Making shamanic sense of the election
Originally published: 10/20/2016 on Weebly blog
Sheesh, there's so much instant vitriol right now-- people can't say the simplest thing without others climbing down their throat. Why is this? I have a shamanic answer that I hope helps make sense of things.
Deepak Chopra recently penned a great article about Donald Trump and the power of "the shadow" - the parts of our own psyche that we want to keep hidden away out of fear, embarrassment or shame. We cringe at the venality of the reality TV characters because they embody our worst fears about ourselves - they make our shadow visible. Trump is a reality TV star, and, at first, his campaign was strangely entertaining. But as the stakes became higher - when it stopped being a show and it became clear that it was possible he could win - the fun turned to horror for many people.
Trump's campaign has been a descent into the shadow, and his power has been to pull everyone down to speak and act out of our own personal shadows - our darkest fears about ourselves. A huge part of any initiation - personal, national, global - is to "befriend the shadow," meaning to safely come into contact with it and expunge its unconscious control over you. This is why I think Trump is doing us all a favor. He is exposing so much cultural shadow that none of us can turn away and ignore it. He is a radiant embodiment of the sexism, racism, heartless capitalism, aberrant individualism, spiritual vacancy and twisted masculinity upon which our culture is built. It's no coincidence that Trump doesn't present cogent plans for the future. He is playing a role in an initiatory ceremony, and his role is not about the future, it's about showing us the "right now" - what needs to be cleansed from us, or left behind in order to develop as human beings. That creates a lot of discomfort, but it's part of the work we need to do.
Trump is the embodiment of what is sometimes called the "light masculine" or what Jung called the puer aeternus, Latin for "eternal boy." He is the adult male who has not yet grown up (or more accurately grown "outward and inward") and taken on the "dark" which is a process of moving through one's shadow to come into contact with one's authentic spiritual power. Trump is spiritually powerless, which is why he is so reliant on his money and his fake masculine bravado for his identity. Trump is showing us our current cultural values. He's daring us to reinvest in them or to expunge them. Well, to be clear, it's not Trump doing any of this, but Spirit working through him.
Hillary is also playing her role in this ceremony of initiation - as the Dark Feminine. In the Celtic Shamanic tradition the Dark Feminine is the one who initiates the light masculine into his true powers, sometimes by asking him to kiss her while she is in the shape of the gruesome hag, sometimes by defeating him in battle or humiliating him with magic to strip of him of his simple boyhood. Other times she initiates him him by training him as a warrior - transforming him from a mere boy swishing his daddy's sword into a man with integrity. And that integrity means two things: 1) loving the earth and 2) creating justice.
The light masculine is attracted to the dark feminine because it seeks initiation. The dark feminine is attracted to the light masculine because it wants to initiate it. This is a shamanic understanding of why we have these two candidates at this time.
Sheesh, there's so much instant vitriol right now-- people can't say the simplest thing without others climbing down their throat. Why is this? I have a shamanic answer that I hope helps make sense of things.
Deepak Chopra recently penned a great article about Donald Trump and the power of "the shadow" - the parts of our own psyche that we want to keep hidden away out of fear, embarrassment or shame. We cringe at the venality of the reality TV characters because they embody our worst fears about ourselves - they make our shadow visible. Trump is a reality TV star, and, at first, his campaign was strangely entertaining. But as the stakes became higher - when it stopped being a show and it became clear that it was possible he could win - the fun turned to horror for many people.
Trump's campaign has been a descent into the shadow, and his power has been to pull everyone down to speak and act out of our own personal shadows - our darkest fears about ourselves. A huge part of any initiation - personal, national, global - is to "befriend the shadow," meaning to safely come into contact with it and expunge its unconscious control over you. This is why I think Trump is doing us all a favor. He is exposing so much cultural shadow that none of us can turn away and ignore it. He is a radiant embodiment of the sexism, racism, heartless capitalism, aberrant individualism, spiritual vacancy and twisted masculinity upon which our culture is built. It's no coincidence that Trump doesn't present cogent plans for the future. He is playing a role in an initiatory ceremony, and his role is not about the future, it's about showing us the "right now" - what needs to be cleansed from us, or left behind in order to develop as human beings. That creates a lot of discomfort, but it's part of the work we need to do.
Trump is the embodiment of what is sometimes called the "light masculine" or what Jung called the puer aeternus, Latin for "eternal boy." He is the adult male who has not yet grown up (or more accurately grown "outward and inward") and taken on the "dark" which is a process of moving through one's shadow to come into contact with one's authentic spiritual power. Trump is spiritually powerless, which is why he is so reliant on his money and his fake masculine bravado for his identity. Trump is showing us our current cultural values. He's daring us to reinvest in them or to expunge them. Well, to be clear, it's not Trump doing any of this, but Spirit working through him.
Hillary is also playing her role in this ceremony of initiation - as the Dark Feminine. In the Celtic Shamanic tradition the Dark Feminine is the one who initiates the light masculine into his true powers, sometimes by asking him to kiss her while she is in the shape of the gruesome hag, sometimes by defeating him in battle or humiliating him with magic to strip of him of his simple boyhood. Other times she initiates him him by training him as a warrior - transforming him from a mere boy swishing his daddy's sword into a man with integrity. And that integrity means two things: 1) loving the earth and 2) creating justice.
The light masculine is attracted to the dark feminine because it seeks initiation. The dark feminine is attracted to the light masculine because it wants to initiate it. This is a shamanic understanding of why we have these two candidates at this time.
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