Owning Your Own Shadow

A particularly powerful form of mandorla can be seen in the customs of South American curanderos, who are a curious mixture of primitive shaman and Catholic priest. Their mesa (table) is an altar where they say Mass for the healing of their patients. They divide this altar into three distinct sections. The right is made up of inspiring elements suc

Men lay their shadow upon women, whites upon blacks. Catholics upon Protestants, capitalists upon communists, Muslims upon Hindus. Neighborhoods will make one family the scapegoat and these people will bear the shadow for the entire group. Indeed, every group unconsciously designates one of its members as the black sheep and makes him or her carry

Of course we are going to have a shadow! St. Augustine, in The City of God, thundered, ’To act is to sin.” To create is to destroy at the same moment. We cannot make light without a corresponding darkness. India balances Brahma, the god of creation, with Shiva, the god of destruction, and Vishnu sits in the middle keeping the opposites together. No

We are all poets and healers when we use language correctly. One makes a mandorla every time one says something that is true.

Everyone knows what a mandala is, even though mandala is a Sanskrit term borrowed from India and Tibet. A mandala is a holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness.

The more refined our conscious personality, the more shadow we have built up on the other side.

When we project our God image on our mates, that is just as dangerous as projecting our darkness, fear, and anxiety. We say to the beloved, “I expect you to give me divine inspiration, to be the sole source of my creativity. I give you the power to transform my life.” In this way, we ask the beloved to do what our spiritual disciplines have done in

World War II gave us endless examples of shadow projection. One of the most highly civilized nations on earth, Germany, fell into the idiocy of projecting its virulent shadow on the Jewish people.

There is a Hindu proverb: “Anyone who thinks he is enlightened certainly is not!”