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...

Through our daily earthbound life, we recognise the sun rising in the east (northeast in the summer and southeast in the winter) and mounting the sky. The sun rarely passes directly overhead, and rather we see it moving toward the south, if you're in the northern hemisphere. The sun will then set toward the west (southwest in the winter and northwest in the summer). This all changes if you're in the southern hemisphere, where the sun will appear to travel through the north, rising in the southeast at winter and the northeast at summer, and rising in the southwest in summer and northwest in winter. The following diagram shows the perceived passage of the sun for each hemisphere. For this reason, I would place my altar in the South and draw the circle anti-clockwise if I were in the southern hemisphere. Whether we are in the southern or northern hemisphere, the altar is placed in the darkest quarter of the circle, where the sun is perceived to travel under the earth. Psychol...