Only the Shadow Knows

Frater RO posted what he thought were my thoughts on the shadow. I have started speeches and, indeed, restate in the bio of this blog that I am not a scholar. I have no idea what the psychological definition of the shadow is, Von Faustus would.

I was speaking of the version of the shadow I encountered at Pantheacon. In that case, what I said and Fr. RO quoted is accurate. The shadow I encountered is "everything we reject that maybe we shouldn't"

Pardon me while I get personal. I like sex. I think sex is healthy. I think sex is good. I don't think you need to married. I don't think you need to be monogamous. Personally, I have no issue were you to go with your instinct and do it in a shopping mall in front of the gods and passersby.* In fact, I have a good friend that did over 300 men in about a year and half. She has now settled down and is monogamous. My level of respect for her didn't change in either phase. Though, I think she is happier now. If you want to get laid wearing a Richard Nixon mask with a pink feather sticking out of your butt, more power to you. You just go with that.
I, on the other hand, have been taught sex is bad, dirty, etc. I've suffered a few trauma's in that area and I have issues. Those issues are completely ridiculous! If I was half the magician I think I am, they'd be in the waste bucket of history long ago. Unfortunately, they are not. Those issues, the reasons for them, the insecurities are all suppressed. I pretend they don’t exist. They became part of my shadow. When I can live without that shadow darkening my spirit, I have a lot of fun. Though, sometimes, I encounter other people’s shadows. If that spins them out, too bad for them. Though, I try not to be rude.

Also at Pantheacon, I did a tantra workshop. Sylvia Brallier is the bomb! I posted before that I laughed the laugh of the liberated. Basically, my “all shadow” dissolved. Everything I’ve repressed was gone. Every insecurity was revealed as being completely ridiculous and delusional. This wasn’t done one by one but by simply knowing the true joy of the spirit. The joy society, and all of its shadows, works so hard to kill.

The shadow is not bad bad bad. The shadow is simply errant thinking we’ve ceded power to. Nothing more. Exploring that sort of shadow and, I use this word just to piss off My Gal, reclaiming those items, was and is fun.

There is another form of shadow. This shadow is where evil lurks. That shadow is that part of some humans that pushes them to molest children and, just for giggles, steal little old ladies’ walkers or even worse, produce white chocolate. There are shadows that cause us to actively engage in evil. I don’t know the right term for that either but in a practical sense, those are bad bad bad.

My viewpoint of the shadow has evolved. It is now something that I will explore with joy. I’ve contacted Sylvia Brallier for quarterly tantra lessons as she doesn’t live nearby. Otherwise, I’d be there weekly. I look forward to those lessons with great anticipation. I will become that which does not cast a shadow.

* While I have no objection to that act per se, I do have an issue with the shock it would cause children in this society. The human mind, much less an impressionable developing mind, can not go from 0 to 60 in a sexual heartbeat. The act is immoral only within the context of a society whose main goal is sexual repression. The immorality comes from the fact that the act is far too likely to extend the damage society is already working to inflict upon the child. That being said, there is nothing inherently immoral about having sex in any consensual circumstances with other humans capable of making an informed decision to participate.