There seems to be a polarity going on  in our world today, a battle between the Light and the Dark. Maybe it’s an ongoing battle, maybe it’s nothing new. But the New Age Movement is all about focusing on the Light, being positive, chanting positive affirmations, etc…. While on the other side there are the wars and violence erupting all over the place. Each and every one of us is responsible for this happening. If we push away darkness, it will have to come out somewhere else…. its a law of Nature.

I also love the light, but I have learned through Shamanism to accept and explore my shadow and bring it to consciousness and balance. I used to want to be in the light all the time. According to the Medicine Wheel, this means getting stuck in the East, not going around rest of the wheel.

In Nature there is light and dark. If we deny the darkness inside of us, it becomes a scary monster. Worse than that, it becomes dangerous, because it can erupt in the most inconvenient and unlikely places.

We learn about our Fragments in Shamanism, our Inner Community. We come to know ourselves as multi-dimensional beings. We understand and accept that there are parts of us that are not always nice, pleasant or polite according to society’s standards. We don’t pretend to be always loving, patient, kind and compassionate, although we strive to be those things.

We cannot even begin to grow and heal if we are in denial of our anger, pain, fears, bitterness,  jealousy, insecurity, selfishness, greed, etc. It takes courage to face our own darkness. Often we stay in the Light, the nice places, the happy and comfortable places because we judge ourselves. Or maybe we are running away from traumatic memories.

As a child I used to have recurring nightmares of always running but not going anywhere. Then I would realize that I was on a treadmill. Next I heard fighting all around me. I would wake up in a sweat with my heart pounding in my ears. As the years progressed, I saw the nightmare manifest in my waking life. My parents were fighting violently and I was terrified.  And I was sexually abused at the tender age of six and no one knew. I hid it so well out of shame that I even hid it from myself. I escaped to my happy place inside. My soul split in half and part of me went back to the Light, the Source. The other part of me, the wounded child, fell into a crumbled heap onto the cold cement basement floor.

I chose to be in the happy place most of my life and forgot about that young child. Until one day  I was strong enough to go back and find her, and bring her home again, inside of me. I had to feel her pain and shame. I had to do the healing work to make her feel whole, safe and loved again. We need to talk about these things, not sweep them under the carpet.

Many people are using the Light to hide from their imbalances and unresolve, their dark side. This is dangerous to those around them, to themselves and the planet.  We are conditioned to judge the darkness inside us.

If we don’t accept our shadow, we are creating an imbalance in the Earth. It has to go somewhere. So She has to take it into her body. The Shaman also has to take it and work with it. There is more than enough unresolved shadow issues to weigh heavily on the Shamans today.

Each and every one of us has work to do. This is one way that we can help to restore balance. But as long as we are blinded by the Light to the point that we deny our own darkness, we are contributing to the imbalance of the planet.

Our shadow is not our enemy. We make it so. In the Shadow lurks our power and medicine… if we take the time to delve into it, see it for what it is without the programs and judgements. We need to do this in a functional way so as not to become our own worst enemies. The Shamanic path taught me how to dance with my Shadow in a way that empowers myself and others.

We are in the Firekeeper Wind which is about illusions, passions and desires. The Moon of Breaking Masks isn’t giving us much time to stay in illusion… it is as if Cosmology is saying… “See your illusions and Reality at the same time”.  Can we handle the paradox? Can we handle that we are creatures of both Light and Dark?