In 2016, post the election of Donald Trump, I sat down at my computer and typed a title, “The Shadow Detour.” For four years I sat on this blog post, unable to figure out how to construct it accurately. The words just never came. The ideas never really flowed. I had the gist of what I wanted to say, but the longer I let it collect dust, the more I kept feeling it was not time.
I believe the time has now come. I admit that the following words are a grave over-simplification as the issues we face are far more nuanced and multi-faceted. Like a body finally succumbing to dis-ease, it’s not always just one factor that is the culprit, especially after years of neglect.
Something quite amazing and remarkable has taken place in this country. We, on the tail of one of our brightest achievements (the election of Barack Obama), were faced with our darkest shadow and deepest fear, embodied within the election of Donald Trump and the subsequent movement that he galvanized.
We came face-to-face with the sicknesses and cancers that have always plagued our American experiment. Many have now flown from this darkness as if to escape a burning high-rise. (Sidenote: the fact that the past 20 years have been book-ended by national catastrophe, seems a subject of cosmic intrigue to me). And many others have wholly embraced the shadow - void of reason, logic, discernment, and critical thinking - the byproduct of decades of dumbing down the America populace. Those who have flown are fleeing the invitation to truly know, understand, heal and integrate the shadow of this county.
We sin against the opportunity to grow and become enlightened (more evolved, wise, and more fully self-realized and aware) by both embracing only our darkest natures as much as in fleeing only to the light, seeking to ignore and damn our shadow.
The sickness that has become our shadow has also manifested in a nation-wide pandemic that has, and continues to, claim American lives by the thousands. Our inability to see beyond our own egos and our own selfishness has only contributed to the inevitable death march. Our desire for “freedom” and our commitment to rugged individualism has “trumped” our selfless humanity and our ability to do good by our neighbor. With the election of Biden, many of us herald back to the dream that was 4 years prior. However, we can not just turn away from the darkness of the past 4 years and brush it away as if the lessons we could learn are not worth the effort. We must take great care and consider the time old adage, “If you do not learn from your history, you are bound to repeat it.”
It is universally understand amongst healers that when a person suppresses what they deem to be a character flaw, an unconventional belief or desire, or their natural energetic expression, in the interest of fitting some mold, that the desire, the belief, the energy does not merely vanish. On the contrary. It hides! And hides. And hides. And in the dark, it festers. It often grows. It becomes a beast. But unlike regular beasts, this one does not die when it’s ignored and starved. No. It grows more ravenous, more determined, more hostile. And then it starts to seep out into the person’s character often in the form of resentment, anger, rage, depression, etc. It can also express itself as apathy, indifference, cowardice, and fear.
America has such a shadow. Has had such a shadow. But instead of seeking to understand it and heal it, we have (actually more accurately, the powers that be - the white hegemony has) only sought to suppress it all the more. And if I may use a Biblical reference, the head of this “beast” became Trump. Before him, I don’t think the beast had the proper eyes to focus, legs to mobilize, or the facilities to express their need to be seen. The beast broke out on the 6th of January, 2021 after a year of false information and plague. But you see, in the dark, where light does not exist, it is impossible to see truth or discern fact from fiction. No surprise conspiracy has run rampant.
Will there be more break-outs as the beast continues to thrash against its cage? ABSOLUTELY! Not until we finally sit down and set up means of addressing its issues and concerns will peace ever come.
