Creativity To Friend The Shadow
I have found we can work out our rites of passage in the arena of self-expression and inward journeying, instead of only in relationship and outer action. This is done by a quest process of relaxed imagining: for example, taking a dream fragment or Tarot card symbol and entering the image, I interact with whatever follows. it is a form of lucid dreaming while awake, which I did for decades. It is natural, far superior to channelling, and can be adapted to the arts. Over a period, I will say more, especially as I get questions. Meantime, I’ll frame it this way:
The journey (as depicted in my play, SWEET REMEMBRANCE) is from head to gut to heart. The head is a nice office, but is no place to live. Yet we are constantly programmed to live in the left-brain rational mind while ignoring the lie lurking beneath. I call it putting Descartes before the horse. Descartes said, centuries ago, “I think, therefore I am,” and the scientific-intellectual-industrial world has made that its mantra. Yet the truth is, “I AM, therefore I think, feel, imagine, and yes, can co-create with something Infinite.”
Until we embody this reversal of that false identification with head, no amount of social and political activism can heal the imbalances of the world, because the imbalance is first within.
To re-balance by centering in the heart, we must first pass through the shadow-realm of the gut, to befriend what is there.
This is often called the Hero’s Journey, where the adversaries reflect the hero’s inner demons, and thus must symbolically die. Too often, this befriending within, what makes the villain lose power, is not clearly shown. It is portrayed as an outer struggle, and thus left to be understood as symbolic only by those with eyes to see. In the media, it allows for sequel after sequel and serves to re-inforce outer instead of inner focus, something controllers love. But on the personal level, if I only shatter the mirror that reflects my unloved Shadow, my wholeness (dharma) sends me further mirrors, till I integrate or dissolve what is really only a pattern from the past. Only then am I free to help create the future I am called to help create.
Too often, what remains unconscious and unloved in us, called the Shadow, includes our uniqueness, that gift we bring to help evolve the whole. To quote from astrologer Dane Rhudyar: “Because humanity is in a phase of transition, we as individuals should realize that we are also in a phase of transition. We would not have been born now, unless we were individually capable, potentially, of helping humanity to make the right decisions during this crucial period...”
For the Shadow to be truly cleared, there must be loving self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. More can be said about this truncated use of the Hero’s Journey, another time.
Shadow cleared, we move into the heart by finding the joy of our own Being. Something within is quietly waiting to assist. That something can be called on through artistic expressions that report on one's own ever-deepening experience of the Vastness we contain.
I call this the Rainbow Climb.
To see how I translate all this into art, I recommend starting with my latest videos, here.
