Serenity Sunday

Every time you see a tree
or dream a cloud,
there is that in you of the tree
there is that in you of the cloud.

The saguaro dreams in drought
and endures. The cloud dreams
our woe --sneezes, cries.
The rain falls

Elaine Maria Upton

My List:

1.) My children

2.) My sweetie

3.) Pumpkin  Spice coffee creamer

4.) Chakra stones

5.) Bubble wrap

6.) Handmade tarot bags

7.) Learning new things

8.) Indoor herb gardens

9.) Leaves dancing in the wind

10.) Music

Tarot Shadow Work- Into The Light

In the Star of Discovery and the Star of Recovery, I was able to identify my Shadow qualities and therefore become acquainted with them, delving further into where they came from and how through the years they had grown. My journey now, as I work through Tarot Shadow Work, using the dark symbols to heal, has brought me to learning how to communicate between my intellect (my conscious mind) and my non-rational Shadow side (my unconscious mind) in order to bring them out of the shadows and into the light.

The personal Shadow resides in the unconscious mind and can  be accessed by dreams, artistic expression, fairy tales and myth...in my case.. writing is my form of creativity to which I express myself (and you have all come with me on my journey each time you have read my posts). We all dream each night but not all of us remember these dreams... a terrific idea is a dream journal. I am going to be keeping a dream journal beside my bed so that I may jot down my dreams  (that I remember) in the morning while they are still fresh in my mind.

Our conscious self (or ego as identified by  Carl Jung) is the gatekeeper and most of the time our rational mind prevents any communication with our non-rational mind. We develop defenses or coping skills in order to help us survive painful emotional traumas and events... they serve to protect us from fears and anxieties and when we try to bury these uncomfortable emotions they can often emerge as depression. The Shadow will never be deceitful about itself but the ego (or acceptable parts of our conscious self) will falsify it's true motives.

The intellectual side will refuse insight and actually contribute more to it's unhappy state than the very Shadow it tries to  repress. These repressed parts hold a great amount of energy and potential for growth but we must travel the path through the darkness into healing and freedom...all that is required is honesty on our part.

Only My Shadow Knows...

A while ago, I bought the book "Tarot Shadow Work, using the dark symbols to heal" by Christine Jette but I hadn't had much time to delve into it with all the activities of school and work vying for my attention. School is winding down now so hopefully I can settle in and start working through the book. The following is an excerpt from this book to give you an idea of what it's all about....

~~~

The Shadow Knows

There is a shadow lurking in every person's inner life, a psychic darkness sheltering our inner conflicts and unexpressed emotions. It takes its shape from a menagerie of archetypes, each recognizable throughout time and around the world troubling characters who thrive within our persona. The shadow is the saboteur, martyr, victim, addict, sadist, masochist, or tyrant, all the dark figures that prey on the lighter qualities of the human personality.

The shadow also represents those latent talents and positive traits that were banished from us at some time along our life path: artistic, musical, athletic, or creative talents. An undeveloped ability, a dream that has gone unexpressed, a fantasy of what might have been these, too, make up the personal shadow, the lost parts of ourselves.

~~~

As I briefly mentioned in other blog posts, I came from a dysfunctional family, (Wow! that's an understatement!) Anyhow, growing up was a rocky road indeed and then at the age of nine, my father decided to take his own life and my childhood almost disappeared over night as I was rudely ushered into a very adult world... up until then I had been a carefree, somewhat sheltered, child.

I consider myself a survivor but I realize all too keenly the baggage that I have carried for decades. It hasn't always been easy recognizing these issues in order to resolve them, but the Irish determination I inherited from my father is serving me well after all these years and with a little luck, as I work through this book, I will be able to lay to rest the demons that have long shadowed me on my journey in this world.