Surya and his two wives. Standing in the light of conscious awareness, we see a long shadow cast before us, the shadow of ourselves. This shadow is like a reflection of ourselves, in which we can see ourselves more clearly. Most of the time we do not notice our shadow, but when we turn to face it, we may see parts of ourselves that we were unaware of. Seeing that it is dark, we may becomes scared of our own shadows, afraid of facing up to what lies therein. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." The Jungian shadow is everything outside the light of consciousness, whether good or bad. It represents the aspects of yourself which are unknown to you, which have become repressed through self-denial. What aspects of yourself do you keep hidden? What aspects of yourself do you refuse to aknowledge? These aspects of yourself may be revealed to you through your dream...

Do you find yourself constantly questing for your deep down true self? When I was a teenager I used to really wonder who I was and how it was possible to find myself changing over time. I decided that who we are can shift from one identity to another over time, and that it was ok to change your style of clothing, the music you listen to, the friends you hang out with. It's ok to learn new things and develop as a person. I kept being told how important it was to study and understand yourself, but how could I study something that changed over time? Would my current ideas and beliefs be totally different in the future? Would I be a completely different person in ten or twenty years time? Would the future me even remember who I used to be? Would the old me be long dead and forgotten? And what would happen when I died altogether, would I be totally forgotten and lost to the world? Would I be staring into the abyss of nothingness for the rest of time? Could I somehow preserve mysel...

Tarot of Marseilles Twelve are the apostles of Jesus, including the traitor Judas. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Judas commited suicide by hanging himself, and so the image of a hanged man was associated with traitors. The image for the twelth Tarot card is a hanged man, known as "pittura infamante" the defaming portrait. Such portraits were painted in order to shame a known criminal. Often the portraits were life size frescoes, displayed in public spaces, and accompanied by a written label to "name and shame" the criminal. To depict someone hanging upside down was considered particularly humiliating. These images were effective in punishing noblemen for their bad debt, bankruptcy, fraud, forgery, etc. What this image says is that someone of high standing and wealth has fallen from grace, their ego has taken a beating. The lesson this card teaches is that an over-inflated ego will be turned on its head. The height of pride will become the lowest of the lo...

Hello there, so zero seems like a good place to start. Since moving into the new house and trying to get things organised, it does feel like a fresh start at life. I am a little bit further East down the coast, and am familiarising myself with a whole new beach. It does feel like I'm starting from scratch. This is what prompted my to change things up online, make changes to my blog, youtube channel, instagram, etsy, all of it really. It's just where I'm at right now. I am still organising my bedroom and art studio, which is full of boxes waiting to be unpacked. The living room is just an empty room waiting for furniture. The kitchen is a bit of a mess, with floor boards that need varnishing. It's all a bit of a construction site, and that's ok. I was given the mantra "my life is a work in progress" at Yoga last week. It's a good one to repeat and remember, it's ok to be a work in progress. While I am organising my art studio, I am thinking abou...

This image dates to 2600–1900 BCE in the Indus Valley. The image was discovered during the excavation of the Mohenjodaro archaeological site. The depiction is identified as Pashupati "Lord of Animals". Some authors argue that this was a prototype of the god Shiva.The Hindu deity Shiva is known as "the destroyer", the one who dissolves the Ego. He wears garlands of skulls and snakes to signify his primal cthonic nature. Shiva is often depicted holding a stag, a symbol of wisdom. He is worshipped as a teacher of yoga, music, and wisdom. Hindu iconography sometimes shows him sitting on a deer-throne and surrounded by sages receiving his instruction, other times Shiva sits in ascetic isolation. I find the image strikingly similar to that of Cernunnos below.  This 1st century image was found on the Gundestrup cauldron, the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found in 1891 in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars pari...