Monthly Archives: November 2023

Light touching Shadow

… Awareness of light …

… awakens and expands our point of contact with life. It also carries the frightening potential to liberate us from habits of who we think we are. If we are willing, light holds immense potential for updating individual, ancestral, and collective shadow.

Shadow remains frozen without light’s touch; but when seen and felt, shadow melts into a fertilizing presence of new possibilities. When informed by light, our bodies, hearts, and minds literally become pollinators of new life. Through our enlightened contact we seed and nourish new growth. Light touching shadow is a series of life-changing events as we participate in the mysterious process of life waking up to itself!

Light enters soul, heart and mind through the mystery of spaciousness and inner-listening. Traditional Silence practice took us beyond shadow by removing us from life; but light courageously turned towards shadow allows life to awaken from within our bodies, minds, and hearts. Our life-purpose begins to embody us through a series of mysterious synchronicities. We become sacred activists as we work with life as it is, and life in turn, works through us.

Embodying light evokes a power with life, not over or above life. It touches life where it is without trying to fix it. During last Saturday’s Inner Constellation Mobile (ICM) it was through participant’s precise seeing and feeling of shadow that light entered the constellation and allowed more movement.

Light touching shadow is built upon an inner-trust or knowing that life is good. Shadow cannot be present for shadow because there is not enough spaciousness in shadow and fear overwhelms us. Mystical light (within spaciousness, listening, & soul) is a refined resource for touching shadow structures (within culture, ancestors, and the human condition).

Our lack of felt contact with shadow can leave us feeling that life is happening to us, rather than through us. We may feel more like a victim than a participant. Learning to include shadow is therefore a vital resource for evolving from a sense of victim to participant. We find our fulfilment through participation. As Meister Eckhart said, the mystery of God is what turns base metal into gold. 

Inner-listening is a quiet revolution of contemplation and meditation that births a new world from the inside out. With light touching the base-metal of shadow, shadow becomes life’s golden ally. No longer opposites, but on the same embodied path, we begin walking shadow back into the light.

In closing I will share a mystical moment I had while struggling to write about the recent ICM. After several days, I awoke to three phrases mysteriously humming through my nervous system: 

  1. I see because I am seen.
  2. I know my place because I am known.
  3. I love because I am loved.

Time stopped within a deepening stillness as I contemplated: I see with seeing … (breathe) … I know with knowing (breathe) … I love with love … (breathe) … Light was seeing/knowing/loving itself through me while gently disentangling me from my struggle.

When inner-light is embodied (experienced in our body) conditioned structures recede. I could not write about light without light infusing my mind and heart. For a blessed moment I experienced the intimate fullness of being seen, known, and loved through the grace of “light touching shadow.”