Our Collective Shadow

This was in my mailbox this morning.  It seems to fit closely with what we have been discussing about what is happening in the world today:

Quote :

Message 50
Peggy Black
Morning Messages Newsletter

Collective Shadow

Great changes are occurring. Some are subtle, others occur as a loud struggle. You can observe these different aspects around the world.

There are tremendous challenges and frequencies of hatred, fear and chaos. A large section of humanity is numb, too sensitive to handle the intense frequency of devastation and deception. They feel helpless; unaware of their true power.
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Remember that the shadow of humanity dwells in the consciousness of each person. This shadow aspect of one's self is pushed down, denied and projected. No one wants to think of themselves as prejudiced, judgmental, hate filled, or angry. No one wants to believe that they could kill another or cause suffering and pain. Yet these very frequencies dwell energetically in the hidden recesses of everyone's psyche to some degree. These qualities of behavior have been programmed, patterned and are activated by fear.

When fear rises up, all these suppressed emotional behaviors are activated. Then there is the illusion of justification in judging another, mocking another, killing another. The shadow of oneself is to be loved free. The insecurities, the pre-programmed beliefs of differences, the collective dysfunction is being pushed to the surface of the collective matrix.

Those who are aware, awakening, and embracing their shadow-selves, are conscious that they are multidimensional beings living in this programmed illusion. They are disconnecting the circuits that trigger the shadow emotions. They take personal responsibility for the creation of their experiences. When the experience is unpleasant they look within for the cause rather then project the experience or the blame outward.

This evolution of consciousness is swelling, touching the hearts and minds of many. Those who read these words understand and are awakening from the pattern.

Share this website www.MorningMessages.com and invite your friends to join and invite their friends to join.  

I remember in the 70's we talked the same.

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
J. S. Mill Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st 1867 (attributed to Edmund Burke, 1770). 

The sentiment has been around for at least 150 and possibly 250 years -- so, what's new?

Yes, and then we had a backlash during the 80's with Reagan and Bush. We started to hear it again during the 90's after Clinton was elected. This kind of progress is part of the newer paradigm - remember Thomas Kuhn, he first coined the term in the 60's, and by the 70's, the concept was getting around. Similar thing with Marilyn Ferguson's Aquarian Conspiracy, published in 1980 and played heavily on Kuhn's ideas. It finally caught fire again toward the end of the decade and was influential in the 90's. By 1999, the ideas were growning stronger, but the younger Bush's years in power overshadowed them.

The tug of war between the orthodox/conservative paradigm and the progressive/liberal one has been going on for a while now, but today we are seeing the death throes of the old as they attempt to fight back. the change is pretty much here, and it;s bringing out a lot of fear-based reactions from those who don't want it to happen.

My perspective, anyway.

Shelagh, we were posting at the same time.

What's new is that the cycles are more like spirals. Every cycle brngs a certain amount of forward progress that the backslides don't completely erase. So we continue to go through periods of regression then progress, but each time, the new pattern evolves and we move forward a bit more.

Still just my perspective.

I wish it would ever come around that we did not define anything in our lives by the people in political power.  If ever we could just be us, a nation of people that have elected people to do our bidding, make our wishes be laws, that would be something.  Not be ruled by the people who make laws for their own benefit.  I do not think that will come around too soon.  People I know, who are very nice people at heart, have no idea that we the people should be in the control of the political process, not ruled by the bought people..of either party.  I wonder if we are doomed.  
I am beginning to think that Bush planned and carried out the attack on the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers.  I do not put one thing past the evil of the Republican party.  That is really the way I feel.  

I worry about the religious people who think they know the truth and are gaining power to govern.  Some where along the way, the politicians have latched onto the idea that they can appeal to the ignorance and hysteria of the holy rollers and have gained power though their lies.  They tell the people what they want to hear, affirm their bigoted stances, call it "the word of god" and go forth like a band of angels.  For me, I do not want anyone to tell me "the truth" and have it governed down my neck as laws.  
Love, Betty

Another email on this topic just showed up.  This one came from a writer/writing teacher whose work I have read.  I liked her book,The Art of Fiction Writing, and have visited her website, www.creativesoulworks.com
She has some interesting freebies there, but her workshop fees are so far beyond my budget that I don't usually pay them any attention.  However, this introduction to her latest online seminar gives such a clear summation of this concept of the Shadow, and echoes so closely the things I have learned and attempted to express here, that I wanted to add it:

Quote :

EMBRACING THE SHADOW: THE JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." ~ Carl Jung

Everyone has a shadow, much of which was created in childhood when our need for love and protection caused us to reject parts of us deemed shameful, unworthy or dangerous by family, teachers, religious leaders, friends and even our enemies. These disowned parts of us were exiled to the darkest depth of our unconscious, hidden from the world and often from ourselves.

This is a huge problem, for the shadow is a powerful part of us. We cannot will it away or think that it remains subdued just because we have forgotten its existence,

"To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear." ~ Stephen Levin

But why, if the shadow holds negative, fearful, shame-based emotions, should we contemplate a descent into the dark, unseen world to retrieve it? Because if it is disowned, the shadow actually grows in power and becomes the invisible puppeteer that defines the way we are in the world. It is the shadow that creates self-sabatoging behaviors that make us miserable.

Some of the positive parts of self that often become buried in the shadow:

Wonderment
Passion
Creativity
Sexuality and sensuality
Risk-taking
The capacity to give and receive love
Stopping to smell the roses

It is at great cost that we send any of these life enhancing gifts into the shadow. Our connection to our inner wisdom withers. Our creativity is, at best, placed on the back burner. We accept loneliness as part of the human condition and fill our life with busywork, martyrdom or the quest for fame and fortune. We believe we will never be understood and true love doesn't exist. And if it does, it is clear we are not worthy of it. In the end, we wander in what Carl Jung called the "fog of illusion" that keeps us from seeing the truth of who we are.

I don't believe that all politicians are bad. Or that all politicians are just in it for themselves. A one party system would be a thousand times worse than the present system of two or more opposing parties. You would never be able to vote them out.

Who are the good politicians? Well, William Wilberforce was probably the best:

http://simplicityitk.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/william-wilberforce-fanatic-who-changed.html

Yes, progressives, without conservatives to keeep them in check, would probably take us too far, too fast.  Government neds to be balanced - that's when "balance of powers" is all about, isn't it?  Having at least two parties is necessary for maintaining that balance.  It becomes a problem when everybody is running to extremes - untra conservatives vs far left-wing progressives.  It's one of the signs of the changing times.  As WB Yeats said, "The center cannot hold."

I wonder if our US Republican Party isn't about to go the way of the Whigs here just before the Civil War, when the early Republican Party first formed.  At that time, they were the new, progressive element, determined to break the old agricultural hold so that the "modern" technological worldview could come in.  At that time, the older, conservative party, was the Democratic Party.  Today, that has totally reversed.

Synchronicity? As you wrote your post, Ann, I was reading this:

http://www.johnjayinstitute.org/resources/publications/john-jay-an-american-wilberforce/

From the article:

"Jay [...] had no regard for the leveling doctrine of democracy and its religious illusions regarding human perfectibility and the inevitability of progress. To the contrary, his faith was informed by a biblical realism about the condition of human nature. Humankind was fallen and in need of supernatural grace and redemption.

As to the position that "the people always mean well," or in other words, that they always mean to say and do what they believe to be right and just, -- it may be popular, but it cannot be true. The word people ... applies to all individual inhabitants of a country....That portion of them who individually mean well never was, nor until the millennium will be, considerable."[7]

Too many in your state [Pennsylvania], as in this [New York], love pure democracy dearly. They seem not to consider that pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication, and with it a thousand mad pranks and fooleries.[8]"

Excellent article - I bookmarked it so I can read it more carefully.

Isn't it interesting how the concepts of conservative and liberal shift over time, as what was new becomes older and another "new" starts to develop. The Episcopal Church US is now one of the most progressive in the country.

And speaking of synchronicities - I need to forward a link to the article to Lynn and Susan. They were both teaching at John Jay High School here in San Antonio during the late 90's

We were posting at the same time again, Shelagh. That passage was the one I was thinking about when I wrote my response.

Ann wrote:

And speaking of synchronicities - I need to forward a link to the article to Lynn and Susan. They were both teaching at John Jay High School here in San Antonio during the late 90's

...and were still there at the millenium.  

alj wrote:

Ann wrote:

And speaking of synchronicities - I need to forward a link to the article to Lynn and Susan. They were both teaching at John Jay High School here in San Antonio during the late 90's

...and were still there at the millenium.   

"That portion of them who individually mean well never was, nor until the millennium will be, considerable."

Not a considerable number of well-meaners since the year two thousand either, Ann!

It's only just begon, though. I think I see more individuals becoming aware of the imbalances. Fewer are as easily fooled.Here in the US we elected an African-American president - twice. I wonder what Wilburforce and Jay would think of that.

But there are some way-out crazies on the far left, too, that need the restraints of sensible conservatives to help things stay closer to center. It's just that so many of the ones gumming up the works are a long way from sensible.