Step into your season of shadow...
Let's explore how the tarot helps you find safety in the shade...
Hi little coven. Please enjoy this following special excerpt from The Tarot Spreads Yearbook.
Want to enrich your soul’s Season of Shadow through a community-based journaling experience? On 21st July, I’m hosting a FREE Shadow-themed tarot journaling event. Drop-in journaling sessions throughout the rest of the summer season will follow.
My first book, The Tarot Spreads Yearbook, guides readers through four seasons of the soul, and includes a tarot spread for every week of the year. The book is designed so that readers can begin at any time of year, but it’s true that each of the four phases drew inspiration from the Earth’s seasonal rhythm, too. Summer is represented by the Season of Shadow.
Read on for an excerpt from the Season of Shadow chapter in The Tarot Spreads Yearbook, and for a peek at the first spread of the season.
Hit play to listen to me read the excerpt, or scroll on to read it for yourself:
Shadow work was popularised by the psychologist Carl Jung, who proposed that everyone has a ‘shadow’, but most people are not conscious of their own.
Our Shadows are the parts of ourselves that we’ve been conditioned to believe should never see the light of day. Jung believed the only way to grow beyond these darkest parts is to recognize that they exist. Once recognized, we have to accept them and, to some extent, embrace them.
This season’s spreads will help you begin that work. If there’s one thing I hope you’ll take away from this season, it’s that your shadow doesn’t make you dysfunctional. In fact, working with your shadow in context is the only way to function. Because here’s the truth: a shadow, in and of itself, is no bad thing. After all, on hot summer days we crave the cool relief of shade. But when we’re already cold and wet, a shadow may no longer be helpful – sometimes you’ll have to cast your shadow out, and other times you might find the shade a blessing.
To help you gain awareness of your own Shadow, I recommend drawing a tarot card to represent the facet of it that you would like to tap into and work with. This will give you focus and clarity as you move through the spreads. With this card in mind you might also like to journal your way through the following questions:
What are my physical and emotional reactions to this card?
Am I comfortable with what this card says about me, and my shadow self?
What is this card telling me about my shadow that I already know?
What new information does this card give me about my shadow?
How do I typically interact with my shadow, as represented by this card?
How would I like to interact with my shadow, and how might this card help me?
Shadow in the tarot
The Devil, as a card about vices, hang-ups, addictions, and behavioural issues is probably the most obvious Shadow card, and it’s an important one to reflect on because it invites you to consider the ways you’re attached to your shadow, and why. It’s also a card that, simply for the fact that it exists in the tarot at all, acknowledges that our vices, hang-ups, addictions, and behavioural issues are part of our human experience. The Devil reminds us that shit happens, and so do shadows.
The Tower, which directly follows the Devil in the Major Arcana sequence, is a card about the consequences of both ignoring and casting a light on your shadow. The Tower tends to have two meanings: it’s about epiphany, or it’s about destruction. In either case, it’s about things crashing down – and shadow work will do that. When you ignore your shadow, forces outside your control tear you down and you’re ill-equipped to deal with it. When you acknowledge and embrace your shadow, something else happens – you tear down the walls that you built to hide within.
The Moon and the High Priestess look at shadow from a slightly different angle – bringing to light the strangeness, the depth, the subconscious, and natural power of the shadow on our lives. The visual motifs of the High Priestess suggest a perfect balance of light and shadow, and the wisdom that comes from studying your own shadow and light sides. The Moon, on the other hand, captures the experience of being out of your own depth… the strange, dream-like quality of what’s going on outside your conscious experience. The card advises you to accept that there may be parts of yourself that you never understand.
Meanwhile, the Sun and Judgment both illustrate the brilliance that comes with casting a light on our shadow. Freedom, acceptance, integration – these can feel like they’re a million miles away from the dark parts of us, but they’re merely the flip side.
Shadow is present throughout the suits of the tarot, too – most strongly in the Swords. But the truth is, you’ll find shadows wherever you look for them in the tarot.
Reminder
As you move through this season, I hope you’ll come to the same conclusion about shadow that I have: the work we do to understand and embrace and challenge our shadow self is not inherently dark or light. It’s not good or evil. It’s just human. Seeing and honouring the reality of your shadow is nothing more or less than an exercise in honouring your humanity and everything that that encompasses.
The tarot, as a visual system, is incredibly adept at capturing light and shadow in one image in a way words can’t – so look to the tarot as a mirror this season. See yourself in every slant of light and dark and know your depth, your humanity, comes from the combination of those qualities.
The Season of Shadow Intentions Spread
Embracing and confronting your shadow are the twin pillars of shadow work – you need to do both. This spread will help you look at your shadow from different angles so that you can get an idea of the gifts and the challenges it may offer you this season.
To set intentions for the Season of Shadow using this spread, shuffle your deck and lay three cards out before you, according to the following prompts:
How I can embrace my shadow this season
How I can challenge my shadow this season
How can I take care of myself while I work through the Season of Shadow?
Join me on the 21st of July to journal through this spread live, and have the chance to ask me questions about the cards you pulled, your Season of Shadow journey, or other broader tarot topics. Click here to sign up.
Join the conversation in the comments:
What did this piece bring up for you? I’d love to know:
What does Shadow mean to you?
How will you step into your own Season of Shadow?
What tarot cards help do you relate with the theme of Shadow?
Anything else you’d like to share?
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Thanks for reading x
I love this line and am going to use it as a mantra this month (and beyond): "See yourself in every slant of light and dark and know your depth, your humanity, comes from the combination of those qualities."