Directionals for Casual Alchemists
self-guided practices, research, activities
Notes on Shadow:
Shadow is the deep part, the weathers, the atmosphere, we live in; and for that reason, we have a hard time recognizing it. As a teacher of mine put it:
“We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish.” ― John Culkin
What do we know about it?
It's often avoided, medicalized as “Depression”;
Felt as the unclaimed, lingering, feral, blurry parts of inner life. It involves longing, waiting, solitude, hunting, disappointment, betrayal, freedom, ambivalence
- Wounding is language of Shadow “people wound.” (and get wounded) Value of The Wound? “in the goblet of the wound, there is the soul. It’s the psyche. James Hillman
- we instinctively resist Shadow: the way that leads through obscurity, darkness, ambiguity, transient,
- Everything of psychic origin has a double face, a Shadow. One face looks forward, the other back
- Related to NEEDS:
- AWE= Surprise unexpected
- FERAL=violation, risk
- STORY= order, disorder, reorder
MAKING= This into That; Non Verbal communication with Things and thing-making.
Why be with Shadow?
(It’s difficult, elusive, upsetting) …
Value as path to MEANING, hence Balance
a small unexamined evil becomes a big one through being disregarded and repressed.
- a way to engage the nature of fundamentalism, rationalism and explore another murky, swampy world
- The more people who experience the ambiguous, polyvalent quality of life, who understand and
tolerate that there are always many sides to every issue ... this is the basis of a fair and just society
- Remember its about Meaning, not happiness Being out of Balance with Shadow, is a loss of meaning
How To see, be with the Shadow: Explore/ReVisit NEEDS in 3 Manners and several Areas
1. Be Alone, Quiet, Own/Be with regrets, mistakes, trouble Who Gathers Near You? “Oh YOU again!”
Revisit your Stories for Clues About Wounding
2. Alone Active, MAKING Play, Praxis, blending SHARE
Experiment change focal length m’scope, Collage/Mosaic into an atmosphere small impermanent things…
3. Be w Others Artists/Children/Elders can be guides
1. Check Balance, your mix of manners
Notice/Need shifts? Rearview mrr You are not Disabled!,
2. Wound “the force that drives the flower”
a core inevitable part of being
the disorder before the new order;
the Shake of the Snowglobe
the trickster presence with the archetype
Name some Current Felt WOUNDS!
Unpack the term “wound” into its features:benefits,
Find synonyms, related words, associations, energies
WHO DEALS WITH WOUNDS? And Shadows?
We all do! … And Technicians of the Sacred:
artists, NDs,priests, shamans, poets, Tricksters,
can help normalize, integrate the Wound AND Wounding as part of being. Allowing.NOT rejecting/avoiding.
They model responding/working with it;
Helping find tolerably fearful responses.
Trickster Presence (WoundingOne) in Each Need:
“If you need shelter, I'll be the rain” GaryZMcGee
3. STORY Explore different models for ways of living, seeing Consider The Iceberg, The Coral Reef, The Garden, animals, plants, water, sun,weeds oh, so many variables
Story as Mosaic intense/complex, distinct areas all playing into an atmosphere
What’s crept into the Storytelling Process? Aging? Social Media, “influencers” Archetypes?
4. Consider “KAIROS”
an old, powerful, alternative sense of time =
"a wormhole of backward and forward acceleration."
5. Archetypes as Gerunds as a blur of noun/verb, not Characters or actions but characters in actions:
wounding, “estranging” pausing, seeing, doing, moving, comforting, engaging (5D/3D, cord-cutting, Allowing reenergizing
6. MORE See: 5 Truths Nelson/5 chaps DM Journal www.purewow.com/wellness/shadow-work-prompts
To encounter, tolerate, express, re-express, tell a truth.
Capitalism needs normal time, normal, able minded, sociable people who share a form of rhetoric, NOT Shadow!
The Five Remembrances
1. I am subject to aging. no way to avoid aging.
2. I am subject to ill health. no way to avoid illness.
3. I am going to die. no way to avoid death
4. Everyone/everything I love will change, and be separated from me.
5. Only true possessions are my actions, I cannot escape their consequences. not suppress knowledge of our frailty and impermanence. fears that lie in the depths of our consciousness, to be free of these fears invite the Remembrances into our consciousness and stop seeing them as enemies. Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind
The Three Occult Principles:
1. The universe is a single living substance.
2. The universe is comprised of interactive opposites. Mind and matter are a unified entity. Everything that exists corresponds in universal analogy –man/ woman is a microcosm of the universe.
3. Imagination is a real motivating force that can act upon matter in a subtle way
Topics You May find interesting to learn more about:
These are SideTrails/Leads/WonderRoom of ideas
Those 13 small booklets exploring a playful, tactile, making-based approach to who we are. They are based on the three Shifting elements of alchemy: the heart, the head and the hand; introduces five needs that we always seem to be at work on: Need for Awe/Wonder, for the Feral/Carnal, to Make, to Tell Stories
Futurism Shambala Warrior
Apocalypse means an uncovering Kairos Surrealism Seider Pretas=HungryGhosts The Bardo Theurgy
Gnosis Thin Places Stewardship Sonder melancholy
Hireath Negative Capability James Hillman Zep Tepi Tarot
Epistrophe 5 Remembrances Asemitic Writng MBTI Enneagram
dark days Yugen witch=bends reality Ascension Flu Yugen
Unconscious Intelligence Etheric Cords Homo Spiritus Seidr
Wondertales Magical Thinking dreamwrk Process Art Revgrafti
Wsinkhoalican the Lenape Mask Spirit, who maintains the balance of nature, appears to Lenape men in dreams,
Explore what’s Deadwood and what’s Heartwood. It changes What’s Shedding?
Honor what you already do/know Consider YOUR Needs/responses:for deception, safety, enough,
Consider the possibility that Reactions/Effects precede Actions and Causes
Everybody has different awareness of Shadow??!! What In The World! Celia/Talk PhotoNotes
Play Game of “What Else Is It? what “functional” means and Not Bench Hook/Altar
ABOUT OBJECTS and MAKING Jung: Psyche and Matter are aspects of same energy
HagStnes fetishes, morbidity, kintsugi, honor Empties as Altars
Look at Cave Drawings of people, tools, animals See Etsy. Pintest algorithm
Explore haiku structure as model for making: brief, contrast, nature haikus-coronte/
the bardo, Tibetan concept of limbo between life and death
What’s an Enneagram from Russell Rowe:
"As our personality was forming in early childhood we each developed limiting subconscious beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. For example, your mother or father might have yelled at you “Get your hands out of there!” or “You should be ashamed of yourself!” or “Stop being such a cry baby!” If you had really loving parents you might have heard, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot!” or “Don’t do that, you might hurt yourself!” We also developed limiting beliefs about others. Growing up you may have heard, “I don’t want you to play with those kinds of kids” or “Salesmen are sleazebags” or “Politicians are so duplicitous and two-faced.” We also developed limiting beliefs about the world. Newspapers and television constantly bombard our minds with reports of scandals, crimes, wars, economic crises, natural disasters, and political corruption. Does this help us believe the world is a loving, safe place to live? Of course not. One way or another, none of us escaped childhood without some limiting subconscious beliefs. Your Enneagram type identifies some of the strongest subconscious beliefs that you’ve developed over time based on your distorted perception of reality. The following subconscious beliefs of Fives stem from their unconscious fear and will continue to drive their personality until they learn to reprogram their subconscious beliefs." www.russellrowe.com/enneagram-types/
Nepantla
"At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. Or perhaps we will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off all together as a lost cause, and cross the
border into a wholly new and separate territory. Or we might go another route. The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, connectors that connote transitioning,crossing borders, and changing perspectives. Bridges span liminal(threshold) spaces between worlds, spaces I call nepantla,
a Nahuatl word meaning tierra entre medio. Transformations occur in this in-between space, an unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-in-transition space lacking clear boundaries. Nepantla es tierra desconocida, and living in this liminal zone means being in a constant state of displacement--an uncomfortable, even alarming feeling. Most of us dwell in nepantla so much of the time it’s become a sort of “home.” Though this state links us to other ideas, people, and worlds, we feel threatened by these new connections and the change they engender."
La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness
Versions
Aren't we always encountering, making and remaking versions
of who we are?
See how many words have that root word "vers" in them.
It means "turning".
There are at least a few dozen related and surprising ways.
Thin Places
Each place and location has its own power and potency. By raising our consciousness about the geo-cosmic specificities of gravity, light, magnetism, solstices, equinoxes, lunar cycles, indigenous plants, animals, climate, and so forth in any given area,we can come to value the variety of diverse cultures and regions whose multiple knowledges all serve to enhance life everywhere on our planet. Most of these geo-cosmic teachings can only be acquired in the particular region in which th
ey occur. If we are to awaken our own Shamanic abilities, perhaps lost in the mist of time, then we must attune ourselves to precisely those same forces as they manifest themselves in our own bio-regions. In some cases this may require us to learn about our region from the indigenous tribes in our area; in other cases we must set about discovering the power of the places in which we live on our own.
We need not run away to other "exotic' cultures, but begin exploring our own backyards.
ARCHIVE
Interior Landscapes, 2008
- Imagination Matters, 2007 more
- Joy of Making, Omega, 2006
- Shadow: conceals and reveals
- "Shadow: unclaimed parts of inner life."