the shadow is

Sometime last week my grown son bumped his own leg on the edge of the couch and I said, Sorry. Think of that.

From The Wild Unknown Archetypes Guidebook by Kim Kearns:
“We often think that The Shadow can be purified, illuminated, and made right through effort and achievement. However, it is typically the case that our lofty pursuit of ascension and perfection is the very source material of the shadow itself.”

the more opaque the object, the darker the shadow. but also, the brighter the light, the sharper the edge, the more stark the relief. I think of how I’ve been working through translucency toward transparency, how much time I spend on the movement toward it–I want to see through myself to the wall. But there’s a balance: so much of this is trying to see/be seen and so much of it is trying not to take up space. How often I worry that I’m in someone else’s way, and how often that very worry puts me in my own damn way.

I think of this too, with shadow: how the long shadow of an ending can disguise the brightness of a beginning. How we look back at some later time and pick out the glint: there, yes there was the spark that led me here, the moment that made some beautiful thing possible.

What is the shadow to you?

Freewrite (8-10 minutes): The shadow is…

Poem: “Sharp Glass” by Minnie Bruce Pratt

Prompt (15 minutes): Write deeper into something you have some set idea about. Make space for nuance. Borrow Pratt’s line: “You may think of it as…or…” and then keep up with the ‘or’ and write deeper and weirder into new and unexpected points of view.

Buy Pratt’s book of poems, We Say We Love Each Other from bookshop and CBAW gets some bucks.

Oh, and I haven’t said this in a long long time, but you know you can always post a poem here if you like. or email it to me.

Take care of your shadow.