Conscious Grumbling

The long nights and gathering energies that winter brings set a perfect backdrop for getting to know the shadow aspects of ourselves. Many people find ways to distract themselves from the opportunities for growth that this time of year brings because it is simply easier to avoid the darkness than it is to dive into it an explore, feel and heal.
What is the shadow? This is another of those instances when words just don’t cut it to convey full multi-dimensional meaning, but here it goes. Our shadow is those parts of ourselves that usually stay lurking just beneath our conscious awareness. Some aspects are also buried much deeper within. If we can imagine ourselves as marionette puppets, the shadow would be the strings and marionette that control our movements. These movements are usually preceded by beliefs and thoughts also emanating from the marionette. Sometimes we are quite content with this arrangement and how we operate in the world. At other times we struggle to break free from some of the constraints of this arrangement so that we can make positive changes in our lives. The season of winter with its quiet, dark, internal and shadowy energies present a perfect opportunity to call up our skills of introspection and look to see who or what the marionette is made of and how it pulls our strings. The quietness of the natural world around us whispers to us to slow down and go within to listen to the rumblings and grumblings of our soul.
If you want to learn more about yourself and your unseen operating systems you can involve yourself in the practice of what I call “conscious grumbling”. Allow yourself to fall into your well of darkness and shadow. Feel it, its heaviness, secretiveness, elusiveness and often negative and hopeless nature. And when it starts to get very uncomfortable try to stay in it, don’t distract yourself from it by jumping back out of it to eat, drink, watch the latest movie or play the newest video game. Say with it and become the seeker looking for the images that your soul wants you to see, and listen for the sounds need to be expressed and the words to be heard and spoken. Let all of this come to the surface and go ahead and grumble and grouch away to the ethers, your imaginary audience or with pen in hand write them down. Which ever method is most natural for you express these energies and let them surface for the awareness spotlight to shine on them. Speak some of these grumblings out loud into the wind so they can be carried away and heard by unseen ears. Some of these expressions are simply day to day irritations, molehills. Treat the grumblings that are louder and more intense with respect. Take the time to acknowledge them and write them down - get them out of your being and onto paper in front of you, then look at them and listen to them and let them be your teachers. Ask them what they can teach you and apply the Serenity Prayer filter to them - sort them into the “To Be Worked On” and the “To Be Accepted” columns. Use the prayer as a request for assistance if you need it. Sometimes this sorting takes days, weeks and even years, and that is all okay, your schedule is yours and yours alone. Take your “To Be Worked On” list and own it. Be responsible for it and your part in it, it came from you, it is yours. Now that you are conscious of those things that have been itching at your soul, you are less likely to project them onto others. With clear and honest intent ask for the inspiration, motivation and guidance to begin working on them, and most importantly ask to be aware when all of that is being given to you because it usually comes in unexpected ways and from unexpected sources.
This is not easy work, but it is good work. Within the shadow we not only find difficult and unhealed parts of ourselves, we also find skilled and gifted parts that have been long forgotten.
My journeys into this work have provided me with gifts and stories that are more than nine generations old, and they continue to provide me with new perspectives and understandings of myself. Journey on!

An Excerpt from the Serenity Prayer

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
--Reinhold Niebuhr