The Journey Podcast May 12, 2025 The Journey Podcast Welcome back to The Journey Podcast in today’s episode Seth Gehle shares his deeply personal journey as a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse and domestic trauma. From enduring an abusive home environment with his mother to being manipulated and sexually abused by a predator from ages 10 to 16, Seth’s story is one of pain, survival, and ultimately hope. Seth opens up about what it was like to live in fear, the emotional toll of grooming, and how escaping one form of abuse led him into another. Now, years later, he’s using his voice to raise awareness, challenge stigma around sexual abuse victims, and offer hope to others walking a similar path. ⚠️ Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussions of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence. ???? Need support? Visit RAINN.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) Get Seth’s Book! https://a.co/d/hvatgxE

• Gogole AI Overview

Logotherapy is a form of psychotherapy developed by Viktor Frankl that focuses on finding meaning in life as the primary human motivation. It’s based on the belief that life has meaning even in suffering and that individuals have the freedom to choose their attitude and find purpose through their actions, experiences, or the way they approach unavoidable pain. Logotherapy can be beneficial for a wide range of issues, including depression, anxiety, and trauma. 

Core principles

• Freedom of will: Humans are not determined by their circumstances but have the freedom to choose their attitude and response to them. 
• Will to meaning: The primary driving force in humans is the search for meaning and purpose in their lives. 
• Meaning in life: Meaning is an objective reality that can be found through different avenues:
  • Creating something or doing a deed: (what you put out into the world). 
  • Experiencing something: (such as goodness, truth, beauty, or love). 
  • The attitude you take: toward unavoidable suffering. 

How it works

• Logotherapy helps individuals identify and overcome obstacles that prevent them from finding meaning. 
• It emphasizes a future-oriented approach, encouraging patients to find purpose in what they can still accomplish. 
• Therapeutic techniques, such as paradoxical intention and dereflection, are used to help patients shift their focus and develop a more meaningful perspective. 

• Google AI Overview

Imposter syndrome is a psychological experience where individuals doubt their own skills and accomplishments and fear being exposed as a “fraud,” despite external evidence of their competence. It’s often accompanied by persistent self-doubt, with people attributing their success to luck or external factors rather than their own abilities. Common signs include downplaying achievements, overworking, and a fear of failure. 

Key characteristics

• Persistent self-doubt: A deep-seated feeling of not being good enough, regardless of achievements.
• Fear of being exposed: The belief that you are a fake and that others will eventually find out.
• Attributing success to external factors: Believing that success is due to luck, timing, or “fooling” people, rather than your own hard work and skills.
• Difficulty accepting praise: An inability to internalize compliments or recognize your own accomplishments. 

Common signs and behaviors

• Overworking: Putting in excessive effort to compensate for perceived inadequacies.
• Perfectionism: Setting impossibly high standards for yourself and feeling like a failure if you don’t meet them.
• Downplaying accomplishments: Minimizing your successes or crediting them to things outside your control.
• Fear of failure: An intense anxiety that any mistake will expose you as incompetent. 

Who it affects

• It can affect anyone, but it is particularly common among high-achievers and ambitious individuals.
• It is also linked to external factors like systemic discrimination, bias, and exclusive workplace environments.
• For women, societal messages that they don’t belong in certain positions have been identified as a factor, especially in the early research on the topic. 

By Maria Popova (themarginalian.org)

You wouldn’t have bet on it, this battered rock orbiting a star from the discount bin of the universe, you wouldn’t have bet that it would bloom mitochondria and music, that it would mushroom mountains and minds, and the hummingbird wing whirring a hundred times faster than your eye can blink, and your eye that took 500 million years from trilobite to telescope, and the unhurried orange lichen growing on the black boulder two hundred times more slowly than the continental plates beneath are drifting apart, and the marbled orca carrying her dead calf the length of the continent, carrying the weight of consciousness, and consciousness, how it windows this tenement of breath and bone with wonder, how it hovers over everything, gigantic and unnecessary, like love.

It is all so improbable, this wild and wondrous world, against all we know about the universe. And yet here it is, and here we are, set on it to know that we are dying and live anyway, and love anyway.

Our most beautiful, most transformative, most vivifying experiences and encounters are like that — they enter our lives through the back door of expectation, shattering the laws of probability with the golden gavel of the possible.

In The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship (public library), poet and philosopher David Whyte captures the terror and transcendence we are hurled into as we encounter, without looking for it, “a degree of mutually encoded knowledge” with another person that touches the center of our being and discomposes the superstructure of life as we know it.

Lee Miller and Friend by Man Ray. Paris, 1930.

Whyte considers the insuperable force of truth pulsating beneath our resistance to such experiences:

Something inside the protective walls of… our established sense of our self may be preparing us, willingly or unwillingly, for an emancipation, a life beyond it which if intuited too early might be frightening to us, beyond our ability to reach.

Trying to navigate the situation, we tend to rely on the intellect to “to contrast and compare, to measure carefully and weigh things in the balance,” forgetting its immense blind spots and, still victims of Descartes all those epochs later, forgetting that the most alive parts of life are often profoundly unreasonable. Whyte writes:

Beneath [our intellectual assessments], untiring but seldom listened to, we have…. a swirling internal formation called the intuition, the imagination, the heart, the almost prophetic part of a person that at its best somehow seems to know what is good and what is bad for us, but also what pattern is just about to precipitate, what out of a hundred possibilities is just about to happen, in a sense, an unspoken faculty for knowing what season we are in. What is about to die and what is about to come into being.

It is not easy, this reconstitution of the self, this uncharted exploration of the possible in the improbable. But if the universe can do it, so can the living fractals of it that we are.

Couple with David Whyte’s staggering poem about reaching beyond our self-limiting stories about love, then revisit paleontologist, philosopher of science, and poet Loren Eiseley on the first and final truth of life.

(Image from planeandpilotmag.com)

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”

~ Richard Bach

Richard David Bach (born 1936) is an American writer. He has written numerous flight-related works of fiction and non-fiction. His works include Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, both of which were among the 1970s’ biggest sellers. Wikipedia

(Asaf from OldNewMethod.com)

December

The Master

The counting exercise introduced in November measured the frequency of our efforts while disregarding duration. Each time we remembered our work we ‘clicked’ on our counter regardless of whether our effort was short-lived or lasting. We will consider this distinction as we enter December, because the difference between a momentary realization of being asleep and remaining awake is like the difference between a spark and a flame. One is merely potential, the other actualization. The ambitious goals that inspire inner farming cannot be achieved through short-lived sparks. They require durable efforts sustained from one moment to the next​.

The main challenge in sustaining prolonged effort is the uncontrolled nature of our functions. They live in constant argument with each other—even arguing within themselves—generating distracting impulses that impede our consistency. How can we keep a steady line of effort when our movements are restless, our thoughts race associatively and uncontrollably, and our emotions swing erratically with no obvious cause or relation to outward stimuli? Throughout the year, we represented these impulses as our yields: physical impulses were represented by hay, thoughts by wheat, and emotions by grapes. We drew an analogy between farming these yields and disciplining our three functions. Now, at the end of our cycle, having the results of the year’s harvests laid out on the farmer’s table implies the balanced and controlled government of our functions. Each has taken its rightful place without overstepping its bounds. They no longer argue among themselves, as they are accustomed to doing by nature, but have become subject to the farmer’s will.

How unified would we become if we could override our body’s appetite for comfort, restrain its urge for movement, and keep it attuned to the demands of the present? How focused would we become if we could restrict our mind’s wandering and entertain only what we need to think about? How empowered would we become if we could resist self-pity, self-deprecation, frustration – all negativity, and approach our responsibilities with interest and enthusiasm? Such an alignment of our functions would represent true Will, one that keeps its course without deviation until it accomplishes its aim. Little could stand in its way.

Each method presented throughout the year has aimed to develop this unity and focus. It is an ability that can only arise through slow and patient work. It can be pushed further by attempting more lasting efforts, even for short durations of time. For example, I can attempt to maintain the sense of ‘I am’ as separate from my movements, thoughts, and emotions for one minute. A mere minute seems a humble effort, but it represents a significant advance over a momentary spark, provided the practitioner attempts it properly. A common misunderstanding is that we should quiet our functions—sit still for a minute and resist moving, thinking, or feeling—but this will not teach self-government. We must learn to observe our functions as they manifest and introduce subtle corrections that maintain our self-observation. Only in this way will we align our functions with our will so that they can become of service to a higher aim.

In due course, a higher aim will emerge from our Essence. The more it matures through inner farming, the more its talents and tendencies will surface and, alongside them, a sense of individual purpose. The pressures of Personality will weaken and we will gain a sense of what we can best accomplish, an understanding of our talent as a vessel of service. The eventual triumph of Essence over Personality will connect us with our destiny and answer the question, “Why am I here?”

Feasting is communal. The farmer spreads the fruits of his labors on a table for others to share. The same applies to inner farming: our work is healthiest when practiced communally. In such a setting, each practitioner brings their observations and questions to the table to form a rich and diverse feast. We hear questions we would never have thought to formulate or dared to ask. Others share observations we never considered, ones that instruct our own work. We witness efforts we hadn’t the courage to undertake, and we make efforts on other people’s behalf that we would never make for ourselves. The merriment in socializing with like-minded practitioners gives us the emotional charge so crucial for beginning a new cycle.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL Our projects are undertaken with the understanding that a school must give back. It must harness the talent and resources of its members to form an expression that can outlast them.Learn more about the School of the Old New Method

ABOUT THE FOUNDER I had no structural foundation at my disposal, no institution, no location, no following—only the conviction that these truths were pertinent to contemporary seekers… Drawing inspiration from the agricultural metaphor embedded in ancient wisdom, I arranged the central concepts into twelve monthly labors, creating a yearly cycle of symbolic cultivation tasks… Soon, a hundred people committed to practicing this cyclical teaching on a regular basis. This was the beginning of my school.”Read the full autobiographical note by Asaf Braverman ABOUT THE TEACHING Nature develops us only up to a certain point and then leaves us unfinished, just as it creates wheat but not bread, milk but not butter, grapes but not wine…Learn more about our teaching

A scientist’s ultimate conclusion

Marianne Williamson

Nov 29, 2025 (transformarticles.com)

Many years ago I was browsing through a New Age bookstore in Los Angeles called the Bodhi Tree. Looking at the greeting cards, my eye fell on a picture of outer space that was a gorgeous pastel panorama of turquoise, pink and yellow sprinkled with twinkling stars. As beautiful as it was I said to myself, “This is the problem with the New Age. It makes everything too pretty. Unrealistic.”

Years later, some new pictures were released that had been taken by the Hubble telescope. What I saw were photos of outer space that looked almost exactly like the greeting card I had seen many years before. I was particularly struck by all the pastels. The artist hadn’t been “unrealistic.” He or she had been prescient.

Science – including quantum mechanics – isn’t debunking mystical truths today so much as verifying them. To say people stay connected on a soul level no matter where they are in time or space is not much different, really, than the theory of quantum entanglement. Science is giving us the alphabet, but the language was already there. Science and mysticism aren’t at odds with each other so much as they are long lost cousins. They explain the other to itself.

An integrative approach to life doesn’t view different modes of knowing as conflicting but rather complementary. Poets and philosophers have some of the most practical guidance to give us now. It’s not an accident that Rumi, born in 1207, and Marcus Aurelius, born in 121 AD, are as popular as today’s rock stars. They were speaking to the science of the heart and mind before science as we know it even existed. Certain truths can’t be scientifically verified, but they can definitely change our lives.

I rarely hear mystics putting down science, but I often hear adherents of science putting down mystics. I don’t hear such derision from scientists themselves, mind you. I once had a fascinating conversation with the late, great Carl Sagan. And like most pure mathematicians or advanced scientists, he knew too much to poo poo the idea that there was more to life than meets the eye. He actually had a mystical bent himself. “For small creatures such as we,” he said, “the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Yet now, when extraordinary scientific discoveries are being hurled at us daily via algorithms and popular news sites, you almost always see qualifiers like, “Don’t worry – this isn’t mysticism or esoteric philosophy.” But what do they mean, don’t worry? What they are describing is exactly the stuff of mysticism or esoteric philosophy, something now proven scientifically that was intuited by mystics in some cases thousands of years ago.

It’s to our detriment if we don’t get over this high school level of disrespect for things we can’t explain. The planet isn’t in the trouble we’re in due to a lack of scientific discovery or intellectual think tanks. It’s in trouble due to a lack of reverence, and ethics, and heart. Scientists have made it clear, for instance, that what we are doing to the ecosystem could lead to total environmental collapse. The problem is the soullessness of those who have the power to fix it, yet just don’t care. It isn’t climate change that’s killing us, really; it’s greed.

True genius is smart enough to know something lies beyond itself. I read that at Steve Jobs’ funeral, a copy of The Autobiography of a Yogi was given to every attendee. It remains unknown whether Einstein actually uttered the words often attributed to him, “The more I know about physics the more I am drawn to metaphysics.” But we do know he said this: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

No, it’s not scientific geniuses who refuse to acknowledge the power of the non-rational; rather it’s the purveyors of mainstream media narratives who are the culprits here, the intellectually lazy elite who too often make their living off being snide. “Non-rational” is a distinctly different word than “irrational,” by the way. A Course in Miracles says that “love restores reason and not the other way around.” It would certainly be “rational” for human beings to stop destroying the planet, don’t you think…?

None of this would matter so much did not the knee jerk derision of all things non-rational have such a limiting effect on the public imagination. There’s a box, and to be taken seriously in certain circles in America you’d better stay within it. This leaves our most important areas of pursuit in an intellectual straitjacket that endangers us all.

I experienced this as an erstwhile political candidate. I had mud thrown my way almost daily, but none more absurd than “She’s anti-science!” or “She only talks about feelings!” or “She’s completely unqualified!” Really? I was qualified enough to see what was coming and to understand what was needed to turn things around. Traditional political-think didn’t tell me that. My heart did. Damn right I had a skill at understanding feelings, and I saw a massive wave of them trending in Trump’s direction. Perhaps if I had expressed myself more “scientifically” and said, “Incrementalism doesn’t exert enough force against the increasing velocity of the emotional wave”….! Silly me, I simply said too many people were in pain.

Months later a top Democratic donor said to me regarding that wave of anger, “We thought we could contain it.” But no spiritually informed thinker would have ever been naive enough to think hitting fundraising goals had the power to stave off evil. A philosophical filter isn’t a lesser one, and in many cases it’s more psychologically astute. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid, or unsophisticated, or blind to scientific truths, or that you’ve never read the Constitution, or that you don’t follow the news, or you don’t understand politics. It simply means what science itself will one day prove: that if the heart is not the ultimate decider, in life or politics or anything else, then we are headed for disaster.

Disaster has arrived. And just as love could have averted it, only love can get us out of it. Humanity needs a radical rethink – and reboot – if we’re to survive this critical moment in our history. Science wouldn’t disagree with that, but it has no capacity to save us unless we’re willing to heed what it has to say. Environmental science describes the breakdown, the species loss, the poison of the atmosphere. It’s love, both committed and fierce, which must then say, “Got it. We will change now.” Science illumines our understanding; it’s love that saves our lives.

Georgette Leblanc (from Wikipedia.org)

I think the place for religion is in a monastery where self-centred egoism can be unbounded. In real life, religion limps, in society it poisons — and what a mistake to imagine that suffering is sufficient for growth. If that were the case our planet would be full of saints and angels. Suffering kills some, spoils or maddens others: very few are improved or able to progress through grief. . . . I could not accept the God offered by religion — God as a refuge, when He should be the divine goal of a soul that contains him. He is neither a refuge nor a hope.

My only hope was in the efficacy of effort.

At the Priory [Gurdjieff’s school at Fontainebleau, France] I had the feeling of being driven out of myself.

–Extract from “La Machine á Courage” by Georgette Leblanc

Georgette Leblanc (8 February 1869 – 27 October 1941) was a French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. (Wikipedia.org)

Rupert Spira Nov 19, 2025 To celebrate the release of his book, ‘The Shining of Being’, the latest volume in the Essence of Meditation series, Rupert reads from the opening chapter, ‘The Water in the Wine’. ‘The Shining of Being’ is an invitation to return to your true nature – the intimate, familiar presence that shines in your mind as the knowledge ‘I am’. With poetic clarity, Rupert guides you to the still, silent core of your being, which remains untouched by the vicissitudes of life. Your being does not need to be healed, perfected or enlightened. It is already whole, complete and at peace. Nor does your being need to be liberated from the illusion of separation. It is already the one being you share with everyone and everything. This recognition brings your longing to an end. It is the homecoming of the heart. Available in ebook and paperback formats here: ▸ https://rupertspira.com/publications/…The Essence of Meditation Series presents book-length explorations of the essential, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, expanding upon contemplations led by Rupert Spira at his meetings and retreats. This simple approach, which encourages a clear seeing of one’s experience rather than any kind of effort or discipline, leads the reader to an experiential understanding of their own essential being and the peace and fulfilment that are inherent within it. Timestamps: 0:00 The Shining of Being 1:40 What Is Our Essential Experience? 2:40 Our Essential Self Remains the Same 4:40 The Changeless Element in Experience 6:41 Why Don’t We Experience Lasting Happiness? 9:00 Prayer and Meditation 10:02 Being Is Our Refuge

(Astrobutterfly.com)

Spiritual bypassing is the pattern where people leap into spirituality prematurely – adopting spiritual language, rituals, or identities… 

… without doing the necessary shadow work, character work, or the slow, uncomfortable process of addressing unresolved emotional material and restoring energetic balance.

We see spiritual bypassing especially in healer and spirituality circles – astrology included – where many of us quickly slip into “God talk,” high-vibration language, or spiritual practices before completing the important work of shadow confrontation.

Spiritual bypassing can manifest as:

• the “I’m above this” stance, or
• the more service-oriented form that stems from the Wounded Healer archetype

Carl Jung was one of the first to articulate the “Wounded Healer” concept – the idea that healers often project their own abandoned, victimized inner child onto the people they want to help, unconsciously attempting to heal themselves through others.

The issue is that when healers themselves are wounded, their helping can come from a place of bias or narcissistic injury.

This can manifest as rescue fantasies, control dynamics, blurred boundaries, or a subtle need to be needed – where the ‘healer’ can do more damage than good, by passing down their own wounded material to the people they are trying to help.

We all know people like this…

And if we’re really honest, we can probably recognize a few of these patterns within ourselves too.

Auch.

That “auch” is actually the most important moment.

If you’ve ever felt that tiny sting of “ouch… this might be me,” then welcome to Shadow! That flash of self-recognition is the very essence of Shadow work.

“This might be me” is the most difficult moment in any inner journey – yet it’s also where the most growth happens. This  moment of self-recognition is what makes the difference between spiritual bypassing and genuine transformation.

Trauma, Shadow, And Spiritual Bypassing

Perhaps this is why the term “Shadow” is so often confused with trauma or with the difficult things that have happened to us. 

When we focus exclusively on trauma – which, being rooted in one’s past, is astrologically linked to the IC – we cannot move forward to the next stage of the individuation process: confronting the Shadow, which corresponds to the Descendant.

This is not to minimize the role of trauma or its damaging effects. It’s a well-known fact that people who have experienced severe trauma have a far more complex task ahead of them – emotionally, psychologically, and somatically.

But it is important to conceptually differentiate between the 2, because trauma work and Shadow work require very different approaches.

• Trauma calls for trauma-informed support – therapeutic, somatic, or clinical frameworks that help stabilize and heal the nervous system.
• Shadow, on the other hand, is encountered through projection – through what we see in others, react to in others, idealize in others, or feel pulled toward in one-on-one relationships.

Trauma is rooted in the past. Shadow is activated in the present.

While trauma requires healing, Shadow requires integration.

If we consider the psyche developmentally, trauma comes before shadow. Here is the “formula,” translated into astrological language using the 4 angles of the natal chart:

Ascendant (Purpose → Ego development)
→ IC (Past / Trauma / Early conditioning)
→ Descendant (Shadow work and relational mirrors)
→ Midheaven (Individuation OR spiritual bypassing / virtue signaling).

Sometimes, when we can’t deal with trauma directly – or when the usual coping strategies stop working – what does work is moving to the next step in the individuation process: Shadow.

Shadow work can be the bridge between trauma and genuine individuation.

Spiritual bypassing, however, is a sign that true Shadow work has been skipped. The person has moved straight from IC/trauma to Midheaven/Higher Self, bypassing – or doing incomplete work on – the Descendant stage of Shadow integration.

People who struggle with compulsions, addictions, temper tantrums, or a general sense of “not having grown up yet,” are operating primarily from the IC stage of individuation. 

They haven’t done Shadow work because they don’t know how, haven’t been taught how, or haven’t yet developed the internal motivation or psychic structure required to move to the next stage.

Spiritual bypassing is something different.

It mimics Shadow work – or does it halfway.

Unlike people who are stuck in the IC stage, the spiritual bypasser has developed strategies that function well on the surface. They can delay gratification. They can present well socially. They can achieve, succeed, or even inspire others.

But something fundamental has been skipped along the way.

True Shadow work.

When we don’t do shadow work – which is ultimately the process of embracing our whole Self, the good and the bad, the flattering and the unflattering – we cannot be whole.

Even if we achieve success, we don’t fully enjoy it. We feel like impostors. We feel anxious, restless, or vaguely unfulfilled. There’s a lingering sense that “there must be more”.

The Cost Of Skipping Shadow Work

So what happens when Shadow work is skipped? 

A split occurs – the classic good vs. bad divide in the psyche. The “good” parts are embraced, and the “bad” parts get projected outward.

The spiritually bypassing person naturally places themselves among the “good ones”. And everyone who doesn’t share their views, methods, or level of “awareness” becomes one of the “bad ones”.

The “enemy” becomes the dumping ground for all the negative material the psyche cannot bear to contain on its own.

This splitting strategy kind of works – at least for a while – because it creates a sense of meaning, coherence, and legitimacy. And the psyche loves coherence: “That’s me.” “I’ve always been like this.” “This is who I am.”

But there is a cost.

The cost of not dealing with the Shadow is massive energy consumption.

It takes enormous psychic effort to exile parts of yourself, keep them unconscious, and continually project them outward onto others. There is only so much pressure the unconscious can absorb – only so much our psyche can stuff down and hide in the dark.

At some point, the bubble has to burst.

Eventually, the facade collapses. By then, we are so entangled in our own story of who we are – the identity our psyche has carefully constructed to give our life coherence – that we no longer know who we really are.

Because that virtuous, spiritual Self is only half of who we are. The other half sits in a kind of psychic exile, a hole within us that will eventually press to be reclaimed.

And it will be reclaimed. Sooner or later. In this lifetime or the next.

By us – or by our partners, children, or the people closest to us.

Because not dealing with the Shadow has repercussions far beyond our own psychological comfort. 

Shadow – Nothing Is Lost, Everything Is Transformed

According to one of the basic principles of physics: nothing is lost – energy is either transferred or transformed.

When the energy is not transformed, it is transferred. This principle explains so much of what we call intergenerational trauma.

Unintegrated psychic material doesn’t disappear – it spills into the relational field, shaping family dynamics, attachment patterns, emotional wounds, and even entire lifelines.

This is why so many children of high-caliber celebrities, successful entrepreneurs, scientists, or public figures – people recognized for excellence, achievement, or “high vibration” virtues – end up stumbling into addiction, emotional volatility, or tragic life stories.

Because the more the parent constructs a facade of being extraordinarily evolved, moral, spiritual, or exceptional, the more exiled the unintegrated material becomes – and that exiled energy has to go somewhere.

Often, it is the people closest to them who unconsciously absorb what the parent refuses to integrate. The child becomes the carrier of the unresolved.

It is this paradox that rings painfully true: the more virtuous the parent appears, the more burdened the child often becomes.

The issue, as we can assume, is that the parent is not truly virtuous. This virtuosity has been constructed – achieved by skipping the necessary steps of genuine self-confrontation, genuine humility, and genuine transformation.

It’s the same principle behind spiritual bypassing. In nature – and in life – nothing can truly be bypassed.

Acting from a “higher self,” feeling morally superior, or imagining ourselves as the “better person” can often be signs of an unintegrated Shadow.

Integrating The Shadow

Human nature is messy. We are not born evolved human beings. Of course, Shadow work is not an excuse to throw tantrums or justify bad behavior – at least not beyond our Saturn return.

But it is an invitation to accept our humanity, to welcome the parts of ourselves we might find less desirable, less flattering, or less convenient.

It means paying attention to what we don’t want to deal with. To what irritates us. To what makes us angry. What gets under our skin. What we judge. What we idealize. What we can’t stop thinking about.

The solution is not always to “take a deep breath”. Sometimes, no matter how much meditation we do or how many positive affirmations we repeat, “this shall NOT pass” – because it’s not meant to. 

Sometimes the inevitable next step is to do the real, uncomfortable, liberating work of Shadow integration.

If you feel called to explore the concept of Shadow – psychologically and through the archetypes of your natal chart – join us for a 3-week journey into the heart of this work.