Had a boring, yet interesting conversation with the Shadow Woman after my latest scheduled post. She specifically waited until I was done, but this wasn’t evident when I was working on the post – that ever-teetering balance between being real and not being interested in offending others. I don’t typically aim to be offensive, but it happens and will. Inevitable, if the crowd is varied enough.
Back to the Shadow Woman. She was in my ritual space and watched as I was coming towards her. Now, I’ve said before that these…”named” entities can be donned by entities, similar to us donning a God Form in the original sense, not the modern Left Hand Path form in this case. The LHP versions I’ve read about were pretty hollow if one wasn’t advanced in more than just edgy, dark whatever. I like some edgy dark here and there, but this is more substantial than that.
(Note – I differ from others with opinions of the Shadownomicon in this area. Some feel they are only aspects of yourself. It should be considered that whether one feels they are only external, internal, or some combination of those two in various forms, you never escape your EGO until it doesn’t matter anymore and all forms assist you differently, towards different purposes. One could say magical systems, spirits, etc… should be treated the same – but is this all just EGO? – Doesn’t matter. Which is still EGO. None of it True.)
Anyway, I was coming towards the space and she asked if she could have some of my wine. 3/4 of a bottle left. More than enough to share. But I could feel she was…not going to pull that off in the current form. She would have to take off the mask to enjoy it, because it required a “more substantial” spirit to really enjoy it in the invocation/partial possession manner.
She knew this, nodded. And that was it. She watched me chop up some apples to offer the land spirits and didn’t say anything, really. Eventually, she left without incident.
This can and should be read in a few ways. It was a little bit of everything. It was complementary and a backhand at the same time. It was a respect of my space and me, while also letting me know it *could* go otherwise. It was both an acknowledgement and a disdain. It would be easy to miss or not understand it. I will TRY to explain it, but part of it is based on our history and that mask mentioned above.
Let’s back up a bit. Based on our last incident with the SW, we know she will try to overt methods to make sure we’re paying attention to what’s going on and make sure we still have some of those previous lessons from the past at our forefront or close enough. Last time, they would step on and over as many lines as possible, with some entities, say, the Shadow Woman and the Shadow Child come to mind. Others would toe that line for a while. Others toe it during their time period and then blow it off when their time was “completed”. Even after the “completion” of the Shadownomicon – which is never really over. Just more or less overt or of more or less importance. Food is a factor and you’re less of it (or should be) at the end of a run through. Moving on…
She was all polite and “proper” for this. Courteous and understanding. She was waiting for me to start to question this when it first happened. And I did. She knew I would be waiting for her to act up or cause some disturbance or in some way disrupt the simplicity of offering those apple pieces. She was partly correct that I would question it. I WANTED to think more on it, to analyze the other parts of the conversation. She knows I tend to over-analyze things.
Yet, when this didn’t happen and she knew I realized it, she took the “genuine” approach, which did cause some wondering. BUT I was set on a task that was simple and I was interacting with the land spirits. Why SW didn’t wait until after, I don’t know. I literally could simply be to cause me to question all of these things now. And while I am, I’m also not. She knew I would relate all of this as best I could. It was less than a ten minute interaction (maybe ten, likely five), but much more of my time is now spent trying to describe it and, YES, that factors into it. I knew it when she left the space.
“Damn, Norse, I just wasted HOW long on this post?” Yep, a fraction that I have trying to type it up to explain and I’m not done yet. If you’re dogmatic, I’ll really offend you near the end. Different dogmatic groups are welcomed to be offended.
When SW or the others are polite or close enough, respectful or close enough and aren’t mocking you or setting you up for something, these are rare events. RARE instances I can count on my hand in several years of dealing with them. Like four years. I can think of three and tonight’s wasn’t one of them. These are SERIOUS and usually involve them knowing you can…deal with them.
She was also trying for the “you aren’t worth upsetting right now” angle, which is the type of thing that catches some of us afterwards. She focused on a few areas to pick out and this was why. She wanted a sort of landmine to step on or a hole to get a foot stuck in when thought about.
Most of the easy things from the past aren’t going to work. Things are different. Work has been done well past the Shadownomicon stuff. I’ve done the Kasdeya. I have a standing idol/portal to both Tiamat and Zagan in my space with few restrictions in my space and Life. For years.
Things aren’t as simple as last time with the Shadownomicon in 2020. I haven’t stopped hard, genuine testing, growth and challenges for longer than a few weeks, maybe a single month.
Thus, the approaches from Legion and Co are going to be more complex (maybe), require a bit more time depending on those around me. The Shadownomicon doesn’t just affect you – it affects everyone around you, too. They get used as tools, just as we all do by the powers we curate and call forth. Sometimes, we know this is happening, sometimes we don’t. But the point is that the landscape is much more complex and this go around will likely take A LOT longer. Why suspect this?
Because I’ve still not been released from the Hatman, the Shadow Woman was interfering before she was called, and Colossal (not called) has been sensed several times recently in the past few months. Near visible shadow people were at work today and I’ve noticed them around my household since starting this so much I largely shrug it off. Some of them have been noticed by others or pets within the past few days alone.
She’s playing nice to give genuine respect, but also to try to placate when I’ve seen all of these other things in numerous clusters. Things are gathering and it’s been done with enough hand tipping to get me noticing and thinking about it.
And I’m not going to stress about it too much. Killing all the shadows I come across isn’t a genuine option. You don’t get the lessons of the Shadow People by ‘banishing’ (kicking the can down the road) or killing them. There will be some who say you can’t, but they likely have little or few real energetic skills and should probably not say much about that area until they do. That’s for a different post, really, but there’s more than one shadow person hive with significant numbers calling themselves “Legion”. I’ve met two distinct groups, the second helping someone else. If you destroy enough of them – and you’re valuable in other ways – they will broker a deal.
All right, got a bit further in the weeds than I intended, but it happens.
Point is, these nice displays can sometimes be genuine, but are never JUST that. There are alternate agendas and, given that I’ve invited them for a second go around to fuck my life up for growth’s sake, that shouldn’t be surprising.
Let me also be honest – soft lessons, soft growth can sometimes apply. There are numerous approaches to shadow work. I did several years of professional therapy after Iraq that I genuinely work my ass off for. it was WORK. Shadow work is WORK. Painful work for most of us on the path.
But we’re magicians. We almost always have options, if we have the Will and Skill to see it through. Emotion wasn’t listed, but that post is scheduled. Soon.
