Shadow Dance was one of those books that came along by serendipity for me. I did not seek it out as an item to read nor really research it or the author prior to getting started. A used copy found me on the bottom shelf of the psychology section in my local corner bookstore.
I picked it up for $6, sold by the cover and the tagline:
“Liberating the power and creativity of your dark side.”
Why do I call this ‘Page Crimps’?
Readers who’ve been with me for a while may remember the pattern language description from my first edition on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I’m going to start adding this blurb to future posts to loop in new subscribers as to the name and format of these posts.
When I'm reading a book, I crimp the corner of pages that include ideas or passages that stick out to me. When I finish reading a book, I then write out these passages and ideas in a notebook, generally including why they stuck out to me. To extract further value out of this practice, I pool the most broadly valuable ideas for consumption on this newsletter, once a month. My notes here however are no substitute for a good book. My highest hope would be not that this series be used as an alternative too engaging in a good read, but as a tease to pickup the book and enjoy the ride yourself.
On to it —
p21 | Below is a quote that the author suggest you write down on paper towards the beginning of the book, to commit to your journey of integrating the shadow.
Let me hear this shadow speak to me without defensiveness. I want to know what it tells me about myself. I want to hear with a childlike sense of wonder and openness as well as with the depth of my adult experience. I am ready for a shadow dance.
Not to be dramatic, but the day I wrote this down shaped the trajectory of my life for the last 2 years. I attended an event later that evening by the invite of a mentor, where I met people and nourished ideas that have stuck with me in concrete ways ever since.
p25 | The author tells a story from the bible about when Jesus meets Satan in the wilderness as an example metaphor for confronting one’s dark side. When this interaction takes place, Jesus doesn’t meet the devil with vehement opposition or disgust, rather he relates to his enemy and holds a conversation to understand his motives.
This story made me think of similar ideas from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (a great book for another day). One of the main ideas is that to fully understand one’s capabilities, they must acknowledge their propensity for evil in order to overcome it. Too often now, we take the arrogant path of assuming we can separate ourselves from the darkness inside us entirely, rather than having this courage to acknowledge what is there and take pride in not submitting to it.
‘Fear is a refusal to let in that which is threatening.’ — Dave Richo
p54 | Richo talks abut a study by Craig Packer, an American biologist, zoologist, and ecologist chiefly known for his research on lions in Serengeti National Park.
A study he did at the University of Minnesota revealed that there are 2 types of lions in a pride:
Those that accept challenges and provide for the pride.
Those that shirk away from responsibility yet share in the bounty.
Lion group number 1 accepts lion group number 2 without punishment or exclusion. Contrary to default belief, there is not hierarchy amongst a lion pride.
It is nature's fact that some do the work and some do not.
This is the forsaking of ego in exchange for cooperative dominance. The lions do by instinct what it takes work for us to actualize.
p78 | Richo creates an analogy to the self as a field, like gravity or electromagnetism. The self could be thought of in this case as the totality of one’s psyche. So why is this like a field? The answer is because fields are areas where very specific phenomena can occur.
I just thought this was a fun idea to think about.
p129 | Richo highlights that its original Sanskrit, Karma means ‘deed’ or ‘action’. He carries this idea forward by suggesting that our modern conception of karma isn’t the ricochet of our ego’s actions in the world- it is a representation of fact. In other words, he’s suggesting that it’s a law of the universe and not a superstition, that what goes around comes around.
p133 | The author creates a broad and simple definition for the shadow, saying that it is our un-lived life. He goes on to talk about how present day news media and and entertainment are acting as supplements to this un-lived life in ways good and bad.
Violent video games might go in the ‘good to be supplemented’ category, but watching a drama about how {insert B-List actor here} gets the girl, then the job, looses the girl, then wins her back might be doing more harm than good for our self-actualization.
Can watching these events in the supersensorium really null our desires to carry them out in real life? One of my favorite articles I’ve read over the last year meditates on this idea further. You can also catch my key takeaways from that article here.
p184 | Richo describes the characteristics of a healthy adult relationship as:
The meeting of I and thou.
Fearlessly intimate.
An ongoing commitment to a mutual exchange of love through mirroring attention, acceptance and affection.
Allowing each other to be free to live in accord with our deepest needs, values and wishes.
p199 | Richo puts forward an idea that feelings become legitimate in an individual’s mind when they are reciprocated by someone else. He continues with the alternative that if these feelings aren’t mirrored, a person may feel shame inside themselves and hate you for it.
He concludes this riff by noting the way to avoid this adverse self-consciousness when your feelings aren’t mirrored:
Containerize that anger and ego to examine the underlying feelings.
Easier said than done.
p205 | The persona, in Jungian psychology, is the mask that we wear to present ourselves to the world. While it may serve a purpose at times, Richo believes that the persona may inadvertently negate our true self because,
The false self asks what others want. The true self asks, ‘What do I want?’
p227 | The author includes a bold yet simple outline to address, process and resolve problems, but it relies on one thing. For anyone who’s heard of Jocko Willink’s concept of ‘extreme ownership’, this one thing is similar in that it starts with the idea that everything is your fault.
Address problems by taking responsibility.
Process them by acknowledging your own failings.
Resolve by changing something you have control over to bring closure and a path forward.
p253 | In my last post, I talked about the difference between a healthy and an un-heathy ego. In it, I explained why ego isn’t always a bad thing, and that a healthy ego is needed to weight the paths forward around us and leverage this ego to choose one among the many. Richo seems to think something similar:
We are not God, but a healthy ego is the only stable in which he can be born.
p271 | A final quote from Richo on dealing with the malicious behavior of others:
Be informed but not affected by retaliatory behavior. Let it arouse compassion, not hate. Be a fair witness, not an antagonist.
If you’re interested in reading Shadow Dance, you can support this newsletter by picking up a copy through this link.
Next week, I’m going to talk about what tradition and pesticides have in common.
Let there be light.
-Benjamin Anderson