"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer".
It seems a great shadow has fallen over our world. Fallen or perhaps risen. What happens to the psyche when the shadow remains unconfronted, lingering, festering. We are reminded from all sides of the dangerous, negative side of the power principle. Male aggression, unchecked and dysregulated. A stifling atmosphere which makes it difficult to develop other, more nuanced, more noble traits and endeavors.
Unattended and ignored, the shadow comes forward to swallow the whole in greedy, despotic gulps. As a society, we've tried to come to terms with our own aggression, but have failed somehow. We've created a generation of soft, weak men so harrangued into playing the good son they fail to grow up properly. And thus, leave the world undefended before the old, power-hungry dogs of war. And they are, ever, abundant. The shadow side of aggression and masculinity is not evident to everyone, and some move through life so unaware, they automatically assume that criticizing this darkness is the same as criticizing masculinity itself.
Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on Unsplash*
For too long, we've hidden behind this weakness masquerading as softness, and perhaps rightly, it has prompted the aggressors to say "well yes, but one needs to be strong to protect and to build". We hear this obsessive argument that the opposite of weakness must be aggression.
That to not be aggressive means to be weak by definition.
I think about what it means to be strong in such turbulent times, and naturally, I think from my feminine perspective. I see how wounding and poisonous it is to my own femininity (and to that of the world, more broadly), to exist in this world where aggression, cruelty and war are so openly celebrated. Perhaps even worse, in a world where terror goes unaddressed. It keeps reminding me of the nameless peasants of Middle Earth, brow-beaten and subdued by the great, dark shadow of Mordor. A force of evil so broad, unchallenged and all-encompassing, it truly seems that I, one measly individual, have no choice but to bow my head.
This isn't about a named state, or any one political actor. To reduce it to one bad character would be to deride and underestimate the power of true evil. The fact is, the shadow lives inside us all. And, because we remain asleep, it continues to dominates the world freely.
We don't need to be weak, passive or subdued to overcome it.
Softness does not need to mean the absence of strength.
And the longer we postpone awaking, the more our world will be destroyed by these mad agents of havoc and tyranny.
Yesterday, I dug my fingers into the cool, wet dirt. I worked with my hands. I felt the need to connect with and regulate my wounded feminine, so put-upon and beaten in this current climate of terror. To hold space for her grief and recognize that we are, ultimately, unsafe. And without seeking to diminish or downplay the actual suffering in the Middle East right now, I do not mean missiles. I mean aggression and brute force have our world in such a chokehold, I fear the eventual extinction of all things which are good in us and sacred.
I felt the need to reconnect. To acknowledge and at the same time, hold space. To try and keep the balance between creation and destruction in my own two hands. Skewed heavily as it is, at the moment.
I think a lot about Jung and his reaction to and takes on evil, his interpretation of the Nazi nightmare, so relevant still (unfortunately). Jung suggested, I believe, that evil ties heavily into the tension of opposites, our own ability to exist inside that tension. As I understood it, Jung believed that as long as we managed to keep this balance, to not lose ourselves to either side (evil, perhaps, most notably), we stood a chance, after all.
I think a lot what it means for me personally, this tension, this balance. How do I hold? By trying to replenish the good, the force of creation that must stand in the face of boundless destruction. And try, most of all, to examine my own proclivities towards authority, towards aggressivity and evil.
There's a strong tendency in these troubles times to claim complete dissociation from it. To say - not in my name. I feel the same. But I understand, also, that if we are to turn the tide, and begin to replenish our world, we must first acknowledge and look in the eye that within us which leans towards monstrosity, darkness, cruelty. We must face the Shadow, terrifying and alien though it may seem, if we are ever to fully individuate and break its spell.
*'The Circle of the Thieves; Agnolo Brunelleschi Attacked by a Six-Footed Serpent. Inferno, canto XXV', William Blake/
