Casting
a Shadow
“Every
man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled
spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls
opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see
it?”
Henry
David Thoreau
Thoreau gave us a great
way to view the Shadow—part of every person that is their dark
side, the shadow cast by his/her light. It is both essential to us,
and something we constantly try to conceal. Our darkness stands
against our light and vice-versa. Thoreau chalks it up to an
“imperfectly mingled spirit.” That may be the best definition
I've ever seen.
We tend to cast a darker
shadow when we ourselves are in trouble—in grief, in confusion, in
anger, in sadness. When we are able to incorporate those feelings,
able to contain them, we are more likely to come out of them intact.
But, what most of us do is cast them, like a shadow, onto other
people. Here's an example: There is a woman in the room and everyone
is drawn to her because she's so beautiful. I recognize her beauty,
too, but what it raises in me is jealousy. I don't want people to see
that. It's ugly, and it's unfair. So what I do instead is say
something sarcastic about her, divulge a secret about her character,
or a suspicion about her morality. In that moment, I have cast my
shadow, like muddy paw prints, across her. Another option is to
recognize that it belongs to me—the jealousy—and contain it. I
can “bite my tongue,” or I can acknowledge her attractiveness, or
I can even say, “Wow, I'm jealous.” And then, I can deal with my
own feelings and whatever underlies them. Hard work, I know, but one
way of accepting, acknowledging and appreciating our Shadow.
A lot of what we're
seeing right now, especially in social media, is people hurling their
unclaimed shadow around. All this free-floating anger is causing us
to “act righteous” while we are denigrating someone else—that
is hurling our shadow-mud all over them. Accusations are flying
around, and everyone is insulting the people who have a different
opinion from themselves. What we're not doing is claiming our anger
as belonging solely to us, and taking the time to figure out why
we're so mad. Here's a clue—it isn't because “they” are so
terrible. We are angry because someone else does not agree with us,
and because we feel a terrible injustice is being perpetrated that
we're unable to do anything about. We feel helpless and that
generates anger within us. So, let's acknowledge and claim our
anger—let's deal with it without spewing it all over everyone else.
It's hard to do; it's way easier to spew, but just learning how to
contain it makes you and me stronger and clearer-headed. That's noon,
when our shadow is shortest.
If we humans can learn to
incorporate our Shadow, and understand that it is not our foe, simply
a part of being human, we might just manage to make peace on this
earth. We might recognize ourselves in the stranger, appreciate the
plight of the immigrant. We might lose our desire to vilify everyone
who has a different way of life, a different view of the world, a
different socioeconomic class, skin color or religion. We might learn
to love ourselves even with all our rough edges and sharp spines. In
other words, we might find real and lasting contentment. Think about
that today, and I will too.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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