#shadow self

This Solar eclipse in Sagittarius with all its strong, rebellious energies of a new beginning is a time:

*to re-examine your beliefs to see how much they are conditioned by society and how much do they express your personal truth,

*to understand your healing journey as a synonym to your spiritual journey, reconnecting with your demons and shadows,

*to set intentions for a big future and light a candle of your unique gifts,

so you’ll come out from this dark time into a new circle, new era as a spiritual warrior, mature and attuned to your own faith.

***

Let this 7-cards tarot spread to help you at this time of huge transit, in the moment when the gateway is open.

1 - Examining your orientation to life - how do you see life?

2 - Where were you conditioned by society, tradition, spiritual teachers etc.?

3 - What are your inner demons, you should face before stepping in a new circle?

4 - What should you become aware of to look at life as it is, not creating fantasies and escape patterns?

5 - How can you put into form new paradigm of life?

6 - How can you attune to your highest purpose? What qualities and talents are in play? 

7 - How can you start a revolution in your own healing journey?

Facing our dynasty, the energy shaping and influencing us, being like water for a fish, I definitely come to meet The Moon. Dreams, going and coming back from the underworld, always somewhere in the shadows, walking dreamy and killingly strange landscapes, always in search of your hidden self, anxiety, depression, pain, over worldly dreams and chaos of rebirth of light. My dynasty, the water I swim.

Pluto’s child, you’re at home in the 8th astrological house - it seems you were born to die anew every day, your life is a labyrinth of transformations where you used to lose yourself so often.

In the beginning you were fighting against being drawn into the underworld and that made you suffer hell, that days crows filled the sky and you could hardly reach the end of the day until you decided to open the door leading to the underworld and stepped inside.

You realized how fearful you are and lost, you saw your insecurities, grief, anxiety, jealousy and rage, they were scorpions meant to kill you, but there was a phoenix there sitting in the branches of burnt tree and he said - they’re your family, from the poisonous heart of your father, go, go further.

From that time every day still is in extreme, but you slowly grew in desire for transformation, you began sitting with your anxiety and having morning tea with your fears, you got used to know how powerless you are and how powerful. 

Your wish to control has no limits and even laundry routine can become the reason for new conquest. Your breath, your heart, food you eat and streets you walk - the possibilities to exercise control are myriad. But you realized that you never can be satisfied with that and started letting go. Yet it’s the most difficult thing as it means to be swallowed, to surrender and be opened up. Yet every time you emerge alive and shining, still you wonder how is it possible.

It all seems a mystery to you - to live, to be broken and again whole, to nurture darkness and, when fed, let it go.

You’re a natural medium and psychic and today you’’re coming to own your magical powers and psychic gifts so you can heal others.

You were carried here in the crystal poisonous heart of your father Pluto to be a warrior, a torch revealing and burning world’s darkness, to be a witness of horrors and heavy shadows, writing a story of fear so one day you’ll be able to shout to the stars that you’re coming home, joyful, unbroken, free like a lion roaring in the darkness.  

Some astrological definitions:

Pluto in the 8th house, 

Pluto + Moon in the 8th house, 

Pluto in Scorpio,

Pluto aspects with Sun, Moon, Asc

Sun, Moon in the 8th house

.*** *** *** much more

Recently I got  really disappointed with the interpretation of natal chart for my querent - I kept struggling entire Sunday but still it looked like a mixture of  personal traits and common places, there was no vibration of soul to it — 

till the moment I was drawn to investigate North and South Nodes, 

and wow, I was near to cry as the messages were so profound, resonating with the struggle my querent was going through, suddenly all the pieces of the birth chart created the pattern and I knew this was she.

North and South Nodes are the vein of the soul in your natal chart. Soul path, your inner dragon, they say. 

Basically it’s the points where Sun and Moon orbit paths around the Earth intersect, forming profound energetic relationships (same way with Ascendant \ Descendant, Midhaven \ Imum Coeli).

Nodes have special names: North Node - Caput Draconis, dragon’s head and South Node - Cauda Draconis, dragon’s tail. Showing they are opposite and still - wholeness.

When is it a time to dive deep into the messages of the Nodes in your natal chart?

• you’re in spirituality and metaphysics 
• you’re tuned into your Higher Self or open to that
• you look at your natal chart interpretation and realize that you can’t relate to that or you’ve already integrated a lot of that
• certain people, situations, challenges continue to come into your life as if repeated melody
• you’re more or less aware that there are certain behavior patterns which hold you back or push forward

Too deep but go for it…

The Nodes are your inner dragon, bringing you face to face with your limits and — opening to the realization of big soul journey - where do you come from? where do you go? 

Nodes are usually viewed as opposition - personal traits you already have (South Node) and what you need to integrate in your journey (North Node).

But there are so much more to Nodes and how you can start exploring their messages:

- you can read South Node - North Node as your main theme, what you’re here to explore, what special lessons to learn or to rephrase - what karma to release

- what path will make you truly you, truly happy and fulfilled no matter how hard and impossible it might seem

- your calling, mission

- what are your gifts and inner knowledge you already have (South Node) and what you’re going to integrate by overcoming your limitations and letting go (North Node) 

- what are your deepest wounds and pains you’re going to heal in your journey

- South Node as your unacknowledged self, dark side reflected in people and situations brought in front of you so you can start facing that aspects of own self

- South Node as a path of less resistance, North Node - harder but worth to try path

Check your Nodes tonight and nice journey back.

So, as you’re all probably aware, my posting habits have dropped off considerably. I’ve really struggled to make any kind of posts, especially my longer, research-heavy posts that have really made my blog what it is. And I feel like you all deserve an explanation, especially since it ties into something important concerning not just magick, but living a full life in general.

For a few years now, I’ve noticed that I rarely cry and barely ever laugh, and generally struggle to have or categorize emotional responses to things. And recently, thanks to a series I watched, I realized that this isn’t just a quirk of my personality. I’ve come to understand that I have a lot of repressed emotions, and it’s persistently stood in the way of me doing what I want with my life in every conceivable manner.

When we repress our emotions, they don’t just go away. They get buried, and they get compressed, and they turn into something which can potentially be very toxic for your body, mind, and soul. Everyone has a dark side, and when you try to deny your negative emotions, then your shadow-self will grow into something that can wreck your life.

This is also a detriment to your magick. The shadow self is where a lot of our creative, magickal power comes from, and losing touch with it is akin to smothering your energies for invention and transformation. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to indulge in every single negative or selfish impulse you get! But you do need to accept that they’re a part of you that exists for a reason, and that just ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

So, how do you go about tapping into the shadow-self? My experience has been that creative pursuits really, really help. Drawing, painting, sculpture… even writing prose or poetry can go a long way towards letting those darker energies out safely! The more dark, intense, and sensual you can make the work, the better, I’ve found. Journalizing and meditation also help me a lot, as does identifying people or things you project your negative (or positive) traits onto, and taking those traits back to acknowledge them as a part of you.

Now, while it’s not all going to be gloom and doom, I have to warn you, this isn’t going to be an entirely pleasant process. However, you have to keep in mind that life isn’t meant to always be pleasurable. Pain helps us to contextualize pleasure, and engaging honestly with oneself is the only way to engage honestly with the world.

I hope this process helps you as much as it’s helped me. May the Tree of Life always shelter you!

So, as you’re all probably aware, my posting habits have dropped off considerably. I’ve really struggled to make any kind of posts, especially my longer, research-heavy posts that have really made my blog what it is. And I feel like you all deserve an explanation, especially since it ties into something important concerning not just magick, but living a full life in general.

For a few years now, I’ve noticed that I rarely cry and barely ever laugh, and generally struggle to have or categorize emotional responses to things. And recently, thanks to a series I watched, I realized that this isn’t just a quirk of my personality. I’ve come to understand that I have a lot of repressed emotions, and it’s persistently stood in the way of me doing what I want with my life in every conceivable manner.

When we repress our emotions, they don’t just go away. They get buried, and they get compressed, and they turn into something which can potentially be very toxic for your body, mind, and soul. Everyone has a dark side, and when you try to deny your negative emotions, then your shadow-self will grow into something that can wreck your life.

This is also a detriment to your magick. The shadow self is where a lot of our creative, magickal power comes from, and losing touch with it is akin to smothering your energies for invention and transformation. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to indulge in every single negative or selfish impulse you get! But you do need to accept that they’re a part of you that exists for a reason, and that just ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

So, how do you go about tapping into the shadow-self? My experience has been that creative pursuits really, really help. Drawing, painting, sculpture… even writing prose or poetry can go a long way towards letting those darker energies out safely! The more dark, intense, and sensual you can make the work, the better, I’ve found. Journalizing and meditation also help me a lot, as does identifying people or things you project your negative (or positive) traits onto, and taking those traits back to acknowledge them as a part of you.

Now, while it’s not all going to be gloom and doom, I have to warn you, this isn’t going to be an entirely pleasant process. However, you have to keep in mind that life isn’t meant to always be pleasurable. Pain helps us to contextualize pleasure, and engaging honestly with oneself is the only way to engage honestly with the world.

I hope this process helps you as much as it’s helped me. May the Tree of Life always shelter you!

Our vulnerability is our power

IG: @m0rbid.daydre4m

About The Shadow & Psychic Abilities

This is an important key to unlock, to further develop psychic abilities/senses. If you want to explore your psychic self fully, your shadow self is worth illuminating and working on. Why? Because the nature of psychic abilities. This is the ability to perceive, process, and bring to light incredible information from realms that are usually in the dark. This is considered “abnormal” to the majority, and while we are in this human body, on this earth, that darkness involves the shadow-self, and the subconscious mind. Often times psychics and those with strong connection to the spirit realm/divine/ ethers/ whatever you want to call it, *have* been through darkness and explored it themselves. This is not to say there aren’t psychics there who have had perfect lives, this is pointing out how the two coincide with one another. The unhealed shadow acts as a blockage. The Shadow Self is a part of you that resides in the deep state of your subconscious. This is a part of your psyche that has awaiting untapped power and knowledge. Where all our trauma, shame, deepest desires, potentially forbidden, hidden/suppressed emotions, most fragile and intense part of ourselves lie in. But the more we suppress, the more it bleeds into our life. The reason most never willingly embrace their shadow is because in our current society, we are taught to look down on our own darkness and anything that can make us “imperfect”. We are fed fear from a young age, we are met with societal expectations and pressure in every direction we look. The shadow can and should be transmuted and empowered to induce the psychic senses in a way that is healthy and certain.

dailygrimoire:

History of the shadow: 

Everybody has a shadow self, it’s not possible to be shadow-less. Whether it’s your primitive self or aspects that you reject. From the time that we develop a sense of the world we begin to sort out what we think we need to reject within the world and within ourselves. The more things that we reject and the longer we reject them, the bigger and deeper the shadow grows and plants itself. Once we examine our shadow self, we begin to break down the walls of things we previously saw as taboo and reject worthy and start to nurture those things as dark aspects that must exist in order to have light (law of polarity: one extreme cannot exist without the opposite extreme). The purpose of shadow work is to break down those walls to be able to see the darkness with more compassion. This allows us to acknowledge the things we suppress within ourselves, from there we can sort out what darkness could be used for good (anger = passion = what are you passionate about? = how can you use this for good?) and what darkness we need to heal and move on from. 

What the shadow is: 

The shadow aspect of ourselves are the parts we don’t want to admit to having. This can include anything we reject within ourselves. We might reject these aspects due to learned behaviors or beliefs, things we were told aren’t okay to do or be, or things we personally have told ourselves aren’t okay to do. For example: many people hold the belief that crying over simple things isn’t okay and it’s something that only children should do, therefore the adult avoids doing it. Not only does this damage and suppress the inner child we all have within us, it also allows our shadow to grow larger and more prominent the more we repress our natural emotions. Not every aspect of the shadow is a negative one - within the behaviors we see as dark or negative, we are able to find our personal power; we can find our fighter side through our anger and so on. 

Examples of the shadow self: Any emotion or attribute you don’t want to admit you have (laziness, rage, cruelty, manipulativeness, sadness, but also, social beliefs, likes and dislikes, what makes you who you are)… anything that you hold inside of yourself that you don’t want to admit to having. For me personally - I couldn’t admit I was a lazy, indecisive, eccentric, grudge holding bisexual witch for the longest time until I began exploring my shadow side. I used to get upset when people would call me those things and I used to suppress those sides of myself. When I began exploring my shadow self, I realized that all of those things are a part of me, and I was able to explore which of those things will serve me well, how they can do good for me and how I can heal them or express them in a healthy way and use them to my benefit. 

How the shadow appears: 

Just like with real shadows; we stand in the light and if we look back we can see a dark shape with the same form as our bodies - sometimes these shadows are large and sometimes they can be small. Although this is a metaphor, our shadow self is basically a mirror image of ourselves and the dark and rejected aspects of our mind - these parts aren’t always obvious or prominent, they mostly appear subconsciously and through subconscious behaviors that we don’t always recognize. For example: You are having a conversation with a friend and they mention a belief that you do not agree with. Instead of explaining your belief in a calm and respectful way while trying to understand where they are coming from,, you immediately get angry at what they said, but you suppress your anger and change the topic or you have an outburst of anger. This is your shadow self coming up, this can happen with any and every emotion and topic imaginable. One way to recognize your shadow self in this situation is to ask yourself, “what topic set me off? Why would that topic upset me? What in my DNA or in my past could make me be upset towards that opinion? What was my reaction? Why did I react that way? How could I use that reaction in a positive way?” The purpose of shadow work is not to get rid of your negative emotions, but to recognize them and use them in a positive or healthier way. The longer you allow your natural emotions to be suppressed or expressed in an unhealthy way, the bigger and more prominent your shadow grows. So, in short, the shadow appears through subconscious and repressed behaviors, thoughts and beliefs.

Explained as psychology: 

The shadow self is actually a term created by psychologist Carl Jung. Although the definition in psychology is a little different - Jung explained the shadow as the uncivilized//primitive sides of ourselves (if we took society away, how our primitive ancestors lived and how we hold those attributes in society today). Jung’s theory was that in order to live a fully integrated human life within society, we need to understand both the primitive and modern aspects of ourselves and how these attributes appear in the collective society. He spoke of the collective shadow; how people unite their shadows within society. Some aspects are based on ethnicity for this reason; throughout history our ancestors have left us hypothetical notes on our DNA telling us what we need and don’t need, that we need to fear and not fear certain things. For example: a person of Irish descent may have the ancestral shadow need to eat as much as they can or to not waste food with the purpose being that their ancestors during the food crisis’ in Ireland left those hypothetical notes in their DNA to warn their descendants of the need to conserve food. These appear in our shadows because even though the current descendent of that ancestry may have a stable food supply, they might still harbor that ancestry-based fear and see it as irrational, when it’s really just a note from their ancestors in their shadow.

That is one example of ancestral primitive needs - we all have collective primitive needs regardless of descent; food, water and security. Jung’s theory was that people unite all of these shadow aspects into their modern societies, and that it becomes dangerous when we project these primitive shadows into modern societies. This is all up for theorization, but I personally see it as a positive and negative thing at the same time. 

Negative Examples: (1)  A descendent of colonizers will most likely have racist or entitled ancestral notes in their DNA - leading to the racism and entitlement we continue to see every damn day. (2) The collective primitive need for food and safety existing in a corrupt and unsafe modern world where not everyone has access to food or safety. 

Positive Examples: (1) Descendants of minorities and activists holding ancestral notes to continue to rise against oppression and fight for fair equality. (2) The collective primitive actions of compassion - during prehistory and for some people living after that period, while there were groups who did not accept outsiders under any circumstances, there were many groups who accepted and cared for those who were struggling or injured regardless of who that person was. This shows today with select individuals choosing to put themselves at risk to help others, taking people in and helping them get on their feet and so on. 

Conclusion:

The Shadow Self Is:

The attitudes, behaviors, emotions and values within ourselves that we reject

All parts of ourselves that we ignore

The collective primitive needs we hold in our DNA

The ancestral primitive needs we hold in our DNA 

Any attitude or act that we cannot rationally explain (Ex: “I am sad but I have no idea why.”)

The Purpose of Shadow Work:

To acknowledge the dark parts of ourselves to be able to use them for good

To acknowledge those dark parts and approach them with more understanding and compassion, further allowing us to act with our higher consciousness rather than the learned worldly-programming. 

To recognize what things we need to heal and move on from and what things can be transformed into something good

To uncover what fears and beliefs belong to us and what things are primitive notes in our DNA

To begin to act as our higher self, or our true selves. 

In the craft: to connect with our ancestors and culture. It unlocks a portion of the mind needed to understand the world around us. It becomes easier to connect with your guides and perform spell work.