"Free to Be"  ©  2003~ acrylic painting by Carol E. Fairbanks

"Darkness deserves gratitude.  It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight."

                                                                                        ~  Joan Chittister
                                                                                     Uncommon Gratitude

                                    Celebrating the Darkness

             

"Shadow Self" © 2002 crayon by Carol E Fairbanks

    The shadow self is always there...waiting patiently behind us, knowing that, in time, life will present each of us with a challenge that causes us to finally turn around and listen.  Most of the time, we put on this facade that says, "No problem here!" Because we think that others can't "see" our pain, we become masters of "impression management". But the shadow self is still there, lurking in the darkness, safeguarding its wisdom for our future healing and growth. The shadow's message looks messy and complicated and definitely appears to require way too much of us.  So, we busy ourselves with our endless pursuit of activity to avoid any confrontation with it.  We think if  we don't pay attention to our shadow self, it will cease to exist.  And so our shadow self waits......and waits......knowing that eventually it will receive the honor and attention it deserves.

When I moved to Colorado in 2002, after my "magic summer" in Boulder the year before, I expected a gloriously happy new life. Everything in Ohio was not working for me, and Colorado seemed to offer all that I ever wanted.  While it was challenging moving by myself across the country, I felt elated ....  I was a "kid at Christmastime" and "all my flags were flying" !  I knew everything was going to be "perfect", and my shadow self just smiled and waited, knowing it would be the "perfect" time to introduce herself.

No drastic event happened on the outside of me in Colorado, but there was plenty going on in the inside!  No, Colorado was not utopia, and the nirvana I expected in living there didn't happen.  The challenge of having nothing familiar to distract or rescue me from myself (and my shadow!), created an opening in my psyche.  My shadow self stepped through that opening and  into my crayon drawings.  And she shouted at me to listen.  And so I did.  I drew dozens of drawings that year in Colorado and wrote several journals while listening to her truth, that had been hiding out in the dark places of my mind for many years. I cried and hiked and hiked and cried some more.  And, as I walked that dark "path" for most of that year, an interesting thing happened.....I began to feel better... and stronger....and more alive.

At the end of my year in Colorado, I took another painting class at Naropa University.  I went to class feeling shaky and unsure of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.   I felt like somehow it was my fault that I had failed to manifest that dream life that Colorado seemed to offer and was experiencing a lot of confusion about where next to make my home.  I was even considering moving back to Ohio.  Colorado was as beautiful as ever, but I was not "beautiful" in it!

At the painting class, I put all these inner rumblings aside and picked up my brush.  After saturating my anxious brush with the most "delicious" color on my palette,  I began to paint furiously.  My energy level rose, as vibrant colors filled the page.  On my paper a new vision for my future appeared....and it was not the dark colors of "sadness",  nor the ominous shapes of failure.  No, it was a celebration of my challenging months of living in Colorado.  And I was not only dancing, I was flying!  I appeared "lighter and freer" than I have ever been.

Creating and contemplating this celebration painting marked the end of a cycle for me, and my shadow self moved out of the limelight.  And up stepped my "Wild Woman" to center stage!  By the end of the summer of 2003, I would be living in my new home in Oregon, bringing with me the gift of wisdom and healing revealed to me by my wise woman shadow self.  And, in place of some of that inner pain I had experienced during my past year, was a whole lot of gratitude.

"Free to Be" © (close up) by Carol E  Fairbanks

Dance on - the world is yours, Wild Woman!