NA:DI:A - She of the Shadows

She is the repressed scream no one dares to hear –
and therefore, she must speak.

They say the devil has no shadow.

The Wild Woman is hunted like wild beasts – wolves and bears.
These creatures are her kin.
She is accused of being ungrateful, greedy, dangerous, and unhinged.

And when she is tamed,
the Shadow Woman rises in the mind.
We try to push her away, but she persists.
We run – and she follows.

They say:
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
And so, she comes.
She is the Great Teacher.

“No – not this teaching!” we cry.
We want another way.
But she feeds on the limits of the mind.

She lies in wait
in the farthest corners of our thoughts.
She is felt in choking unrest,
in a heart aching with sorrow,
in the neglect of our own bodies.

She holds the key
to the hidden chambers of the psyche.

She will strip away every trace of instinct – leave nothing.
When we lose connection to instinct,
we live in a half-broken state.
And the Wild Woman begins to fall silent.

A woman whose soul has been starved
may appear “pure” and well-kept on the outside –
but inside, she is a begging hand and a hungry mouth.
In that state,
she feeds on anything,
desperately trying to compensate.

The Wild Self will try again and again to rescue her –
whispering, sobbing, calling,
dragging our meatless bodies through dreams of the night
until we are ready
to step forward
and reclaim the treasure.

The Shadow presses
the Wild Woman
to the edge.

You will hear her scream:

“Not yet.”
“We’ll wait for tomorrow.”
“We’ll feel better with someone else.”
“We will not change our lives.”
“We won’t change unless we know what we’ll get.”

You hear her scream.

The Wild Woman
has kept a single spark
hidden deep in the mind.

And when the act is done,
the Shadow Woman retreats into her cave,
and the Wild Woman finds the ember.
She builds a fire.

The door to the cave of the Shadow Woman
will never be locked.
She waits for the moment
when she is called again.

That is how it is.
And that is how it will always be.

For if one truly wishes to love – there is no way around her.

Without the challenge – we cannot be changed.