Daughter of the Shadows

I've always been a daughter of the shadows. Having the power, almost, of invisibility. Or, at the very least, I learned to become invisible when I was very young.

Once, when I was 15 or 16 years old, we were driving home from a party. My Mom, my step-dad, my two step-brothers, and me. We were in step-dad's huge Oldsmobile. He stopped in the middle of the K-Mart parking lot, in a dimly lit spot, turned around in his seat laughing, and said, "Why don't you get along with..." and named my abuser.

I was stunned into momentary silence. I had only just told my Mom about it. She had promised not to tell her husband who also verbally and mentally and emotionally abused me to the point where she put me to bed with weapons, bedroom door locked, a chair wedged under the doorknob.

Finally I replied, "Why don't you get along with ..." naming one of his family members who he had a stressful relationship with. It never occurred to me that he would think I was suggesting sexual abuse, I just wanted to deflect the question, which was really shaming me as we sat there. Him laughing, the boys looking sad and confused, my mom's hands flying around like birds.

This man, 6'4" tall, 250 pounds, spun around and came after me, his hand as large and flat as a gravestone coming for my throat.

I slipped out of the car and ran.

Shadow to shadow, slipping between the boards of a fence into someone's back yard, then crossing a road and into the woods. I was terrified. There were no safe places to go. Nowhere I could be where my body felt safe. Nowhere that my heart would be held.

On that night no one came after me and finally I went home.

Mama gave me a riding crop, a hammer, and reminded me about the door lock and the chair. We all went to bed. She took me back to Dad the next day. I never said a word. What was the point? No one was going to save me.

Over the years I often moved through the shadows. Lying behind logs, still as a snake, as the police shone their spotlights above and all around me.

Moving from tree to car to fence line as a lover tried to find me after a horrible fight. Me leaping out of the truck at the intersection of the two most dangerous projects in town.

It wasn't only him I had to hide from but crack dealers, men looking to buy my body, and one truck driver bent on a misdeed I can only guess at who chased and chased me down the road in his big truck.

My body, my mind, are intimate with the safety of shadows. They are such a good places to hide, to become invisible, soft, welcoming, a place to be unseen.

And, you've probably guessed, this intimacy with shadows is one of the things that has deeply informed my work. I'm comfortable here. And invisibility has also been a huge Shadow for me to overcome in my own work. It isn't surprising that when I allow myself to become visible there are people who jump out and attack, most often women who claim to be Spiritual Teachers but are really carriers of dark shadow aimed like arrows at other women who might offer healing and compassion and love and vibrance in a way that their own shadows find triggering.

Their words are my challenge. Not words that mean I need to challenge the writer or speaker but an internal challenge to *not disappear*. To continue to burn brightly, be present, be visible.

It is hard, y'all, when the creepers come out and push their projections up into my face, tell me about their super accurate vibe checks and absolutely deny that they might be projecting.

Safety, you've probably witnessed in this post, is another shadow piece for me. My body was never safe when I was a kid. And after that I wasn't safe because I didn't know how to be. Didn't know I could be.

Now though, my body is safe. And I'm going to tell you one way that I allow myself to feel safe in this online, social media world: when people come at me with fake nice or with aggressive misogyny, or some other flame thrower that sends me into fear? I have two choices available to me and usually I make both. The first is that I respond with sharp clarity. If they are able to shift, then we're good. If not, I delete their comments and block them from my feed and my groups.

There are a lot of people out there saying not to do that. Don't delete. Don't block. I'm here to tell you: Do It. If it is the only way to feel safe? Delete. Block. You matter. Your heart matters. Your safety is important. Your being seen and witnessed is important and you deserve to be seen and witnessed with compassion by people with loving hearts who are able to release judgement and their own agendas.

Shadow Work is powerful and ongoing. You begin. It isn't something you complete. Shadow Work is foundational for my Priestess Path because it is foundational for all of us. Because it saved me from jumping off a bridge. Because I was bitter and ragey and always fighting before I started it. Now those emotions rarely rise because I have tools, I've done a lot of work, I feel better in my body. More present. Safer. Calm.

So there is a happy ending after all. I am the one I was waiting for all along. And you are that for you. Truly you are.