““HOW IS YOUR SHADOW your honorable shadow?”

““HOW IS YOUR SHADOW your honorable shadow?”

This was a customary greeting between friends in Japan, a recognition that what we reject is as important as what we embrace. I walk with my shadow behind me, sometimes ahead, and often to the side. It is my capricious companion: visible, then hidden, amorphous. A shadow is never created in darkness. It is born of light. We can be blind to it and blinded by it. Our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see. If we refuse to face our shadow, it will project itself on someone else so we have no choice but to engage.”

Terry Tempest Williams