I have been fascinated by shadows ever since I was little. And used my hands to make shadow figures on the wall. It won’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that is true for most children across the world.
I have noticed like me, children first make animal shadows. Mine was the deer (I suppose it was easy), dog, bird, duck, butterfly, fish – but you get the drift – mostly animals. An dnot just make but also move them tell stories with them etc.
My fascination continues. Now I photograph them, capturing them the with light – ironically I moved from moving shadows to trying to keep them still.
Growing up, we were also told by some grownups we mustn’t do that. I was, as most children, told to be afraid of the dark, there would be a boogey man waiting, in the dark room, under the bed. And our minds would make scary images of the misunderstood shadows of trees and branches. (our creativity got put to other use, we made stories that made us afraid)
Fear of the unknow – of the dark – of the shadows, got instilled and then also sometimes used to control.
Why? I wonder. I have many why’s?. What were we looking for as children? that we saw or wanted to see in the shadows or try and create them?. Was it creating a world that perhaps we remembered but could no longer see around us? Was it us somehow keeping our own ‘wild side’ still in sight?. Was is to know that at least they moved as per my wishes?
And ..
Why, as we grow up we become afraid of shadows? What about shadows frightens us when we grow up. Why is this single dimensioned obsession with light, in a way that separates the shadows?
I have often heard, when I didn’t not eat properly or walk properly, “don’t behave like a junglee”. (I suppose they meant like animals from the jungle) . Although I doubt many of them had been to the jungle to make such a statement J. I remember being amused at that thought, I loved jungle book and so the sarcasm was lost on me.
And so, the wild aspects of us, the uninhibited-the bold-the unapologetically being ourselves, the deeply feeling sensing aspects, the aspects that did not know shame or guilt then got relegated to the shadows? The aspects that only as children we could be fearlessly be in touch with?.
Seems like a big price to pay for the imagined fear of the shadow.
We also seemed to have gotten mixed up with Darkness and Shadow.
“While darkness is the absence of light – Shadow is the presence of it.”
Any maybe the darkness happens as an avoidance of the shadow?
Perhaps, delving and playing with shadows, like we once did, may help us get Intouch with the animal (anima – soul) and the light?
The shadows are quickening, for sure.
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