Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Hi Bill I'm hoping your still out there. This is a long shot for me. You see i have been around Gaia for a few days and am looking to become part of an active chat group. I hoped that this one could be it. Let's see. Nice chatting with ya all.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Hi Alexander, yes, I am pretty sure Bill is still around. You can get to him directly by clicking on his name or picture-icon in the threads you see him in.

Greetings from someone who knows who Stephen J. Gould is !!!!!

There are MANY very active discussions going on here in the Gaia Community. Let me know the subjects, and I can suggest some. Or you can plug your topics into the Group Search field in one of the top menu bars, and check out the groups that come up. The same topics plugged into the search field in the top (second from top) menu bar will also turn up blogs on those topics, and comments to blogs often turn into chats !!!!

Thanks for letting us get to know you a bit through your profile, and the more you put there, the more easily people can get to know you and help you feel at home here !!

Feel free to call on me for any questions or assistance.

Blessings,
Rev. O.M Bastet
Community Ambassador

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Hi, 1vector I'd live to call rev. I found your profile most enlightening, and was pleased with your positive response, and helpfulness. You make a fine ambassador.Thanks for the blessings. I still can't ever look at snails the same again. I will add more to my profile, but somehow it seems a little vain.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Sorry, I didn't catch the reference to snails. Refresh my memory….

Then MY profile must seem VERY vain, to you !!!!!!!!

And if you have said all that you think is important to say, don't let me pressure you to say more.

Did you locate Bill?

And let me know what kind of group you wanted. Or maybe we can re-activate this one, huh?

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Shadowing

Hi 1Vector3(Rev.) with all due reverence, I promise. Gould loved nature an life with a passion seldom seen, as you would know, but by his own testimony nothing intrigued him more than snails. I believe he speaks of this in It's A Wonderful Life. Another favourite of mine is Joseph Campbell and The Masks of God. I have a hard time typing and this is quite aggravating as I am a quick thinker.Your profile is phenomenal and by your concern I am prompted to increase mine ever more. It is an integral part of this networking. I stand humbled and enriched by your candor. Thanks. I may find Bill one day and ask him what happened with his interest in this space. I would like to revive this site. How to? I' m in. I look forward to your views on how we should progress. Ready and waiting.

Re: Shadowing

Hi Alex, welcome to gaia and all that! ;-}

This isn't my group, actually, it was started by another charming woman, but I do have a long standing interest in the topic of the shadow, and especially on exploring one's own shadow as part of an esoteric self-development regimen.

This group hasn't been very active lately, so I hadn't noticed your posts until today, when I had the time to more leisurely look over the groups I have in my groups list.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

i stopped writing here because i was repeating the same stuff over and again.   i am still going to my men's shadowwork group and taking trainings on shadowwork.  it is more interesting in practice than it has been in analyzing.   … it is interesting to analyze (just more interesting to do).

Ww saw this and started a private forum, which was ok, and it still had a hard time taking off.  i think it was because of the confidentiality issue, meaning the forum was not strictly private, as gaia/zaadz administrators have to peak in from time to time (which i understand the need for) which made it difficult to bare my soul to the deeper collective shadows that i own and wanted to look at in a sacred space.

i'm doing that to a certain extent in my weekly group.  however, i'm still not on the edge that i'm craving.  …always more layers to the kosmic shadow onion of self/Self. 

i am satisfied with the work my group is doing.  together we are nurturing and challenging each other to speak our truth, when it is speakable.  to look deeply into our fears, hates, self-pities, and other distractions/mirrors to our power.  as a group we are growing in our abilities to support the deeper unveiling of our 360 degree multi-dimensional authentic self.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

>>> i stopped writing here because i was repeating the same stuff over and again. 

Well, thats the nature of all human conversation. It becomes more obvious in text forums because the complex stimuli of a face to face are missing, leading to a less subtle communicative process.

I'm always looking for the input that can break the stalemate. And waiting, hoping the conversation can break the chain of verbal response.

But, like Bastet suggests, the inevitable hiding of true shadow issues (because of the rational fear of social cost) makes shadow discussion a bit more difficult and constrained than safer conversation.

Safe conversation is just as limited by repetition and verbal response, tho. It just has more 'fluff'.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Dear Bill,

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

ahhh, thats arguably true, no breakthrus here or there, yet still, who knows what will happen?

I wait around, to see what fate brings our way.

A lot of the potential lies in the “molecular” structure of the people who come and go. One never knows when a person with the right structure to catalyze a breakthru will happen by.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Yes, I was pushing around a bit.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

I'm glad Alex and Bill have made contact !!

Jackii, I guess you have put your finger on it, the confidentiality issue, why this topic might not make for an active flourishing discussion group in the community – as a PUBLIC pod. It's not that the Team looks in, actually I don't think they do. But anyone from any computer can read anything in any public pod here, if they wander in.

I think it would be valuable to talk more about METHODS of shadow work that people have found useful, that would be great !!!!!!

And if there is ever enough of a felt need by a bunch, they could always do a private pod and just invite in those they choose.

I am glad your own needs are being met. Mine are, too.

Blessings to us all,
OM Bastet

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Hmmm. What I might say about that excerpt “…repeating myself..”

So did you only have one shadow issue?  haha

Or were you not discovering new insights as you went along?

And I got an idea: I have an impression that actually a lot of shadow work is inevitably involved for people learning to write, and the writing-coaching pod, Diving Deeper, is private. So that could be a resource for some folks. I think the URL is http://pods.gaia..com/diving_deeper, but if it's not, do a Group Search for that term.

Namaste, OM Bastet, Bill, like the shy skunk in Bambi movie (for kids) who says so winsomely “You kin call me Flower if you want to….” I'll say you kin call me OM (as in home) if you want to, most folks here use that as my first name.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

thanks for the info about that writing pod, i'll keep it in mind. 

i have a deep trust that everything that needs to happen will happen.  in each individual and collectively.  so i'm no longer pushing myself to do anything except breathing as freeely as i am able to and to experience my experience.

everything that happens and everyone i see is a mirror for me.  so i am that guy that swerved in front of me in traffic.  i am that girl that just told me goodbye, that she's not all that keen to be around me.  i am that “terroroist” that is wanting to kill me because i represent tyranny.  i am that republican making money by promoting a war in iraq, or wherever.  i am that african with my family starving to death in the millions. 

i am one with all.  all love, all hate, all fear, all grief, all joy, all at the same time.  on the surface this could be seen as arrogant (which i am all of that too), but at the same time it is humility, and it's basic awareness that i am all this.  and so is everyone i meet, whether i (or they) realize it or deny and repress it.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Wow, Jackii, you know the humility in the seemingly arrogant “I am all” experience. I am impressed and delighted. That humility only appears from within the experience. IME. It is a humility one can actually taste. It is in the cells, not just the psyche.

Bill I now realize I have very-little-to-no idea what you mean here, and would love to know:

I'm always looking for the input that can break the stalemate. And waiting, hoping the conversation can break the chain of verbal response.

I believe I totally get what you mean about people's molecular structure being relevant. And I think I sense what YOU might mean by “fate.” [Agnostic about what Patrick is pushing you on !!;)] 
 
Is it possible to have a “conversation” ONLINE without the chains of verbal response? Other than perhaps exchanging music, vids, or photos? I would love to know what possibilities you are aware of that I am not yet. I can see it f2f, of course, there are many options for nonverbal “conversations.”

And which stalemate did you mean, exactly?

These are significant matters, so I am seriously interested.

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves/Shadow Boxers

S**t HAPPENS BUT IT TAKES TIME AND EFFORT.
Perhaps this groups time has arrived again for the times.

I recall Roger Waters Saying “I see myself in every stranger’s eyes” A humbling thought. One can never really go back or return and that leads to the inevitablity of pursual.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

>>> And which stalemate did you mean, exactly?

Well, this is something I've been studying for a long time, since I started teaching classes on this stuff in the free university as a freshman in college, when I first noticed this stalemate phenomenon.

Conversations, wether online or in real life, tend to have fairly predictable patterns, and almost all conversations between almost all people or groups fairly quickly (as in, in a few weeks or months) reach a 'stalemate' point, in which the participants are basically repeating what they have already said.

This is more visible and happens faster online, because there is a much smaller information flow - all the nonverbal cues that add complexity to face to face conversations are misisng. But the same effect will happen in real life as well.

For many years I've thought this is caused by basic structures in teh “ego”, character structure, and the human verbal mind, and the way the word-using mind works. Explaining _how_ I think this works is pretty difficult - I use a lot of visual metaphors, and I won't even try yet.

—

One thing you will often see is the temporary 'breaking' of the stalemate when a new person jumps into the conversation. It won't be long before the new person's contributions become part of the stalemate, but for a little while, it's as if everyone can suddenly “move” easier, and make small breakthrus in discussion, because the new person acts as a way to get new information “around” the stalemate.

In a way, this is happening here and now. A small movement, a window of oppurtunity.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Bill. If there is one thing I can safely say is that conversation will not reach a stalemate as long as interest remains or a passion exists. I know what the new kid effect can do but every once and a while a catalyst enters into the mix and change occurs. And if a window exists, for any time period, it is an opportunity, or a course or a choice or even an inevitability, whatever it becomes to whomever. 
      I am intrigued with the work, more so since the most of the world spend the most of their time ignoring their shadow and projecting their fears. I see the connection that has persevered in the group and feel I would benefit from shadow work, but if I am alone I may as well blog have others view but steer clear of commenting. Kind of vain and I might as well not. It is not that I like to hear myself talk. 

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Well, “stalemate” is a metaphor word, an attempt to label a thing so as to make it more studyable. So it might suggest a greater state of paralysis than I actually mean.

It's not a true “frozen” stalemate - in the 'chess' sense of the word stalemate  - it's just that progress gets very slow. and requires a different level of effort and suffering for every amount of self-development gained.

And, the simple observable fact is that, mostly, people go. The forces of life carry them away from the conversation. It takes special acts of will, or the simple effects of fate, to create situations where people stay and keep trying for long periods.

There's a counterforce to the stalemate, in which something interesting happens among people who HAVE been able to keep trying to talk. It's like the bond that forms between survivors of a catastrophe or a diffilcult adventure.

But with this kind of work, there's always that factor, of “mostly, people go”. So you have to watch for situations that I think of as “right time, right place, right people” - periods of flowering, when conditions are ripe - and take advantage of them when they are happening.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

so you are owning your predator?  …and your prey-ness?

you have the beginnings of a chat group, where do you want to take it?  do you want to chat about shadowwork?  or do shadowwork?  or both?

there really is a lot written about shadowwork in this pod.   Ww (and myself) has written some of the best pieces on shadowwork that i have ever read.

recently, i've become more involved in the bdsm community.  i'm still a beginner, but i think they have one of the longest lineages of looking and owning shadow that i've encountered.

there is always more to investigate, if Infinity calls me to do so.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

jackii  I have been obsessed with that line since first hearing many years ago. You have explained it to me aptly and I will add that this is a  most vivid description of empathy, reduced down to predation instinct. I'm hooked! These may be remnants of muscle memory genetically transferred. or perhaps more  in line with symbolic archetypal features.
  As to where I would like to see the group go, I would like to see a piece of the text which would give direction. I look to others for leadership at this point and look forward to shadowing by the light of the fire.
    Already I sense that being here is elemental. It was quite a while that this group had been inactive and yet on my first visit to Gaia I made contact and initiated reaching out. Since some powerful entities have gathered and been in contact and this is an interesting beginning and you can only motivate others two ways, either through fear or interest and I think that we can motivate. How far and how long , well honestly who here could care as most appear to live in the now. So what's next I will try not to blabber too much. Alex

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

>>> recently, i've become more involved in the bdsm community.  i'm still a beginner, but i think they have one of the longest lineages of looking and owning shadow that i've encountered.

Sex study and shadow study are inextricably fused.

And it tells us a lot about how shadow works, that the two are so intertwined.

Altho, there are several “schools” of people who use the word shadow - for a fair percentage 'shadow' is everything unconscious - and there's a boatload of stuff that is merely unconscious, that, for example, has nothing to do with sex.

I think we can say there's at minimum two shadow schools - the bigger one, shadow as unconscious, I'll call school Z. The smaller one, obviously school Y, says that shadow is only stuff that is repressed, not just unconscious.

I'm a school y.

School y's I think have a particular interest in sex and shadow study, because one of the unique characteristics of the human social mind is the repression of sexuality - and it's to a large degree that repression that makes us so squirrely.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

ooooh, jackii, this is off-topic, but if you point me to those “best” pieces or threads in this pod, I will very likely contribute them to Collective Wisdom: The Library for Community Threads, and that will be somewhat more exposure for them.

Or you can join and post them yourself. the format is described in the obvious place first Board.

Drooling,
OM Bastet

.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Okay! So I followed a few threads and well ah. I know that I am very different, not to look at, or even talk to but when I compare myself to others or where I am, and apparently satisfied with my position, why am I so different. I see that I have issues in the shadow department to work out if I haven't already done so and maybe this is why.
  I have my female self in archetype and all is well. I live in the moment , but can fly off in an instant if I am… I wish I knew. I hate wishing for stuff because if it comes to pass I feel that I wasted a perfectly good wishing opportunity.
   What else?

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

There are no losers in a stalemate.

Re: Shadows Of Your Former Selves

Right on, Bill. What a beautiful analysis/description. You musta studied small group dynamics or something….. or just be a superb observer.

I wonder if the pattern differs depending on the purpose of the original confluence of folks. Some “conversations” are just each person inputting their views on a subject, and when all have said their say, it just dies. I think many many conversations here in the community are like that. Some are the same kind of thing, but the overarching purpose is brainstorming. (The desired outcome, as described in the next type, is a list of brainstorms.) Some are co-creative endeavors with a goal or purpose or outcome desired from the interaction. [Those are among my flavorite kinds !!]

Some are someone trying to convince someone.  Some are just so someone can vent/share/cry and be heard. Some are conveying of information so that the interaction is done when the conveyance is accomplished.  Some are the presentation of a problem and proposal of various solutions til a consensus is reached. (This is a subcategory of outcome-oriented conversations, actually.) And there are other purposes as well.

Do you think the pattern you described happens in all of these? I wouldn't be surprised if it does, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't !!!!!!

P.S. I am in the “y” camp also. For me, repression equates to causing suffering, so the criterion could be stated that way as well.

Blessings, OM Bastet