Shadow-Self War
Matthew Ryan Fischer
The promise of double walking was the vast secrets inside your
soul would be revealed. All you had to do was stare into your own shadow and
let yourself go. Not the shadow cast from a light source, but the shadow within,
the scars, the broken, the other-self. That which was reflected in spirit only.
Many stared into the abyss and many were lost. That fact wasn’t
used when convincing others to try. Others succeeded but became addicted to the
process. Again, a terrible risk, but the rewards far outweighed them.
To learn the secret self, to see the world for what it really was,
to touch your own soul and come back, a better person, wiser, connected to the
cosmos light and dark. Few dared seek such knowledge. Those that found it were
forever profoundly changed.
They called it double walking because you became one with your
shadow-self. You traveled with your other, a repressed consciousness, you from
another place or time with secrets and knowledge you couldn’t possibly know. As
you walked together, you shared in that other time or place.
“We are the half. We are always half. Even if sometimes that division
does not equal fifty percent. We are still two parts to make a whole, even if
only one exists during a given moment. We are always the answer to the question
and the question that must be asked. We are the split between the soul and the
rational, spirit and natural instinct, the abstract and the concrete.”
A fine theory, but there was no way to prove it.
They assumed, as a great many had assumed, that the shadow was an aspect
of the unconscious, a person not fully conscious, recognized or realized. What
they failed to understand was just because an aspect is not yet recognized does
not mean it doesn’t live, grow, change and evolve just as the recognized side
does. Had they realized or had the forethought to ask, they might have
understood that they didn’t always want to know what existed on the other side.
If the you saw the shadow, what did the shadow see? If it existed
in this other place, a realm or dimension you could visit, what was to stop it
from visiting yours?
No one asked the right questions. They were too busy, selfish or naïve,
seeking their own future, learning the richness of knowledge and finding ways
to use such gifts in the real world. But the shadow was busy learning too. The
shadow watched and saw and learned of a whole world it had never been privy to
before.
No one stopped to think what the shadow truly was, an alternate
self or a window or a portal. They assumed it showed a truth that was worth
knowing. They assumed a window was like a mirror and it would reveal and
reflect. They assumed that a portal could be crossed safely.
Sometimes
you look at the shadow and the shadow looked back. Sometimes you shine a light
into the shadow and truth is revealed. Sometimes you go looking for life inside
the shadow but no one wondered if the shadow could follow back.
“Learn the secrets you don’t know how to ask.”
More like sell your soul for a faulty vision and allow all that is
important to be stolen, used or abused.
The shadow grew, learned. The shadow realized there was more to
existence. The shadow saw our world and wanted to be a part of it. Even it
meant killing the illuminated self. Everyone had plans to learn from their
shadow. The shadows had plans of their own.
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