, your attention is drawn way up in the sky. “Look!” you say. I am crushed. What could be more important than my words?! Suddenly, soul becomes not soul. Uh-Oh!

I am quiet. Slowly, begrudgingly, as instructed, I look up and witness two large birds flying overhead in perfect synchrony, an amazing sight in the clear blue sky. Can that experience be allowed into this dream? I am caught between two dreams. There is the dream of my projected soul, my anima, transfixed by my ideas. And then there is the dream where I am cast aside, birds more important than my words. Can I merge these dreams? Must I stay in the dream of rejection, withdrawing, brooding, and distrusting? Or can I allow the dream of an overarching magnificent display of nature to be a good reason to pause my words?

And actually, does there even need to be a good reason not to listen? Can I allow the truth of your separateness to be? Can I face the trap that my inner anima has snarled me in? She, my inner anima, caught me in a dream of self-importance, knowing full well the outcome of that dream. She knew you’d disappoint me. She challenges me to either retreat—brooding in deserved want for the all-giving, satisfying anima/mother who has no other purpose than me—or to wake up from my inflated dream and join reality with my real life partner.

“Aren’t you going to tell me the rest of the story?” she asks. I’m considering it. Am I ready to merge this dream? To fully merge these dreams they must be accepted and communicated to soul and to not soul. With this, dreams are merged, recapitulation completed, for this moment and this dream.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The Mind

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I have always kept a stack of books beside my bed, sometimes neatly arranged on a bookcase or table, other times piled on the floor next to a mattress. As a very young child these books were a thick volume of Mother Goose rhymes and the poetry of A.A. Milne, both of which I knew by heart, every word in every rhyme memorized and treasured. As I lay under the covers at night reciting the words of these dear works the soothing rhythm of their lines enabled me to break through the fears of the day and enter another world. They became the mantras that enabled me to enter a new world of dreams and forgetting.

Coming from a family of readers, observing my mother, with her legs tucked up under her, deeply absorbed in reading, I intuited that books were important, containing something compellingly irresistible. At the same time I saw that they had the power to remove a person from this world, to envelop them and take them away to another world where they could not be reached. Growing up in a family of such readers, the escapist kind, produced a hoard of bubble beings, each of us floating through life safely sequestered inside our own little bubble, with little interaction or spoken word, the draw of the written word always more enticing than actual personal contact.

As I grew older the books advanced with me, the nursery rhymes giving way to Little House on The Prairie and Black Beauty, both of which I secretly cried over, safe in my bubble where I was free to compassionately and empathically absorb and embrace the trials and tribulations of the characters. Fiction and non-fiction, mysteries, classics, historical novels, fantasies; you name it, I read it. By the time I was in my late teens and early twenties the stack of books on the floor of my room in the apartment I shared with two other young women in New York City ranged from some battered and yellowed paperbacks by and about Edgar Cayce that I had found in my grandparent’s attic, to the early works of Carlos Castaneda, and some books on the power of prayer that my grandmother had shyly presented me with one day. My two roommates, gaily flitted off to yoga and meditation classes, lapping up the energy of the times while I sat in my room and read these books, trying to figure out what they meant for me, taking my time to absorb them, studying them and eventually finding my own way to what I needed out in the world.

Now as I look at the books I have on my bedside shelf I recognize the seeker in me, having stayed connected to that which would both catapult and accompany me on my inner journeys as well as my journeys in the world. I have taken my time, the time I have needed, recognizing and finding in the works and adventures of others just the words to send me in the right direction so I could break through the barriers that stood so seemingly solidly in place, as I had once done as a small child lying in bed incessantly repeating the rhymes of comfort and transformation. I have learned that when the time is right, when everything is aligned, I will be shown where I must go next. Of course, it is not just in books and words that we are guided, but in the challenges and synchronicities in life. Even if one is not a reader, but totally absorbed by the outer world the same alignments, signs, and guidance will be present when the time is right for us to take a plunge in a new direction and break through the barriers that seem so solidly constructed.

For me, those barriers have most often appeared in the form of words, just as the key to breakthrough has also most often appeared in words, both my own words and those of others. The words we grow up with, the commands and demands of our parents, our teachers, our bibles and catechisms, become the mantras that replay and hold us captive, until one day we decide, by fate or choice, that it’s time to resist them, to reject them, to turn them off and to look in a new direction for new words of guidance. This day may come slowly and methodically or it may come over us all of a sudden with a big whack over the head. But when this day arrives, when we begin to question the repetitive, incessant dialogue inside our heads, wondering who said that to us, or how we could ever have held such a belief, we are choosing to break through the barriers that have kept us confined in a limiting and unsatisfying world.

When this moment comes, whether because the right words have been read or spoken, or because life has just delivered another blow, or because there is just no other choice to make, this is the moment when, as don Juan suggests, infinity calls. This is the moment that Pema Chödrön in her book When Things Fall Apart recognizes as the catalyst. “Instinctively I knew that annihilation of my old dependent, clinging self was the only way to go,” she says on page 14. This is the moment when Carl Jung asked his unconscious for a sign and he received the vision that would eventually send him on his deepest explorations as recounted in The Red Book. And this is the moment of invitation into recapitulation.

Carlos Castaneda recounts his own adventures into recapitulation with don Juan in The Active Side of Infinity, which I have been using as a resource for the past few weeks in my essays on the recapitulation process. On page 168, don Juan introduces Carlos to the idea of the mind as a foreign installation, and suggests that Carlos note how, in undertaking recapitulation, his true mind is emerging. Don Juan says to Carlos:

“The haunting memory of your recollections could come only from your true mind. The other mind that we all have and share is, I would say, a cheap model: economy strength, one size fits all. But this is a subject that we will discuss later. What is at stake now is the advent of a disintegrating force. But not a force that is disintegrating you—I don’t mean it that way. It is disintegrating what the sorcerers call the foreign installation, which exists in you and in every other human being. The effect of the force that is descending on you, which is disintegrating the foreign installation, is that it pulls sorcerers out of their syntax.”

The mind as foreign installation is what I am referring to when I write of the incessant dialogue, the mantras of old that feed us and, yes, even nurture us through most of our life, until the moment arrives when we question their advice and even their very presence. This is the moment that our syntax, the world as we have always known it, no longer fits who we are or how we perceive or experience ourselves. This is the moment when the mind, old conjurer that it is, confronts us with its old mantras, seeking to draw us back into its comforts, but we know, with utter certainty, that we cannot go back. When Pema Chödrön is confronted by her husband asking for a divorce, her syntax shatters. She writes:

“I tried hard—very, very hard—to go back to some kind of comfort, some kind of security, some kind of familiar resting place. Fortunately for me, I could never pull it off.”

When we are confronted with the shattering of the foreign installation, the mind as it has been constructed throughout our lives, when we are thrown into free fall, into a place where nothing is familiar, and we feel like we are being annihilated or disintegrating, we want desperately to reach back to something that will anchor us. But as we grasp for the old syntax we find that the world that once served us so well is gone, that it no longer holds what we need. This is when we enter into a new phase of our recapitulation. This is when we enter the moment of choosing to change not only ourselves but our entire outlook on life, accepting that we will allow our entire perception of the world, as we know it, to disintegrate before our eyes and allow our mind, that foreign installation, to go with it. This is the moment when we experience our true mind. When we allow the old mantras to cease comforting us and look for what the next moment offers, fully aware that we are electing to take a journey of disintegrating change, we have finally gotten to the place that don Juan refers to as thus, on page 182 in The Active Side Of Infinity:

“He explained to me the intricacies of choice,” writes Carlos. “He said that choice, for warrior-travelers, was not really the act of choosing, but rather the act of acquiescing elegantly to the solicitations of infinity.”

“Infinity chooses,” he said. “The art of the warrior-traveler is to have the ability to move with the slightest insinuation, the art of acquiescing to every command of infinity. For this, a warrior-traveler needs prowess, strength, and above everything else, sobriety. All those three put together give, as a result, elegance!”

When Carlos struggles to make sense of his experiences in infinity don Juan suggests the following:

“It is unbelievable, but it’s not unlivable,” he said. “The universe has no limits, and the possibilities at play in the universe at large are indeed incommensurable. So don’t fall prey to the axiom, ‘I believe only what I see,’ because it is the dumbest stand one can possibly take.”

So, if we ponder that axiom for a moment, ‘I believe only what I see,’ and ask where it comes from, who planted it in our mind, who first spoke those words to us, or where did we read them, we might, if we are being true to ourselves, realize that those are words of the foreign installation. Because if we are indeed warrior-travelers in infinity, we know that our experiences supersede every idea that our mind has ever had or put in place.

Our true mind knows that anything can happen, that everything is possible and that once we acquiesce to the solicitations of infinity that old mind cannot hold up, under any circumstances. It will no longer give us what we need or want. It is then that we begin to look beyond the old mantras and the old comforts for something else to lead us. As don Juan, Carl Jung, Pema Chödrön, and Carlos Castaneda recognize, this is the moment of disintegration leading to new awareness. This is when we know that the only way to live is in the moment, soberly acquiescing to and learning from what infinity offers us.

On a final note, as I discussed today’s blog with Chuck this morning at breakfast, I found that I could not find the words to describe to him what I was going to write about. Spoken words have always been so inaccurate and fleeting to me, sent out on a puff of air, unclear and often jumbled, not yet fallen into just the right alignment. “It will all come together as I write,” I said to him. As I have honed how I use words, over a lifetime of career and personal writings, I know that the moment when it all comes together is largely directed by a force outside of me; creative energy perhaps. As Pema Chödrön’s teacher, Chögyam Tungpa Rinpoche, said to her once: “Relax and write,” so do I know that, once I acquiesce to the process, the process has a way of taking me where I need to go.

And so now here we are already past noon and I am looking over what I have written. I humbly offer these words that have fallen into just this essay today, coming together outside of the conjuring foreign installation of the mind that attempted to explain to Chuck earlier in the day what I would be writing about. Here it is now, come, in the end, from somewhere else; infinity perhaps?

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog are available for purchase through our Store.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Infinity

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Over the past few weeks I have written about recapitulation as both a shamanic journey and as undertaking the inner journey, doing deep psychological work. Today, I touch on the other experiences that arise as one undertakes recapitulation and deep inner work, the experiences of infinity: of spirit, of channeling, of visions, of seeing and experiencing energy. Infinity presented as a shamanic or spiritual term, really boils down to experiencing the self as energy, interconnected to all other energy, having experiences that cannot be defined in rational terms.

Carlos Castaneda writes, in The Active Side of Infinity, that he did not have explanations for the effects his recapitulation was having on him, that when facing the unknown and being confronted with things he did not have interpretations for he could not find a means of describing them. Don Juan presented him with a new source of interpretation by telling him that “infinity, or the voice of the spirit,” would come to his aid. He writes:

“Don Juan has guided me to accept the idea that infinity was a force that had a voice and was conscious of itself. Consequently, he had prepared me to be ready to listen to that voice and act efficiently always, but without antecedents, using as little as possible of the railings of the a priori. I waited impatiently for the voice of the spirit to tell me the meaning of my recollections, but nothing happened.” (p. 169)

As he goes on to recapitulate more memories of how he had behaved towards others in his life he finally arrives at the following: “I didn’t have to ponder anymore the significance of my vivid visions. For an unquestionable certainty invaded me, as if coming from outside me.” (p. 172) He goes on to explain how he discovered that the dictums he had been brought up with had overtaken him, what he had been taught driving his every action; so deeply ingrained they became necessities. This realization is his turning point. He goes on to say:

“I was aware, beyond any doubt, that what was at stake was infinity. Don Juan had portrayed it as a conscious force that deliberately intervenes in the lives of sorcerers. And now it was intervening in mine. I knew that infinity was pointing out to me, through the vivid recollections of those forgotten experiences, the intensity and depth of my drive for control, and thus preparing me for something transcendental to myself. I knew with frightening certainty that something was going to bar any possibility of my being in control, and that I needed, more than anything else, sobriety, fluidity, and abandon in order to face the things that I felt were coming to me.” (p. 172)

Don Juan admonishes Carlos to not get caught in “psychological exaggeration,” but to accept that he had entered an irreversible process. “Your true mind is emerging, waking up from a state of lifelong lethargy,” he says. Carlos writes:

“Infinity is claiming you,” he [don Juan] continued. “Whatever means it uses to point that out to you cannot have any other reason, any other cause, any other value than that. What you should do, however, is to be prepared for the onslaughts of infinity. You must be in a state of continuously bracing yourself for a blow of tremendous magnitude. That is the sane, sober way in which sorcerers face infinity.” (pp. 172-3)

Carlos proceeded to do what most of us do when faced with the “onslaughts of infinity,” he got busy, immersing himself in work, in writing, in anything to keep infinity at bay. During my own recapitulation I too used all my energy to keep infinity from invading and seeping into my life, until finally, out of sheer exhaustion, I realized it was hopeless. There was nothing I could do to keep it away, including my connection with Jeanne, which both greatly aided me and frightened me at the same time. My own experiences mirror what don Juan described to Carlos in the following excerpt, as he talked about the results of going into inner silence:

“He assured me that a dot of a peculiar, rich, pomegranate red shows up, as if bursting from the lavender clouds. He stated that as sorcerers become more disciplined and experienced, the dot of pomegranate expands and finally explodes into thoughts or visions, or in the case of a literate man, into written words; sorcerers either see visions engendered by energy, hear thoughts being voiced as words, or read written words.” (p. 174)

Carlos went on to have an experience of words moving at tremendous speed, impossible to read. After his experience he rushed to tell don Juan about what had happened to him, as I once rushed to Chuck, needing anchoring in this reality. Don Juan assured him that he had had his first encounter with infinity and although its descent was not gentle, it was nonetheless how it appeared and that Carlos was going to have to learn how to adjust to its onslaughts. In my own case, I too had to learn how my connection with Jeanne was meant to be utilized, what it really meant for me personally, but also what I was supposed to be doing with it: what I was being shown and why by infinity.

Carl Jung also experienced the “onslaughts of infinity,” and many of his psychological terms and tools come from these personal experiences. The Red Book is his personal journey into the unconscious, into what don Juan called inner silence, the place where we are offered access to that which lies beyond the rational world, which has so structured and defined our perceptions.

In The Red Book, on pages 230-231, Jung contrasted “the spirit of the time” with “the spirit of the depths” as two opposing forces that must be reconciled with, the outer rational world with the inner unknown world. When he asked “the spirit of the depths” to give him a sign that it was right to no longer resist its call, he received a two hour long vision that happened in broad daylight. This was the beginning of his journey back to his soul, for he could not resist this “onslaught of infinity.”

In daring to take the inner journey, whether it be called recapitulation or inner work, reliving memories or doing active imagination, both Carlos and Carl entered other worlds, as real as this one. Despite initial fear and resistance, in finally acquiescing to the “onslaughts of infinity,” they both perceived and experienced energy differently. Their lives changed when they chose to take the journey with infinity leading the way, as both resource and guide.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog are available for purchase through our Store.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Active Imagination

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As Chuck and I write about and work with people who are in the process of recapitulation, many wonder if they are indeed recapitulating, if they are doing it right. Many also wonder simply how to start. In our experience, once the journey begins, everything that follows is part of the process, including our dreams and visions, our incessant thoughts and feelings, and the challenges we are presented with each day. The recapitulation journey continues as one becomes aware of and allows for deeper exploration of the synchronicities in life, the calls of the body to remember, the calls of the psyche to pay attention to certain things, and the experiences in our inner worlds and outer worlds that will not let us rest.

So, when does the recapitulation journey really start? The following quote from The Active Side of Infinity, highlights the moment when you know what it really means, when there is no doubt that you have begun your recapitulation journey.

“Sorcerers believe,” don Juan went on, “that as we recapitulate our lives, all the debris, as I told you, comes to the surface. We realize our inconsistencies, our repetitions, but something in us puts up a tremendous resistance to recapitulating. Sorcerers say that the road is free only after a gigantic upheaval, after the appearance on our screen of the memory of an event that shakes our foundations with its terrifying clarity of detail. It’s the event that drags us to the actual moment when we lived it. Sorcerers call that event the usher, because from then on every event we touch on is relived, not merely remembered.” (p. 148-149)

I clearly remember the day when Chuck said to me: “This is the usher, come to take you on your journey.” At the time I had no idea what he meant, but at the same time I knew exactly what he meant because I literally felt that I was being swept into another world, ushered through a door into familiar and yet totally unfamiliar territory. There was no doubt, when my body took over and began reliving a long suppressed event, while I writhed in pain on the floor, gagging and gasping for air, that I was indeed recapitulating. That first recapitulation did not last more than a few moments, but it opened wide my awareness that something inside me needed to live, or relive, or I would not survive in this world. At that moment, I knew, without a doubt, that I was going on a new kind of journey and that I could not stop it. I also knew that I had been preparing my whole life for it and that I was ready for it.

“Something will lead you to remember the event that will serve you as your usher,” don Juan says to Carlos after taking him on a long walk, because, as he explained to Carlos: “The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of the legs. They consider the backs of the legs to be the warehouse of man’s personal history.” (The Active Side of Infinity p. 149) Instructing Carlos to “do your best” he leaves him alone to experience his own moment of the usher. Within a few moments Carlos falls headlong into a vivid forgotten event from his childhood.

Each person’s experience of the usher will be different, but it will be strikingly apparent that a shift has taken place, a shift that will not let you rest or revert to an old way of perceiving reality or yourself in reality. Carl Jung, in The Red Book recounts his own experiences of encountering the usher. In the section entitled Refinding the Soul he speaks of a vision that would not let him rest.

“The vision of the flood seized me and I felt the spirit of the depths, but I did not understand him. Yet he drove me on with unbearable inner longing and I said:

“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you—are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet and I have come to you. I am with you. After long years of wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life.

This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are false paths. I found the right way, it led me to you, to my soul.” (pp. 231-232)

By using what he termed active imagination Jung probed deeply into his inner world, confronting his soul, his “I”, all of his inner demons, his projections, his anima, actually doing a thorough recapitulation as the sorcerers of ancient Mexico define it.

These two overlapping worlds, that of the sorcerers of ancient Mexico and the psychological world as explored and practiced by Jung, give us sound guidelines and processes by which to do our inner work. Undertaking the recapitulation journey, in whatever way we are ushered into it, supported by allowing ourselves to do active imagination enables us to fully experience this life. As don Juan explains to Carlos:

“To recount events is magical for sorcerers,” he said. “It isn’t just telling stories. It is seeing the underlying fabric of events. This is the reason recounting is so important and vast.” (The Active Side of Infinity p. 158)

By “seeing the underlying fabric of events” in our lives we begin to understand that, as Jung notes, this life is what we seek, for inside of us is contained everything we need. As we go deeper into our recapitulation, as we return to and explore our soul, everything about us changes. We not only perceive the world differently, but we become different in how we act and think, how we treat ourselves and others, how we engage in life, both our outer life and our inner life. As we gain clarity on who we personally are, as we dare to confront ourselves with the challenges of this life, we offer ourselves the opportunity to experience the magic that don Juan speaks of and the divine that Jung writes about.

May you greet your usher with open arms and may you discover the means of dialogue with your soul, even though your fear may overwhelm you and your body resist. May you allow yourself to go into recapitulation and active imagination, even though it may mean confronting the unimaginable and experiencing the unfathomable. May you allow yourself to take the only journey that matters, into the self, even though you may have to face both the trivial self and the inflated self and all the angels and demons that roam in your inner world.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog are available for purchase through our Store.

Chuck's Blog

#707 Chuck’s Place: Welcome to Shadowland

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Monday evening, Jan and I were walking to our car in the garage when Jan noticed that the side mirror on my truck, which was parked next to the car, was dangling, obviously having been struck. I was caught completely unaware, blindsided in more ways than one. Just an hour before I had driven home from the office. How could I not have noticed? Could I have done it myself while parking? Could I be that unconscious? Upon examination, it became evident that I couldn’t have done it while pulling the truck into the garage. Might somebody have struck the mirror and elected to drive off while the truck was parked at the office? I might have, at this thought, gone to a vulnerable, victimized place, but instead I found myself deeply pondering—how could I not have noticed, no matter what happened? What does it mean when the mirror that alerts you to what is coming up upon you is knocked out and you don’t even realize it? Welcome to shadowland.

Within twenty-four hours of this incident, having temporarily taped the mirror in place, Jan and I were together in the truck on a mission I had reluctantly agreed to. I stewed within, with feelings of anger, frustration, helplessness, powerlessness, and suspicion. I had indeed been blindsided. Welcome to shadowland.

Twenty-four hours after that, as I drove home alone from the office in my truck, listening contentedly and distractedly to NPR, the radio suddenly turned to static. All stations were lost. I turned off the radio; time to tune inward and shed light on shadowland. Jan and I later processed our drama, and the projections receded. With new awareness, we moved forward, enlightened by our excursion into shadowland.

Synchronistically, possession by and projection of, the shadow had been the theme of the week for many people I encountered, and it was my intention to write about it for this blog. It wasn’t until Thursday evening that I had the opportunity to read Jan’s blog from Wednesday, Recapitulation & The Shadow. Indeed, shadow is the energy of the week.

In his frustration with his students, who always tried to pin down his tentative concepts into final definitions, Jung is said to have remarked, in an exasperated state, that the shadow is the whole unconscious. In the broadest sense, the shadow is the part of us that stays in the dark. We may be completely unaware of this part of the self, though others might see its effects upon us quite clearly in our daily functioning. We may be somewhat aware of our shadow, but nonetheless, be completely rejecting of it, mortified and shamed by this inferior, under-socialized, underdeveloped aspect of ourselves.

Shadow requires light and an object to exist. When light encounters an object, it casts a shadow. If we understand consciousness as light and object as ego, we can understand shadow as intimately connected to ego, as the rejected or unknown, cast off part of it, which is sentenced to live in darkness. In the darkness the shadow exists as a living personality, an alter ego with a life of its own that is often experienced in the blindsided moments in our lives, when we become beings not in our right minds.

When we are born into this world, we are all socialized as we go through the various stages of development. We quickly learn what behaviors and traits are acceptable and those which must be repressed or abandoned. This necessary socialization causes a core fragmentation in the developing self. Traits and instinctive reactions, like strong emotions such as anger or intense expressions of basic needs, may be met with frowns. Interests and potentials might be discouraged for the sake of a standard curriculum or conventional wisdom. Hence, our shadow self contains many unlived potentials as well as basic instincts. Shadowland is also the container of traumatic experiences that are imbued with all kinds of intense energies awaiting the recognition and reconciliation that only consciousness can provide in some form of recapitulation.

In the meantime, these rejected siblings of our egos combine their energies and seek opportunities for recognition and life outside of shadowland. Freud identified verbal faux pas, what we call Freudian slips, as opportunities the shadow seizes to insert its point of view into our lives, much to the shame of the ego. Projections onto others, whom we don’t like yet find ourselves hopelessly, energetically bound to think and feel about, are other opportunities for our inner shadow to find a place in our lives. These attachments give our shadow vicarious life, as our ego remains unidentified with them yet, nonetheless, compulsively bound to include them in our lives. Finally, there is direct possession of our ego by our shadow self. This can happen when we alter consciousness through substance or lack of sleep, or simply through direct ambush by the shadow, as in the case of an intense mood, emotion, or unshakeable belief that takes possession of consciousness. At these times, we feel compelled to act out, live out, the personality of our shadow, as our ego is completely blindsided.

It is only with great effort that we might restrain ourselves in times of possession, yet until we can, we will not have the necessary energy to begin a process of recapitulation where we discover the deeper truths of the self. This recapitulation process opens the door to acceptance of the shadow, without judgment. This acceptance depotentiates the volatile energies of the shadow, born of rejection from consciousness. This process also opens the door to new possibility for life, as the deep well of energy and creative potential contained in the shadow may find new forms of expression.

Ultimately, developing a relationship with the shadow is the key to a fuller, richer life where the deeper resources of the self can be accessed and lived in an individuated state. Failure to do so results in fragmentation and extremist tactics on the part of the shadow, which is forced to become a terrorist who must blindside us to make its truths known. Would that we might comprehend the role of the terrorist on the world stage at this time. Would that, both on an individual and collective level, we would voluntarily visit our own shadowlands and reconcile with our own darker truths, rather than continue to project and war with our disowned shadow selves.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck