An interview with the shadow, Part II

By Sarah Taylor

Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there’s shadow — no, not just shadow, but fullness. You’ve got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real.

— Amy Grant, musician

I don’t know about you, but the year so far has seemed to be about an inner search and transmutation of a particular kind: that of a confrontation — whether gentle and measured, or fierce and fast — with monsters and demons. Or, rather, with what we believe is monstrous and demonic about us. The truth tends to be far removed from what we fear is real.

It is this that prompted me to return to the subject of the shadow two weeks ago, and it’s what I am continuing with today, aided by the Scorpionic territory we are inhabiting, and a retrograde Mercury. It is also reflected in yesterday’s momentary disappearance of the Sun behind the Moon — symbolic of the light of what is conscious and understandable making way for what is shadow-bound and intuitive.

There is such a strong current available to us that I thought I would get practical this week with a tarot exercise on the shadow. What I have done in past exercises is suggest that you pick a card that resonates with your shadow: one that is simultaneously repulsive and fascinating. It is an effective exercise, but only one of the ways that tarot can be used for shadow work. Moreover, its approach is predominantly psychological because anyone taking part has an active choice in the card that they pick. It does not depend on one of the most powerful aspects of tarot: synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence.

Today, then, I’m going to suggest we use the tarot as both a psychological and a divinatory tool by leaving it to synchronicity to come up with the card that will best express what shadow work means for you.

A tarot exercise in shadow work

Take a minute or two to centre yourself, shuffle your real deck (or virtual deck — one that allows you to pick a single card), and ask that you are divinely guided to a card that you are ready and able to engage with. Then draw your card.

Make a note of your first impressions, with no censorship or judgement. Write them down if that’s helpful.

Now look at the card more closely and see what it reveals to you. Does it expand on your first impression? Does it contradict it? Does it seem to have no connection to it at all? Again, write down what you think, what you feel, and what you sense. There is no wrong way to do this.

Once you feel that the card has given up to you what it wanted you to see, ask yourself this final question:

“How does this show me my light?”

It is the answer to that final question that is the essence of shadow work. It is not an exercise in darkness; it is one of bringing the darkness into the light. We create the monsters to mask the outcast parts of ourselves that are there to be disengaged with (because they aren’t ours), transformed (because we don’t recognise their value), or embraced (because we don’t recognise ourselves in them).

If you want to share what you have found here, then please do. If you want to message me privately, you can by using the email: sarah [at] integratedtarot [dot] com.

A few things to hold firmly in mind:

Try to approach the exercise in a spirit of playful curiosity. In other words, this exercise should have a ‘voluntariness’ to it, not obligation. If you feel somehow compelled to do it while also feeling uncertain, I’d suggest that is the start of your shadow material right there, and you need not pick a card. Simply sit with those feelings and see what comes of them.

– View the exercise as a conversation with a well-intentioned and benign part of yourself that is wise and wants what’s best for you. This helps to engender that sense of playful curiosity. After all, we are working with the energies of Mercury too, which adds a lighter touch to the proceedings.

– If you feel you want to talk to someone to further the discussion, find a trusted third party who is able to provide the space for you to do that.

– Finally, remember that the shadow also reveals what you unconsciously believe to be too good for you to own for yourself. So if you find yourself facing a card that feels ‘too good to be true’, consider the possibility that it is true, and see where that takes you.

Other articles on working with the shadow in tarot:

– Journeying into a tarot card — Queen of Wands, Sacred Circle Tarot (by Emma Sunerton-Burl)
– Working with the archetypes in tarot
– Tarot — dreaming while you’re awake

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

10 thoughts on “An interview with the shadow, Part II”

  1. Got around to this yesterday 11/21/2012:

    I drew the Queen of Swords out of the Celtic Wings Spread and wrote this: She holds out a welcoming hand. Her sword is a warning. Her throne is built of children and butterflies of stone. Her face is serious. She is dressed in the sky. Her crown is transformation. She is outdoors. Rain is coming. A bird flies toward her. Water flows and trees grow in the background.

    She has worked to become what she is and wears the symbols of her transformation, which did not come without tears. But her tears watered the earth and nourished its plants and animals. She welcomes you with a stern gaze and open hand while the upright sword in her right hand does not encourage taking liberties. The prayer beads on her left wrist remind her that she did not ascend her throne without spiritual support. There are crescent moon shaped knives immortalized on her throne, symbolizing what she had to cut away to come this far. She welcomes us to walk her path, the path of love and strength. All her ages live inside her.

  2. @sarah: It was exactly that Not happening that surprised me so much. I had thought to myself before pulling the card what I thought my shadow material might be. I came up with two ideas, and my card and its interpretation were from a completely different/other, and very real and deep, place in me that I thought I had resolved, healed and moved on from. I guess it can or will always be a potential in me, and my consciousness brings it time and again out of the shadows And into the sunlight of consciousness. Thank you again , Sarah.

  3. Another quick note for anyone doing the exercise:

    If the reading confirms something you already know – i.e. if it is validating – then you haven’t reached the shadow. Dig a bit deeper. You need to find something that is simultaneously new and strangely familiar and there should be a feeling-based element to it.

  4. Thank you, all, for your contributions!

    rucognizant – I appreciated your response to the Amy Grant quote because, as PetitHibou writes, it demonstrates that a literal engagement with the subject at hand can be equally revealing – just in a different way. In this case, that black doesn’t have to be seen as black at all.

  5. thanks for appreciating PetiteHibou72………
    It was a real turning point in my painting career, when I read “Making Color Sing” by Jeanne Dobie, stopped mixing black or brown for the tube to darken/gray my colors, and began toning down the colors as needed, by mixing the complimentary color with it to gray it. ( red comp = green, yellow= purple, blue = orange) YES it DID make the colors sing, and now I teach a workshop using only 6 primary colors 3 warm, 3 cool……..+ white..
    And through that posting I rediscovered the Wet Paint website which I had joined in 2009, and not returned to because of the activity generated by my grant win & invitation into the astrology communitys on FB……..
    Today I will approach my shadow card as recomended ……….see if I get something different?

  6. Humph auto-correct! should have read:
    “In other words, careful observation begins to melt limiting dualities altogether, ushering us gently towards wholeness.”
    cheers all~owl

  7. Can’t wait to create space to try this exercise. This year especially, my life has been the 3D/4D deck, with one bellydancing close friend of mine bringing up those familiar, entwined inklings of fascination and revulsion that polarized and brought into stark contrast my own embodiment of something akin to the Virgin Mary. Mary as so often portrayed with her unattainable perfection, self sacrifice, and signifying of womb space without her childbearing stemming from any known physical pleasure or sensual abandon. Therein lies the work; have been trying to gently integrate a juicier femininity since the awkward friction with my friend made it clear how much I still had repressed; another layer of the dig ready to be excavated.

    Initially wrote to comment on the (endearingly Saturnian) point rucognizant brought up. Though I found value in the Amy Grant quote as-is, totally appreciating her point, I am also a painter and find it not insignificant what I was taught in my training — that in observing form and shadow, we never find black, but upon closer inspection just more colors. That, and the admonition by instructors that a good painter never/rarely uses black to mix shadow colors. As usual, the technical details of an analogy can often yield even more symbolic meaning, so thanks for going there, rucognizant. In this case it says that not only does shadow lend depth and fullness, it’s also not really made of “black” (a signifier of all things negative in the judeo-christian west and elsewhere) when observed carefully. In other words, careful observation begins to melt limiting dialogues altogether, ushering us gently towards wholeness.

    Thank you, Sarah, for another powerful and healing piece. (And sorry my writing is so rambling when composed on a tiny phone screen! Ack.)

  8. I have to disagree with the statement by: Amy Grant, musician
    Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there’s shadow — no, not just shadow, but fullness. You’ve got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real.
    I have spent 55 years daily working with paint and color. Black IS a mixture of ALL the primary colors (red yellow & blue) or light colors red green and blue. If you take a pure pigment ( hue) and compromise it by mixing it with black ( pigment bone black, burned ground bones…….and is LESS brilliant. AT THIS POINT I googled and found this marvelous dialogue by an anxious vegan who discovers her paints are made from animal bones/ the expert from the Liquitex paint company and several artists chiming in; “You don’t have to use bone black, the red blue and yellow mixed MAKE BLACK ( not easily you have to juggle the proportions or you get brown) ……do read it! My shadow card popped into my head, as I began to read the article. With out shuffling etc………
    Yes that’s me Saturn, limitations..Debbie Downer on the worst days……………..grateful I have integrated it pretty well at this point in my life…………

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