10. Magic - Shade

"The dark embraces everything" - Rilke

Shade is not necessarily the negative force that it has been made out to be. While light is essential for energy, warmth and growth, its counterpart, shade, is needed for rest, germination and decay. Everything in the physical realm has a shadow; this has its counterpart in the psychic-emotional realm. In this shadow lives that which has not yet come to light, as well as that which is hidden: the past experiences, patterns and emotional truths buried there.

Our shadow selves are the parts of us of which we are ashamed, which we deny or refuse to acknowledge, and they must be unearthed and addressed in order for us to heal. The shade is both graveyard and garden; it is the place because of which we learn, and do not forget. Like both plants and animals know, shade is a cool refuge from the heat of day; squash, courgette and cucumber growing under leafy canopy teach us that shade is essential for survival. We are likewise protected by the shade of our ancestors' prayers.

Without shade, we would be overexposed. There would be no space for quiet reflection, meditative safety, precious secrets or hidden truths waiting to be uncovered, nor whispers in the dark of things to come. Our selves, in their fullness and entirety, would be on show all the time and we would be burned by the hypervisibility. This is why celebrity is both a blessing and a curse, as there is very little space in the life of one who is always watched to keep anything private, or to protect anything in the nurturing darkness of the shade.

The past decays in the shade. All that we have experienced eventually makes its way to this aspect of our psyche. Both the joys and the hurts that we have endured live there. If our mental processes are serving us, they break down over time such that a sense of gratitude is cultivated for our joys, and forgiveness for our hurts. It is loving kindness, towards ourselves and accepted from others, that does the work of disintegrating and composting the debris.

However, the continual channel of frustration, anger, worry, pain and despair that comes from everyday life in a broken and unjust world often hinder the process of composting required for healing. Instead, our pains are fed by a continual input of negative emotions until they develop into toxic blockages of the mind and heart. The neural pathways within the brain towards peace, joy and gratitude are abandoned, or perhaps never had the chance to form in the first place. Instead, the brain runs on stress and anxiety hormones, which are meant to work as emergency first responders, rather than the permanent, full-time, in-house attendants they become.

Magic and ritual can help to interrupt this cycle. We can make the most of moments when the earth and her celestial bodies are in shade—new moons, eclipse seasons—to take the time to process what is dwelling in our darkness. To prevent past and current hurts from damaging our psyches further than they already have, we can name them and work to keep them from taking root, or to uproot them with ritual and creativity.

Babaylan Evelie Delfino Sales Posch suggests asking the Earth to give us stones to symbolise our pain, writing words upon them expressing our anguish, and carrying them with us, in our bags or on our persons, as a physical manifestation of that which is no longer serving us. When, after sufficient time has passed, we have had enough of this weight, we rid ourselves of the stones in a body of water or bury them within the Earth, whose greatness is such that our pain is but a miniscule speck, encompassed fully by its vastness.

Or, we can write our pains on paper and, in a safe place, burn them to ash, dousing them with water afterwards and washing them down the drain. We can perform these ceremonies in concert with others, amplifying their significance and resonance. As we continue our lives, we will recall these rituals, repeat as needed, and know that we have done/are doing the work we need to do to be happy. There are ways to heal ourselves in shade.

In the shade we can also plant the seeds of that which we wish to manifest. They do not always sprout nor take root but the effort we make to set them in good soil is never wasted. The psychic reverberations of the effort keep us focused and humble, and remind us of our own agency in creating change in our lives.

Further Reading

Maté, G. (2018). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. London: Ebury.

Nicholas, C. (2020) You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance. New York: HarperOne.