Shadow Integration Quotes

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.

The thought manifests the word; The word manifests the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character; So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let them spring forth from love Born out of compassion for all beings. As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

You have to be transparent so you no longer cast a shadow but instead let the light pass through you.

Even knowing that my presence brought a shadow over the lives of my loved ones, I can't regret the experiences I've had with them. They gave me life, becoming an integral part of my soul. They healed me when I was broken and somehow they recovered those parts of me, I thought lost forever.

Interestingly, God's remedy for Elijah's depression was not a refresher course in theology but food and sleep... Before God spoke to him at all, Elijah was fed twice and given a good chance to sleep. Only then, and very gently, did God confront him with his error. This is always God's way. Having made us as human beings, He respects our humanness and treats us with integrity. That is, He treats us true to the truth of who we are. It is human beings and not God who have made spirituality impractical.

In the calm, deep waters of the mind, the wolf waits.

One of the leading techniques that is used in trauma integration involves a process where you consciously revisit traumatizing memories, rescue your childhood self out of each of those memories, and then bring those childhood versions of you to a safe space where you then reparent them.

In these times where it has seemed dark indeed where integrity appears solely buried in legend and lore, it is an opportunity in contrast to the shadows, to create miracles... by choosing first courage, then diligence, standing, opening our mouth and speaking the truth that in rare moments, may ignite the light.

Our work is to integrate and eventually transcend darkness and light altogether by holding them equally in a state of interconnection.

I urge you not to distract yourself. Instead, savor awakening. Take advantage of it. Pause as you stare into the photograph of the younger you. Let the poignant moment sweep over you and linger a bit; taste the sweetness of it as well as the bitterness. Keep in mind the advantage of remaining aware of death, of hugging its shadow to you. Such awareness can integrate the darkness with your spark of life and enhance your life while you still have it. To way to value life, the way to feel compassion for others, the way to love anything with greatest depth is to be aware that these experiences are destined to be lost.

In youth he had felt the hidden beauty and ecstasy of things, and had been a poet; but poverty and sorrow and exile had turned his gaze in darker directions, and he had thrilled at the imputations of evil in the world around. Daily life had for him come to be a phantasmagoria of macabre shadow-studies; now glittering and leering with concealed rottenness as in Beardsley's best manner, now hinting terrors behind the commonest shapes and objects as in the subtler and less obvious work of Gustave Dore. He would often regard it as merciful that most persons of high Intelligence jeer at the inmost mysteries; for, he argued, if superior minds were ever placed in fullest contact with the secrets preserved by ancient and lowly cults, the resultant abnormalities would soon not only wreck the world, but threaten the very integrity of the universe. All this reflection was no doubt morbid, but keen logic and a deep sense of humour ably offset it. Malone was satisfied to let his notions remain as half-spied and forbidden visions to be lightly played with; and hysteria came only when duty flung him into a hell of revelation too sudden and insidious to escape.

It's because the truth is important. Never let anyone tell you differently, Boyd. Even if it hurts to say, even if it's painful to hear, even if you wish you could run the other way—it's important. It separates the people with integrity from the deceivers. It's what makes a person trustworthy. Somebody to believe in

To leave the comforts of home, the mother world, one must have some place to go. Admittedly, the rites of passage of traditional cultures were to initiate the youth into a simpler society, a more homogenous culture than ours. As well, their interest lay not in the individuation of the person but in the integration of the unformed person into the collective definition of tribal masculinity. Still, take away such psychically charged images of identity, take away the wisdom of the elders, take away the community of men, and one has the modern world.

Jung didn’t try to separate good and evil. He knew that both exist in every human heart. He called the propensity to evil the Shadow. And he believed that trying to deny or repress the Shadow is dangerous. Because it can’t be done. He believed you have to recognize your Shadow, come to grips with it, accept it, and integrate it.

When Zoya drew level with me, she said, "You know, Starkov, I'm beginning to think that you turned your hair white on purpose." Iflicked a speck of starlight from my wrist, watching it fade. "Yes Zoya, courting death is an integral part of my beauty regimen.

My mom used to say, ‘Life isn’t fair,’“ said Shadow. “Of course she did,” said Wednesday. “It’s one of those things that moms say, right up there with ‘If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it too?’” “You stiffed that girl for ten bucks, I slipped her ten bucks,” said Shadow, doggedly. “It was the right thing to do.” Someone announced that their plane was boarding. Wednesday stood up. “May your choices always be so clear,” he said.

I will take you down my own avenue of remembrance, which winds among the hazards and shadows of my single year as a plebe. I cannot come to this story in full voice. I want to speak for the boys who were violated by this school, the ones who left ashamed and broken and dishonored, who departed from the Institute with wounds and bitter grievances. I want also to speak for the triumphant boys who took everything the system could throw at them, endured every torment and excess, and survived the ordeal of the freshman year with a feeling of transformation and achievement that they never had felt before and would never know again with such clarity and elation. I will speak from my memory- my memory- a memory that is all refracting light slanting through prisms and dreams, a shifting, troubled riot of electrons charged with pain and wonder. My memory often seems like a city of exiled poets afire with the astonishment of language, each believing in the integrity of his own witness, each with a separate version of culture and history, and the divine essentional fire that is poetry itself. But i will try to isolate that one lonely singer who gathered the fragments of my plebe year and set the screams to music. For many years, I have refused to listen as his obsessive voice narrated the malignant litany of crimes against my boyhood. We isolate those poets who cause us the greatest pain; we silence them in any way we can. I have never allowed this furious dissident the courtesy of my full attention. His poems are songs for the dead to me. Something dies in me every time I hear his low, courageous voice calling to me from the solitude of his exile. He has always known that someday I would have to listen to his story, that I would have to deal with the truth or falsity of his witness. He has always known that someday I must take full responsibility for his creation and that, in finally listening to him, I would be sounding the darkest fathoms of myself. I will write his stories now as he shouts them to me. I will listen to him and listen to myself. I will get it all down. Yet the laws of recall are subject to distortion and alienation. Memory is a trick, and I have lied so often to myself about my own role and the role of others that I am not sure I can recognize the truth about those days. But I have come to believe in the unconscious integrity of lies. I want to record even them. Somewhere in the immensity of the lie the truth gleams like the pure, light-glazed bones of an extinct angel. Hidden in the enormous falsity of my story is the truth for all of us who began at the Institute in 1963, and for all who survived to become her sons. I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth. I return to the city of memory, to the city of exiled poets. I approach the one whose back is turned to me. He is frail and timorous and angry. His head is shaved and he fears the judgment of regiments. He will always be a victim, always a plebe. I tap him on the shoulder. "Begin," I command. "It was the beginning of 1963," he begins, and I know he will not stop until the story has ended.

We have a great deal of fight inside us, and sometimes our strength of spirit forces us to choose truth and integrity over comfort and security.

The radiance of that which wants to be born illuminates the shadows, bringing them into the light of awareness that they may be healed.

…this integration [of the shadow]…leads to disobedience and disgust, but also to self-reliance, without which individuation is unthinkable.

We are captivated by the feminine shadow of the self we might have been; in my case by that counterpart of the romantic writer who should have had the courage to reject society and to accept poverty for the sake of the development of his personality. Now when I see such beings I hope that I can somehow be freed from my shortcomings by union with them. Hence the recurrent longing to forsake external reality for a dream and to plunge into a ritual flight...I am attracted by those who mysteriously hold out a promise of the integrity which I have lost.

I want to use this practice: Whenever I express my views, thoughts or anything I deeply believe, I will welcome any opposing view or thought. I will listen with caring attention to what the other says, accepting it no matter how different or antagonistic it seems to be. I will also deeply and sincerely thank them. I will abstain from feeling accused or judged. I will acknowledge the other as my shadow, an integral part of me who has accepted to relate with me. I believe that a vision in order to manifest requires its opposite, the other polarity. If my vision is truly holistic, I am not in a condition to oppose any alternative vision. I intend to learn to accept what appears to be opposite, no matter how unpleasant or contrary it is. I believe that only in the paradox of this acceptance, in releasing the urge to be right, unity can be experienced and manifested. I have tried all other options, and they have not worked, and this is the only I have left. And for this purpose I am open to be patient, promoting the gestation of this healing process, for I know that all is one.

specifically and the perennial philosophy generally. Before we do the conscious work of self-development, we are the seeds of what we may become. To transform from our “acorn-self” into our “oak tree–Self,” we must traverse our underground territory—allow our defenses to crack open and break down—and consciously integrate our disowned feelings, blind spots, and Shadow traits so that we can shake off the limiting outer shell of our personality and grow into all that we are meant to be. Nature brings us part of the way, but to fully manifest our potential, we need to make conscious efforts to grow—and the Enneagram can guide us in this transformation.

The devil lives in the shadow of subtle things--those things people keep hidden from others. They reside in the lies they tell themselves, in order to justify their pain or fear. It is the slight, the dig, the silence and the unspoken truth that we minimize to a passive aggressive status, as if it were a lesser evil. Integrity is not subtle. It speaks loudly, so everyone can hear and be healed. It is something you will never have to search for because it is seen and felt.

There's a great feeling of relief and catharsis when you manage to get something that's been buried or hidden out onto the page. And such a process, whether or not it eventually results in a poem, helps to integrate that part of the self.

There will be rebels. They will live in the shadows. They will be the renegade painters, sculptors, poets, writers, journalists, musicians, actors, dancers, organizers, activists, mystics, intellectuals and other outcasts who are willing to accept personal sacrifice. They will not surrender their integrity, creativity, independence and finally their souls. They will speak the truth. The state will have little tolerance of them. They will be poor. The wider society will be conditioned by mass propaganda to write them off as parasites or traitors. They will keep alive what is left of dignity and freedom. Perhaps one day they will rise up and triumph. But one does not live in poverty and on the margins of society because of the certainty of success. One lives like that because to collaborate with radical evil is to betray all that is good and beautiful. It is to become a captive. It is to give up the moral autonomy that makes us human. The rebels will be our hope.

Once a woman put her hand in a gate and it ate her fingers. A five-legged spider with red eyes crawled out. That woman put in three fingers from her other hand, so that the spider might be complete. Do you have that integrity of purpose, sister?

The wild is an integral part of who we are as children. Without pausing to consider what or where or how, we gather herbs and flowers, old apples and rose hips, shiny pebbles and dead spiders, poems, tears and raindrops, putting each treasured thing into the cauldron of our souls. We stir our bucket of mud as if it were, every one, a bucket of chocolate cake to be mixed for the baking. Little witches, hag children, we dance our wildness, not afraid of not knowing. But there comes a time when the kiss of acceptance is delayed until the mud is washed from our knees, the chocolate from our faces. Putting down our wooden spoon with a new uncertainty, setting aside our magical wand, we learn another system of values based on familiarity, on avoiding threat and rejection. We are told it is all in the nature of growing up. But it isn't so. Walking forward and facing the shadows, stumbling on fears like litter in the alleyways of our minds, we can find the confidence again. We can let go of the clutter of our creative stagnation, abandoning the chaos of misplaced and outdated assumptions that have been our protection. Then beyond the half light and shadows, we can slip into the dark and find ourselves in a world where horizons stretch forever. Once more we can acknowledge a reality that is unlimited finding our true self, a wild spirit, free and eager to explore the extent of our potential, free to dance like fireflies, free to be the drum, free to love absolutely with every cell of our being, or lie in the grass watching stars and bats and dreams wander by. We can live inspired, stirring the darkness of the cauldron within our souls, the source, the womb temple of our true creativity, brilliant, untamed

According to ancient Asian philosophy, life is not a circle but a spiral. Every life lesson that has ever been presented to you (which means everything you have ever been through) will come back again, in some form, until you learn it. And the stakes each time will be higher. Whatever you’ve learned will bear greater fruit. Whatever you’ve failed to learn will bear harsher consequences. Whatever didn’t work in your life before this point was a reflection of the fact that you hadn’t yet integrated the different parts of yourself. Where you didn’t yet accept yourself, you attracted a lack of acceptance in others. Where you hadn’t yet dealt with your shadows, you manifested shadowy situations. Broken parts of you encountered broken parts of others. So now you know! That was then and this is now.

Many of us draw lines which we intend never to cross. But life tests our resolve, mercilessly at times, and a foot budges, nudged past that thinly-drawn line. So we draw another, resolving never to cross this one. Days grow dark and fog creeps in to blind our view, clouding the reason for the line’s existence from our minds. We draw another mark, ashamed that the last was crossed with less coaxing than we imagined it would require. Shadows and doubts give further need to draw a new line, and then another and another. Lines, I think, are too slim and obscure to be dependable deterrents for behavior. Too often, too easily, people stumble into places they later regret entering. What, then, keeps some individuals from crossing those narrow lines? It is the power of values. For if a person possessing values were to step one foot outside their line, they would be forced to release hands with those inflexible values and consciously abandon them. But their values are persuasive, keeping a tight grip, warding off the luring temptations beckoning one to test the line. Thus values maintained keep a person safely away from areas they dare not travel, steering a life between the lines, enhancing willpower and shaping mighty strength of character.

Our present conscious self and our shadow must learn how to coexist. The first step to attaining personal transcendence commences when the conscious mind and the unconscious mind square off and battle for preeminence. A person who achieves self-realization understands the interworking of both their conscious mind and the unconscious mind and integrates their unique dichotomy into their sense of a self. A person who suffers from a personality disorders or neuroses failed to confront their shadow or unsuccessfully integrated the conflicting motives of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind into a central and fully integrated persona.

{Wells discussing his experiences with Christianity} I realised as if for the first time, the menace of these queer shaven men in lace and petticoats who had been intoning, responding, and going through ritual gestures at me. I realised something dreadful about them. They were thrusting an incredible and ugly lie upon the world and the world was making no such resistance as I was disposed to make to this enthronement of cruelty. Either I had to come into this immense luminous coop and submit, or I had to declare the Catholic Church, the core and substance of Christendom with all its divines, sages, saints, and martyrs, with successive thousands of believers, age after age, wrong. ...I found my doubt of his essential integrity, and the shadow of contempt it cast, spreading out from him to the whole Church and religion of which he with his wild spoutings about the agonies of Hell, had become the symbol. I felt ashamed to be sitting there in such a bath of credulity.

Much of what it takes to succeed in school, at work, and in one’s community consists of cultural habits acquired by adaptation to the social environment. Such cultural adaptations are known as “cultural capital.” Segregation leads social groups to form different codes of conduct and communication. Some habits that help individuals in intensely segregated, disadvantaged environments undermine their ability to succeed in integrated, more advantaged environments. At Strive, a job training organization, Gyasi Headen teaches young black and Latino men how to drop their “game face” at work. The “game face” is the angry, menacing demeanor these men adopt to ward off attacks in their crime-ridden, segregated neighborhoods. As one trainee described it, it is the face you wear “at 12 o’clock at night, you’re in the ‘hood and they’re going to try to get you.”102 But the habit may freeze it into place, frightening people from outside the ghetto, who mistake the defensive posture for an aggressive one. It may be so entrenched that black men may be unaware that they are glowering at others. This reduces their chance of getting hired. The “game face” is a form of cultural capital that circulates in segregated underclass communities, helping its members survive. Outside these communities, it burdens its possessors with severe disadvantages. Urban ethnographer Elijah Anderson highlights the cruel dilemma this poses for ghetto residents who aspire to mainstream values and seek responsible positions in mainstream society.103 If they manifest their “decent” values in their neighborhoods, they become targets for merciless harassment by those committed to “street” values, who win esteem from their peers by demonstrating their ability and willingness to insult and physically intimidate others with impunity. To protect themselves against their tormentors, and to gain esteem among their peers, they adopt the game face, wear “gangster” clothing, and engage in the posturing style that signals that they are “bad.” This survival strategy makes them pariahs in the wider community. Police target them for questioning, searches, and arrests.104 Store owners refuse to serve them, or serve them brusquely, while shadowing them to make sure they are not shoplifting. Employers refuse to employ them.105 Or they employ them in inferior, segregated jobs. A restaurant owner may hire blacks as dishwashers, but not as wait staff, where they could earn tips.

It was the end, for whatever remains to me of life on the surface of this earth, of every vestige of mental peace and confidence in the integrity of Nature and of the human mind. Nothing that I could have imagined—nothing, even, that I could have gathered had I credited old Zadok’s crazy tale in the most literal way—would be in any way comparable to the daemoniac, blasphemous reality that I saw—or believe I saw. I have tried to hint what it was in order to postpone the horror of writing it down baldly. Can it be possible that this planet has actually spawned such things; that human eyes have truly seen, as objective flesh, what man has hitherto known only in febrile phantasy and tenuous legend?

The lesson for the Intellectual is never to invest so much of yourself in any situation that you are willing to compromise your integrity in order to maintain the illusion. Once that cycle begins, it is nearly impossible to release yourself from it. The Intellectual frees herself from the shadow by knowing who she is at all times and living from her truth.

Gray mattresses with red and blue stripes in something that looks like a hallway or an overly long waiting room. In any case, his memory is frozen in immediate past like a faceless man in a dentist's chair. There are houses and streets that run down to the sea, dirty windows and shadows on staircase landings. We hear someone say "a long time ago it was noon," the light bounces off the center of immediate past, something that's neither a screen nor attempts to offer images. Memory slowly dictates soundless sentences. We imagine that all of this has been done to avoid confusion, a layer of white paint covers the film on the floor. Fleeing together long ago became living together and thus the integrity of the gesture was lost; the shine of immediate past.

He says, That’s great. My grace covers your guilt. My grace changes your shame. I want you to become a leader in My church. I want you to feed My sheep. I want you to be a part of My mission. I want you to love God and love other people in My name. You do not have to sit in the back row for the rest of your life. You do not have to live in the shadows. You don’t have to build protective walls around yourself. You don’t have to hide from the people who love you and care for you. They’ll help love you and restore your integrity, and your call is to help take My name to the world, and I want you in the front row on that mission. You are My chosen instrument to carry forth the plans and purposes of God. You are not going to live defined by shame or guilt. You are going to live defined by Me. Since you love Me, let’s not go backward. Let’s go forward, together.

A generation of young people has come out of decades of shadows to face naked state power; it has lost its fears, and experienced the majestic dignity of a direct struggle for its own liberation. These young people have connected up with their own history—the slave revolts, the incomplete revolution of the Civil War, the brotherhood of colonial colored men in Africa and Asia. They are an integral part of the history which is reshaping the world, replacing a dying order with modern democracy.

The drive to live in the master’s house is also symbolic of the desire to become like the master. Our colonized consciousness has convinced us that to be is to be like the master. To be Filipino is not good enough—or so we we have been taught (or coerced) to believe. It is a reflection of the internalization of the dark shadows projected by the colonizer onto the colonized. These are shadows from which there is no escape, shadows that will keep haunting until they are withdrawn, atoned for, and integrated within the colonizer’s self

It is only people incapable of dissecting what at first sight appears indivisible in their perception who believe that one’s position is an integral part of one’s person. One and the same man, taken at successive points in his life, will be found to breathe, on different rungs of the social ladder, in atmospheres that do not of necessity become more and more refined; whenever, in any period of our existence, we form or re-form associations with a certain circle, and feel cherished and at ease in it, we begin quite naturally to cling to it by putting down human roots.

It would be relatively easy if one could integrate the shadow into the conscious personality just by attempting to be honest and to use one’s insight. But, unfortunately, such an attempt does not always work. There is such a passionate drive within the shadowy part of oneself that reason may not prevail against it. A bitter experience coming from the outside may occasionally help; a brick, so to speak, has to drop on one’s head to put a stop to shadow drives and impulses. At times a heroic decision may serve to halt them, but such a superhuman effort is usually possible only if the Great Man within (the Self) helps the individual to carry it through.

Without doubt, images of comfort and wealth, of technological sophistication, have a magnetic allure. Any job in the city may seem better than back-breaking labour in sun-scorched fields. Entranced by the promise of the new, people throughout the world have in many instances voluntarily and in great earnest turned their backs on the old. The consequences, as we have seen in Kenya, can be profoundly disappointing. The fate of the vast majority of those who sever their ties with their traditions will not be to attain the prosperity of the West, but to join the legions of urban poor, trapped in squalor, struggling to survive. As cultures wither away, individuals remain, often shadows of their former selves, caught in time, unable to return to the past, yet denied any real possibility of securing a place in a world whose values they seek to emulate and whose wealth they long to acquire. This creates a dangerous and explosive situation, which is precisely why the plight of diverse cultures is not a simple matter of nostalgia or even of human rights alone, but a serious issue of geopolitical stability and survival. [..] Outside of the major industrial nations, globalization has not brought integration and harmony, but rather a firestorm of change that has swept away languages and cultures, ancient skills and visionary wisdom.

Finally, Europe’s post-war history is a story shadowed by silences; by absence. The continent of Europe was once an intricate, interwoven tapestry of overlapping languages, religions, communities and nations. Many of its cities—particularly the smaller ones at the intersection of old and new imperial boundaries, such as Trieste, Sarajevo, Salonika, Cernovitz, Odessa or Vilna—were truly multicultural societies avant le mot, where Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, Jews and others lived in familiar juxtaposition. We should not idealise this old Europe. What the Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski called ‘the incredible, almost comical melting-pot of peoples and nationalities sizzling dangerously in the very heart of Europe’ was periodically rent with riots, massacres and pogroms—but it was real, and it survived into living memory. Between 1914 and 1945, however, that Europe was smashed into the dust. The tidier Europe that emerged, blinking, into the second half of the twentieth century had fewer loose ends. Thanks to war, occupation, boundary adjustments, expulsions and genocide, almost everybody now lived in their own country, among their own people. For forty years after World War Two Europeans in both halves of Europe lived in hermetic national enclaves where surviving religious or ethnic minorities the Jews in France, for example—represented a tiny percentage of the population at large and were thoroughly integrated into its cultural and political mainstream. Only Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union—an empire, not a country and anyway only part-European, as already noted—stood aside from this new, serially homogenous Europe. But since the 1980s, and above all since the fall of the Soviet Union and the enlargement of the EU, Europe is facing a multicultural future. Between them refugees; guest-workers; the denizens of Europe’s former colonies drawn back to the imperial metropole by the prospect of jobs and freedom; and the voluntary and involuntary migrants from failed or repressive states at Europe’s expanded margins have turned London, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan and a dozen other places into cosmopolitan world cities whether they like it or not.

It is not enough, however, to say like some Jungians that the evil is all inside, and any trouble I have with you is just because I have it in my shadow. “If I could just integrate my shadow then I would see you for the wonderful, complete, perfect person that you are.” That is not true either. Such a position taken to extreme would suggest that if the Jews had just integrated their shadows in the late thirties, then Adolf Hitler would have seemed like a nice fellow. That can't be right. No matter how much the people in the ghettoes integrated their Jewish shadows, Hitler was still an objective reality out there in the real world trying to kill them. Remember the old joke, “Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.” That is true in psychology as well.

If, at the end of the trickster myth, the saviour is hinted at, this comforting premonition or hope means that some calamity or other has happened and been consciously understood. Only out of disaster can the longing for the saviour arise—in other words, the recognition and unavoidable integration of the shadow create such a harrowing situation that nobody but a saviour can undo the tangled web of fate. In the case of the individual, the problem constellated by the shadow is answered on the plane of the anima, that is, through relatedness. In the history of the collective as in the history of the individual, everything depends on the development of consciousness. This gradually brings liberation from imprisonment in ἀγνοία, ‘unconsciousness,’20 and is therefore a bringer of light as well as of healing.

I'm my friends' life coach, and here's a piece of advice I once shared with a friend that transformed their perspective, empowering them to recognize their authentic worth within relationships. It's a principle that holds true when you uphold your personal standards and wholeheartedly embrace self-love. It may help you ^^ When you find a cherished place in someone's heart, your value shines brighter than all the treasures the world may offer. As they grasp the depth of your worth, the pursuit of alternative interests or other individuals becomes as fruitless as chasing elusive shadows in the full light of day. It's a reminder not to invest time in those who fail to prioritize your significance. Instead, channel your focus towards those who genuinely endeavor to become an integral and lasting part of your life.

Good lord, you’re bleeding!” the woman called. “Dovie, sit him down before he dies.” Dovie pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, situated between the kitchen and living room. She raised an eyebrow at him and her glittered shadow caught the light. He slipped out of his shoes, though she’d left hers on, and walked across the living room, leaving depressions in the green carpet. The woman disappeared down a hall and came back with a first aid kit and a wet washcloth. “These the only boo-boos?” He looked at her, uncomprehending. “Yuri’s Russian,” Dovie said, then explained, “she wants to know where you’re hurt.” “Oh. I have multiple superficial abrasions and small laceration to forehead and left lateral mouth, with localized swelling. So, compromised skin integrity and risk for infection, but no skeletal issues.” “I see,” Mrs. Collum said, smiling.

The truth is every single one of us possesses lights and shadows. And everything serves us on some level. Other people have their freedom to choose how they think, feel, believe and act. We need not be offended by anything anyone else says or does. By law, some actions will bring natural consequences that are less-than-pleasant. These natural laws govern reality ... whether we understand, know about, or believe in them or not. The core truth is that freedom comes when we stop worrying about what other people think, feel, or believe; and concern ourselves with our own integrity, our own personal responsibility and our own alignment with the natural laws that govern freedom. As we move out of blame, shame and victimhood, we come to a place of true personal empowerment and freedom. We come to understand that we cannot personally be free until we respect the freedom of every other person on this planet. We cannot fully express our highest and best selves until we respect other people's law-abiding-right to express themselves.

At some point in life-sometimes in youth, sometimes late-each of us is due to awaken to our mortality. There are so many triggers: a glance in a mirror at your sagging jowls, graying hair, stooping shoulders; the march of birthdays, especially those round decades-fifty, sixty, seventy; meeting a friend you have not seen in a long while and being shocked at how he or she has aged; seeing old photographs of yourself and those long dead who peopled your childhood; encountering Mister Death in a dream. What do you feel when you have such experiences? What do you do with them? Do you plunge into frenetic activity to burn off the anxiety and avoid the subject? Try to remove wrinkles with cosmetic surgery or dye your hair? Decide to stay thirty-nine for a few more years? Distract yourself quickly with work and everyday life routine? Forget all such experiences? Ignore your dreams? I urge you not to distract yourself. Instead, savor awakening. Take advantage of it. Pause as you stare into the photograph of the younger you. Let the poignant moment sweep over you and linger a bit; taste the sweetness of it as well as the bitterness. Keep in mind the advantage of remaining aware of death, of hugging its shadow to you. Such awareness can integrate the darkness with your spark of life and enhance your life while you still have it. The way to value life, the way to feel compassion for others, the way to love anything with greatest depth is to be aware that these experiences are destined to be lost.

Whatever arises in and through the body does so, as we have seen, in accordance with the operation of karma. Karma holds our locked-up awareness, the larger buddha nature, of which we are only partially aware. Whatever of our karmic totality has not made its way into conscious awareness abides in the body. At any given time, a certain aspect of that totality begins to press toward consciousness; the totality intends that this come to birth now. It might not be pressing toward awareness until just now because, before this moment, it was not ready to do so, having been held at some deep level of enfoldment. Again, it may not have appeared in consciousness because, though ready to emerge at a certain moment as a step in our development, we have resisted it and pushed it back into the body. Either way, at a certain point, there is a pressure from the body toward consciousness, to communicate whatever, in the mysterious timing of our existence, is needed or appropriate. If we resist what is appearing in the body, at the verge of our awareness—and most of us modern people do habitually resist in order to rigidly maintain ourselves—what is trying to arise is pushed back, denied, and again held at bay in the body. There it resides within the shadows of our somatic being, in an ever-increasing residue—as that which our consciousness is in the continual process of ignoring, resisting, and denying. Residing in the shadows, all those aspects of our totality that are being denied admittance into conscious awareness continue to function in a powerful but unseen way, being reflected in the nature, structure, and activity of our ego. This process roughly corresponds to the psychological concept of repression, but there are some important differences. For one thing, the activity of the ego in “repressing” experience is seen here as ultimately not negative, but dynamic and creative in function. In our life, the ego emerges out of the unconscious as the field of our conscious awareness, the immediate domain in which our experience can be received and integrated. At the same time, the ego moderates what it takes in, resisting that which it is unready and unable to receive. There is much intelligence in this. An ego that is too rigid and frozen cannot accommodate the experience that is needed in order for us to grow. But an ego that is simply overwhelmed and pushed aside by experience cannot integrate the needed experience either. Spirituality, it would seem, depends on an ego—a field of consciousness—that can change and grow with the needs of our journey toward wholeness. Thus it is that spirituality is not about “getting rid of” or obliterating the ego, but rather about enabling the ego into a process of openness, increasing experience, death, and rebirth, as it integrates more and more of the buddha nature and itself becomes more aligned with and in service to our own totality. A buddha is not a person who has eliminated or wiped away his or her ego, but someone in whom the ego has integrated so much that there is no longer any room for individual identity at all.

One way to respond to these "sins" is found in The Divine Comedy, in which Dante is ultimately led to the vision of God by his guide, Beatrice. In first traversing through the Inferno, Dante reveals that the inhabitants of the Inferno are not there because they are sinners. Sinners also make up the populations of Purgatory and Paradise. Rather, those souls are in the Inferno because they are sinners who refused to admit to their own sins. They denied their faults and projected them onto others, blaming everyone around them. The lesson we learn is that only when our sins become acknowledged and deeply felt can they be integrated. Deep reflection and prayer are an important part of the integration of the [inner] shadow. Once we admit to our shadow with honesty and an open heart, the shadow has the potential to become transformed. Once the shadow is integrated, the Seven Deadly Sins can become aspects of a healthy self. Greed and lust become passion, imbuing our journey with heart and fire. Anger transforms into righteousness that acts compassionately for own and other's behalf. The healthy side to gluttony is self-care, something many women have to learn. Envy, once integrated, becomes an appreciation of others. And in a society where doing is valued over being, sloth turns into the ability to be still. Pride enables us to feel good about our accomplishments and grow in confidence and strength. But the path to authenticity is to admit these qualities are within us. It is shadow work that enables holy women to make their hidden struggles into levers with which to free themselves.

There are pieces to the puzzle missing,' Camas said. He was tugging his hair; his eyes glowed eerily in the red light from a stained-glass lamp. 'And pieces that don't yet fit. What, for instance, precipitates the shift from city to shadow city? Is it sorcery? Has it to do with the precarious state of affairs in the House of Greve? The powerless heir, the bastard who cannot act? What secrets are hidden within the secret palace? What is there to gain by anticipating and surviving the shift? Domina Pearl believes that it is possible, if one can remain aware during the transformation, to amass enormous knowledge and power. To rule the shadow city when it emerges, since no one else will remember the previous city, and who ruled then. All will be accepted as it is revealed. All of which is why I am so eager to speak with you. You live in Ombria's past, its ghosts and memories. How far back do you remember? Were you alive before the previous shift? How many transformations have there been? Many? One? None at all? How old are you?' The illusion of Faey inclined her head gracefully; Camas continued without listening for answers. Faey spoke then, her voice sliding within, beneath his words. 'What do you expect to gain form what you call the transformation?' Camas interrupted his own sentence with a word. 'Enlightenment. And the power that comes with an unbroken memory of the history of the city. Domina Pearl's knowledge of sorcery may not survive the transformation if she herself is not aware of the shift. I want to stay alive, be aware of the shift form city to shadow, and I will ally myself and my abilities to anyone powerful enough to maintain the integrity of existence, knowledge, memory and experience through the transformation.' 'Such as Domina Pearl?' the sorceress suggested. She kept her voice light, careless, but her eyes were very dark. 'Domina Pearl,' Camas agreed. 'Or you. Or perhaps even Ducon. He is another puzzle piece, I think. He is drawn to the hidden palace, and to the odd, unnoticed places in Ombria where the boundaries are visible between the city and its shadow. He draws them constantly.' 'So you would pledge your loyalty to him or betray him, depending on the moment?' 'Or her. Or you,' Camas answered, nodding briskly. Mag stared at him with wonder. 'Exactly. Depending on the moment.

On a break from the tour, I went south to Bali, a place the choreographer Toni Basil, whom Eno and I had met during the Bush Of Ghosts sessions, had recommended as being transporting and all about performance. I rented a small motorcycle and headed up into the hills, away from the beach resort. I soon discovered that if one saw offerings of flowers and fruit being brought to a village temple compound in the afternoon, one could be pretty certain that some sort of ritual performance would follow there at night. Sure enough, night after night I would catch dances accompanied by gamelan orchestras and shadow-puppet excerpts from the Hindu Ramayana--epic and sometimes ritual performances that blended religious and theatrical elements. (A gamelan is a small orchestra made up mainly of tuned metallic gongs and xylophone-like instruments--the interplay between the parts is beautiful and intricate.) In these latter events some participants would often fall into a trance, but even in trance there were prescribed procedures. It wasn't all thrashing chaos, as a Westerner might expect, but a deeper kind of dance. As In Japanese theater, the performers often wore masks and extreme makeup; their movements, too, were stylized and "unnatural." It began to sink in that this kind of "presentational" theater has more in common with certain kinds of pop-music performance that traditional Western theater did. I was struck by other peripheral aspects of these performances. The audiences, mostly local villagers of all ages, weren't paying attention half the time. People would wander in and out, go get a snack from a cart or leave to smoke a bidi cigarette, and then return to watch some more. This was more like the behavior of audiences in music clubs than in Western theaters, where they were expected to sit quietly and only leave or converse once the show was over. The Balinese "shows" were completely integrated into people's daily lives, or so it seemed to me. There was no attempt to formally separate the ritual and the show from the audience. Everything seemed to flow into everything else. The food, the music, and the dance were all just another part of daily activity. I remembered a story about John Cage, who, when in Japan, asked someone what their religion was. The reply was that they didn't have a strict religion--they danced. Japanese do, of course, have Buddhist and Shinto rituals for weddings, funerals, and marriages, but a weekly thing like going to church or temple doesn't exist. The "religion" is so integrated into the culture that it appears in daily gestures and routines, unsegregated for ordinary life. I was beginning to see that theatricality wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was part of life in much of the world, and not necessarily phony either.

Everyone says they have a line they won’t cross, but when everyone around you is crossing it and making a new line further and further into the distance, it takes a strong person to say no and walk away.

Honesty under tears! I spoke to nobody and I was blind to read the writings of a hammer to stammer, my axe missed the sharpening rock and my needle lost its sharpness. The shadow of earth showed the blind man there are only intelligent lies and misleading result. Fake has conquered the universe, I’m still at the original shop yet to be copied. Everyone’s thought is forensic, I’m a teacher who teaches my soul and my body are third party elements to each other. I’m a lawyer myself to the court of my own, I have no offerings, no fake friends. My point of action and seeing is like a water from the pipe challenging waterfall. I shed my tears for honest world. But I smile to let it go. I am sensitive to this fake world, bring back integrity. I know I’m the ball of the pen, lead of the pencil and the blade of sharpener. Face original, don’t be copy.

As creatives our job is to uncover what lies in the shadows, and give it new identity, new life. As healers our job is to identify what lurks in the shadows and heal or integrate it.

Hesse, the passionate reader who could not live without books, nevertheless harbored just as large a degree of skepticism toward the written word. For everything that was written ran the risk of having no life thereafter, of being nothing but an assemblage of dead letters. It was this Franciscan sympathy for poverty, including poverty of the spirit, that led him to see books differently than the educated bourgeois elite did. Books were alive like trees or clouds in the sky, they were our companions on that journey that ended inevitably in our death. But the key question was, Do we perish in our entirety, or does something of us live on - perhaps in the written word? For Hesse, true education, of which proper reading formed an integral part, must lead to inner growth. But proper reading is the same as proper living: one can only learn this art if one does not imagine one knows what it consists of in advance. One must always be open to new discovery, like a wayfarer who cannot see his goal but instead carries it within himself.

By fighting shame, one is feeding the beast. Rather, shame, which can only exist in the shadows of our mind, needs to be exposed to the light of attention. The mechanism of exposure is very simply that… our attention!

awkward televised hug from the new president of the United States. My curtain call worked. Until it didn’t. Still speaking in his usual stream-of-consciousness and free-association cadence, the president moved his eyes again, sweeping from left to right, toward me and my protective curtain. This time, I was not so lucky. The small eyes with the white shadows stopped on me. “Jim!” Trump exclaimed. The president called me forward. “He’s more famous than me.” Awesome. My wife Patrice has known me since I was nineteen. In the endless TV coverage of what felt to me like a thousand-yard walk across the Blue Room, back at our home she was watching TV and pointing at the screen: “That’s Jim’s ‘oh shit’ face.” Yes, it was. My inner voice was screaming: “How could he think this is a good idea? Isn’t he supposed to be the master of television? This is a complete disaster. And there is no fricking way I’m going to hug him.” The FBI and its director are not on anyone’s political team. The entire nightmare of the Clinton email investigation had been about protecting the integrity and independence of the FBI and the Department of Justice, about safeguarding the reservoir of trust and credibility. That Trump would appear to publicly thank me on his second day in office was a threat to the reservoir. Near the end of my thousand-yard walk, I extended my right hand to President Trump. This was going to be a handshake, nothing more. The president gripped my hand. Then he pulled it forward and down. There it was. He was going for the hug on national TV. I tightened the right side of my body, calling on years of side planks and dumbbell rows. He was not going to get a hug without being a whole lot stronger than he looked. He wasn’t. I thwarted the hug, but I got something worse in exchange. The president leaned in and put his mouth near my right ear. “I’m really looking forward to working with you,” he said. Unfortunately, because of the vantage point of the TV cameras, what many in the world, including my children, thought they saw was a kiss. The whole world “saw” Donald Trump kiss the man who some believed got him elected. Surely this couldn’t get any worse. President Trump made a motion as if to invite me to stand with him and the vice president and Joe Clancy. Backing away, I waved it off with a smile. “I’m not worthy,” my expression tried to say. “I’m not suicidal,” my inner voice said. Defeated and depressed, I retreated back to the far side of the room. The press was excused, and the police chiefs and directors started lining up for pictures with the president. They were very quiet. I made like I was getting in the back of the line and slipped out the side door, through the Green Room, into the hall, and down the stairs. On the way, I heard someone say the score from the Packers-Falcons game. Perfect. It is possible that I was reading too much into the usual Trump theatrics, but the episode left me worried. It was no surprise that President Trump behaved in a manner that was completely different from his predecessors—I couldn’t imagine Barack Obama or George W. Bush asking someone to come onstage like a contestant on The Price Is Right. What was distressing was what Trump symbolically seemed to be asking leaders of the law enforcement and national security agencies to do—to come forward and kiss the great man’s ring. To show their deference and loyalty. It was tremendously important that these leaders not do that—or be seen to even look like they were doing that. Trump either didn’t know that or didn’t care, though I’d spend the next several weeks quite memorably, and disastrously, trying to make this point to him and his staff.

Developing our “true” self requires us to know, accept, and integrate all parts of our selves, including our Shadow elements.

He who says the truth is not necessarily truthful - On Honesty.

The rich man’s vulgarity has become the poor man’s alibi to be corrupt

The costs of not being integrated correctly (and I am using corrections here deliberately) are the veiled threats and often realities of institutionalization or returning to segregated congregate living (for those who were deinstitutionalized). There is always the shadow of the adverse consequences if one does not conform or comply—what I called elsewhere the institution yet to come.46 The specter of incarceration is inherent, as a promise or threat, in mechanisms of liberal inclusion.

By progressively confronting one's opposites, it becomes more and more obvious — and this point can hardly be repeated too often—that since the Shadow is a real and integral facet of the ego, all of the "symptoms" and discomforts that the Shadow seems to be inflicting on us are really symptoms and discomforts which we are inflicting on ourselves, however much we may consciously protest to the contrary. It is very, very much as if I, for instance, were deliberately and painfully pinching myself but pretending not to! Whatever my symptoms on this level may be — guilt, fear, anxiety, depression—all are strictly the result of my "mentally" pinching myself in one fashion or another. And this directly implies, incredible as it may seem, that I want this painful symptom, whatever its nature, to be here just as much as I want it to depart!

To psychologically kill something, you must integrate it. To psychologically empower something, you need only avoid it, deny it, repress it, project it, and so on.

coming to terms with things as they are, with an awareness of how they have been, in order to feel, think, speak, and behave in ways that are increasingly inclusive, integrated, and balanced.

Your character is built in the shadows, not on the stage.

Your “shadow selves” are the parts of you that at some point you were conditioned to believe were “not okay,” so you suppressed them and have done everything in your power not to acknowledge them. You don’t actually dislike these parts of yourself, though. So when you see somebody else displaying one of these traits, it’s infuriating, not because you inherently dislike it, but because you have to fight your desire to fully integrate it into your whole consciousness. The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself. The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself.

Try these journal prompts as you work to integrate your type 8 shadows: See yourself through your ex’s eyes. This can be a difficult exercise, but if anyone’s up for it, Challenger, it’s you. Write a letter to yourself from your ex’s point of view. Take a moment to remember all you did wrong and write it down—even if (especially if!) you think the failure of the relationship was their fault, not yours. What negative traits of yours do you need to own and master to be better in your next relationship? Write a letter to the person who hurt you the most in your past. Tell them everything they did that made you feel unworthy of love or less-than. Don’t be afraid to hit below the belt! Get it all out! When you’re done, put the letter away somewhere safe. Come back and re-read it two weeks later and consider whether you can see any of the negative qualities of this person in yourself. How have you hurt others? Is it similar to the way you’ve been hurt? Think about the people you love most. If you had the power, what would you like to change about them in order to improve your relationship with them? (This might also have to do with the way you resolve conflicts.) How does this action reflect on you? Based on this exercise, is there anything you might consider improving in yourself to help? TYPE 8 SELF-CARE PRESCRIPTION Type 8s tend to struggle with inaction when it comes to self-care. Since you’re always seeking progress and pushing yourself, it’s challenging for you to sit in a quiet place alone and rest. But the world is a complicated place, and you are prone to feeling angry about the things you can’t control or change. You want so much to do something to heal the pain of the world, to fix the broken systems. But you can’t fight for others until you’ve first fought for yourself by releasing the need for control and choosing stillness. Being still probably feels unnatural to you, even scary, but that’s where your real inner work begins! Learn your limits. As an energetic 8, you frequently push yourself to your limits, even if you’re unaware you’re doing so. Pay closer attention to your own feelings, and force yourself to rest and recover whenever necessary, instead of pushing through. You’ll be much better off for it! Practice mindful breathing for anger management. When you feel the need to let loose with an angry tirade, take it as a cue to practice your calming breaths. Find an outdoor exercise activity you love. When you’re feeling especially furious or antsy, hop on your bike and go for a ride or do a few laps around the neighborhood. These activities are healthy outlets for that restless energy of yours. Let others take the lead sometimes. With your commanding presence and direct approach, you make a natural leader. But sometimes, you need to step back and allow someone else to step up to bat. Take a break and learn not to carry all responsibilities on your own shoulders; this will benefit both you and your relationships with others.

once a year, as the cliometricians, those sharp-eyed accountants of social death, love to calculate. The fact of its possibility was experienced as an ever-present sense of impending doom that shadowed everything, every thought, every moment of her existence. This is the essence of natal alienation, which, in addition to its crushing psychological impact for every individual slave, also entailed their inability as a group to “freely integrate the experience of their ancestors into their lives, to inform their understanding of social reality with the inherited meanings of their natural forebears, or to anchor the living present in any conscious community of memory.

We mostly grow by falling apart; accepting that at times we are vulnerable, fragile, imperfect human beings. Being self-aware, and integrating our dark or shadow side, is a lifelong journey.

What God is doing may be mystery, but who God is is not. So faith can remain itself and retain its integrity by suspending judgment. Jesus underwrites such faith when he promises, “I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall wander in the dark.”9 He does not say we will never walk in the dark, but that we do not wander in the dark or have a way of life at home in darkness. To anyone not knowing the anguish of such a situation, the distinction may sound trivial—the darkness appears as dark and the dilemma as agonizing. But neither is ultimate, for the outcome lies with God.

Now we all have our shadow, the part of us we don’t want. The ego wants to leave it behind, but Jung said that the purpose of life is to integrate it—to integrate the shadow. You’ve been denying your shadow for so long; you’ve gone as far as you can without it, and now you have to deal with that. I truly believe you can turn this crisis into progress if you just get to know your shadow.

active imagination,” which allowed him—and countless others—to express unconscious shadow material as a painted image or as various other creative products (sculpture, dance, poetry, music, etc.), so that it could be effectively dealt with psychologically.

Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas.... Abraxas [is] life, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness. [Abraxas] is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning. It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness. It is holy begetting. It is love and love’s murder. It is the appearance and the shadow of man.

Yet despite the fact that gravity is different from other physical forces, there is a profound harmony integrating gravity with all of the rest of physics. Einstein's theory is not something foreign to the other laws, but it presents them in a different light. (This is particularly so for the laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum.) This integration of Einstein's gravity with the rest of physics goes some way to explaining the irony that Newton's gravity had provided a paradigm for the rest of physics despite the fact, as Einstein later showed, that gravity is actually different from the rest of physics! Above all, Einstein taught us not to get too complacent in believing, at any stage of our understanding, that we have, as yet, necessarily found the appropriate physical viewpoint.

I’m not going to the ball.” “Of course you are,” Everett argued before Abigail had the chance. “My mother is counting on you being there, and I’d look at it as a great privilege if you’d honor me with a dance.” “I don’t know how to dance. And I never intended on attending the ball. I thought I was simply supposed to escort the children, and then stay with them as they peeked through a banister. Although . . . I do think that window off the side terrace might be a better choice, given that it’s far away from where any guests will be.” Everett narrowed his eyes as much as he could, which wasn’t much, since they’d taken to swelling. “I’m not comfortable with the idea of you hiding in the shadows, Millie. You’ve become an integral part of my family, and as such, I’d like you at the ball.” Millie drew herself up and suddenly looked rather fierce. “If you’ve forgotten, this is Caroline’s ball. She’s been looking forward to it for months, which means it would not be fair to her to have me anywhere near the ballroom. My presence would only ruin her evening, and I’m sorry, but I won’t be responsible for that.” Everything

Integration of values and behavior; that is, we live up to our own moral and ethical standards without “shadow” behaviors. We’re not hiding any part of our lives from those close to us.           •  Satisfying interpersonal relationships, be they with a partner, friends, family, or coworkers; our spiritual community; and our teachers, sponsors, and other healers.           •  Satisfying work that both challenges us and allows us to use our intelligence and creativity to their fullest extent.           •  A rich inner life that includes a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves, be that a religious or spiritual connection, or simply a sense of connection with the human race, other beings, or just nature. This may include meditation or a creative practice.           •  An element of fun in our lives. As adults, many of us neglect this vital element of happiness.           •  A healthy relationship to money and basic financial security, and good self-care of our bodies, including diet and healing.           •  A sense of purpose and our own value. This may express itself through our work and how we see ourselves contributing to the world, or it may express itself in our relationships—the way we help and care for others.

in rebel territory, the onslaught against “red” women was integrally linked to the reimposition of traditionalist forms of social order

the military coup detonated all manner of private hatreds, as well as social fears and prejudice – all of which were legitimized by the coup’s pervasive rhetoric of “purification”, to become an integral part of the “crusade”, with lethal results.

Integral to this was the regime’s unchanging manichean discourse – i.e. its ideological and cultural discourse of the civil war as a battle of “morality vs. iniquity”, of “martyrs against barbarians”.

For the Nazi “war against hybridity” was not waged “against the European grain” at all. Though Hitler certainly pushed it to the limit, ethnic homogeneity as supposed political “coherence” and psychological “integrity” was an idea shared by very many people in European countries east, south, west and north.

The exclusion of blacks from high-skill, high-wage employment is rooted in Jim Crow and resistance to integration and is sustained through tradition, word-of-mouth network hiring, and employer attitudes. Also, although disinvestment and job loss have affected neighborhoods throughout the city, Baltimore's black neighborhoods have suffered more

O God full of compassion, I commend myself to your keeping, to Thee in whom I live. Be Thou the Goal of my pilgrimage, and my Rest along the way. Let my soul take refuge from the crowding turmoil of worldly thoughts beneath the shadow of Thy wings; let my heart, this sea of restless waves, find peace in Thee O God. Thou generous Giver of all good gifts, give to him who is weary refreshing food; bring our distracted thoughts and powers into harmony again; and set the prisoner free. See, how I stand at thy door and knock; be it open to me, that I may enter with a free step, and be quickened by Thee. For Thou art the Wellspring of Life, the Light of eternal Brightness, wherein righteous men live who love Thee. Be it unto me according to Thy word. Amen.

Long term denial and lack of integration of emotionally painful or cognitively incompatible realities may result in permanent changes to the brain that become more difficult to reverse as the person ages. These processes are responsible for personality and dissociative disorders that are very difficult to treat in psychotherapy. These processes are also similar, if not identical, to the personal unconscious and shadow archetype described by Jung.

It is both about learning the language of the unconscious as I had said earlier, but also a question of building a relationship with ourselves, and the archetypal forces and our own aspects within the unconscious. Such a process is not easy, and often requires us to lay down our preconceived perceptions about facets regarding ourselves, without losing sight of our own inner morality. It requires as Jung himself said a real moral effort to face the shadow and integrate it. Thus to transmute the negative manifestation of it into a creative force.

If the affair needs to be ended so the marriage can survive, it should be done with care and respect. If the lover needs to break it off to regain her own self-esteem and integrity, she needs support, not judgment. If the marriage is to end and the hidden love is to come out of the shadows, it will need help to go through the awkward transition to legitimacy. Without the perspective of the third, we can never have more than a partial understanding of the way that love carves its twisting course through the landscape of our lives.

Aside from these major political issues, some have seen in Edward’s latter reign a loss of the deftness of political touch which marked the years before Eleanor’s death and, given the closeness between the two throughout their marriage, it is hardly too much to see a causative relationship there. The advice of Eleanor, for so long an integral part of Edward’s inner circle, was bound to be felt. In her, more, perhaps, than any of his other advisers,

Elise Oursa: I think the dark man is like a spirit of manifestation. I don’t mean manifestation like “let me help you get a job.” But a cosmic force of everything that comes into existence, is how I see it. And within that, it’s necessary to have demiurgic forces: of structure and laws and rules, and this is the way it should be. And it’s also necessary to have forces of darkness and chaos, which creates a dynamo of creation. I think it’s something that’s beyond good and evil, for sure. I think it offers the opportunity for integrating ourselves into our whole selves and revealing our hidden parts, our shadow parts that are there as well. And I think it’s clearly an initiation into some kind of otherness, into an acceptance of otherness.

You can feel there's no loyal follower when you look back and can't find anyone following you in the dark. But certainly, the closer you get to the light, the clearer you will see your followers. At times, your shadow becomes your only follower, and it goes from illusion to reality as you get even closer to the light. Therefore, if you keep close the light, you soon discover your impact.

It was a long and grueling practice, drilling over and over again on new skills. Bean saw that Wiggin wasn’t willing to let them learn each technique separately. They had to do them all at once, integrating them into smooth, continuous movements. Like dancing, Bean thought. You don’t learn to shoot and then learn to launch and then learn to do a controlled spin—you learn to launch-shoot-spin.

Along with becoming more conscious of the shadow, another integral aspect of Jung’s method of treatment was helping his patients find a meaning to their lives. For Jung believed that when stuck in a deep depression, or consumed by an anxiety disorder, to be cured necessitates discovering a “role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life” (Carl Jung, The Symbolic Life).

Our purpose is not to be the answer, but rather the question. To make each day a little brighter and leave the world a better place than we found it. That is the true path, which we all must choose to follow, regardless of whether it leads us beneath the shadow of a heel or the tire of a car. Our purpose is to walk that path with our heads held high, hope in our hearts, and belief that our roles, no matter how small, are integral to the grand design.

Bruno and the hermeticists generally believed, like Jung, that most people are over-developed in one of these areas and under-developed in the others, and that the path to integration was to learn to balance all four. It has by now become commonplace in Joyce exegesis to recognize that the warring twins, and , are two aspects of the nonlocal , roughly isomorphic to Jung's Persona and Shadow or Freud's ego and id. It seems likely to me that the four X are also aspects of the one E or psychic functions of the dreamer that have been separated and need to be reunified.

Becoming whole means we recognize our dark, kinky side, and that we not only accept it, forgive it, and take responsibility for it, but that we love it, enjoy its antics, and finally integrate it into our whole being.

There’s more. As I said in the very first chapter, the breach of the Capitol area and building stopped short the Republican attempt on January 6th to call for an investigation into the myriad voter integrity issues. If there hadn’t been a riot, that’s what we would have done. I believe the riot was meant to happen to ensure that no investigation would take place. Given the amount of fraud uncovered, no wonder such a diversionary tactic seemed necessary (dare I say it) to the shadow conspirators.

Loss and death, unrequited love and abandonment, are all part of Aphrodite's realm. Indeed, only by these dark shadows does her golden brilliance become a complete creation, smiling its immortal smile as well as looking on death with immortal eyes. Permanence is of Hera's world, not Aphrodite's. What belongs to her is a deep acceptance that passionate love does not last forever; and an equally deep acceptance that man is made to love. All the myths of these goddesses emphasize the pain, the grief and the mourning they experienced over the death of the son-­lover. We know the range of this goddess' emotions—joy and pleasure, yet also pain and grief. Emotions engendered by love's process are an integral part of her being.

When beginning the Great Work and in shamanic apprenticeship, the first realm one learns to interact with is the Ukhupacha. This is because the work of an initiate is to learn to manage the potencies of the Ukhupacha, to harness what is necessary from the shadow and return what is no longer needed back to the below, to be composted in the regenerative soils of the Ukhupacha so new things can grow. Shadow doesn’t go away. However, it can be managed and integrated more harmoniously into the interface of the Kaypacha.

GUIDED SHADOW WORK MEDITATION Find a quiet place where you can relax and either sit or lie down in a comfortable position. When you are ready, begin to breathe in and out, slowly and deeply. Continue to do this until you feel totally and completely relaxed. Now, imagine you’re in a peaceful field. Maybe you are surrounded by tall grasses or by thousands of lilies. Whatever your field looks like, it brings you a sense of great peace and relaxation. As you relax in your field, a figure approaches you. Take note of the figure's appearance. Is it a shadowy figure? Is it an animal? Does it look fearsome and angry? Or sad and emotional? This is your Shadow, and it wishes to talk to you. It slowly approaches and sits down next to you. Now, imagine that your Shadow begins conversing with you. What is it saying? Does it feel abandoned? Is it angry? Is it jealous and critical? Listen carefully to everything it says. Take note of any memories or pain you feel as it speaks. Is there a certain person or memory that you are thinking about? Do you feel tension in a certain part of your body as your Shadow speaks? Note everything you are feeling and experiencing. If you feel any tension, continue to breathe deeply and slowly to return to the state of relaxation. When calm again, show compassion and warmth to your Shadow as it speaks to you. Your Shadow wants to be heard and has been through many challenges and trials. It needs your love and acceptance. Give it that by responding compassionately. Once your conversation is over, hug your Shadow and tell it how much you love and appreciate it. You can also invite it to another session if you like, and repeat this meditation. Make sure it feels welcome to converse with you again. Notice the lightness you feel by doing this. When you’re finished and ready, slowly open your eyes.

To cultivate harmony between ego and essence is to walk the middle path, a path of balance and unity, where the light of the essence illuminates the shadows cast by the ego, and the ego, in turn, grounds us in the physical world we inhabit. This is the path of true self-mastery, a journey that leads to the inner sanctum of peace and the outer expression of our highest potential. It is in this sacred alignment that we find our true selves, not as fragmented beings of light and shadow, but as whole, integrated beings, dancing in the eternal light of harmony.