Thanks to my friend Jen, I have discovered the wonderful writing of Edward Abbey, who I am diving into. I’m sure I will share more of his words soon. Shadow is something frequently avoided in modern spirituality. There’s instead a lot of ’think positive’ and ‘follow bliss’ and ‘be love’ which is all wonderful, and all true, yet when that’s the only thing engaged in, is a path to spiritual bypass and an avoidance of our evolution. Following on from yesterday’s Letter, we have to work with the full spectrum of being human in order to truly engage and evolve, and that cannot be done from the single spectrum of just the positive and light. We must recognise we are mortal, fragile, susceptible, gentle beings, not immune to disease, knocks, falls, collisions, and, viruses.
‘Flooding this with light’ – white washing over the challenging parts, doesn’t build resilience, it doesn’t create emotional stability. These come from understanding the darkness and shadow. It’s not that we need to wallow in it, but running doesn’t help.
So I want to ask of you today to sit with something you might be running from, something you might be denying, and gently question how you can work with it instead, and learn from that darkness.
With love,
Jac x