Feature Story
The Play of Light and Shadow
ORIGIN COLUMNIST | Sianna Sherman
An interview with Theodore Kyriakos
I
found myself on the edge of a rooftop in NYC with a dramatic sky of dark clouds, sweeping winds, heroic sun and the majesty of urban landscape in one of the world’s most exalted cities. We were in a yoga photo shoot, going to the edge both literally and metaphorically, in a radical dance with the elements and waiting for the perfect light to appear. The paradoxical embrace of light and dark in the sky of consciousness quickly revealed itself as each of us was tested to our limits. There were moments of breakthrough, fatigue, exuberance, forgetfulness, remembrance and surrender. This was the ideal outer scenario to reflect what happens in the inner terrain of our being.
My partner Theodore Kyriakos is an extraordinary man who helps bring to life the truth of one’s being in the way of transpersonal psychotherapy. This is part one of a two-part interview about the play of light and shadow within. May these insights serve as gateways to true recognition and freedom.
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OriginMagazine.com September/October 2011 How do you define shadow work?
One way is to define shadow as the work we do to engage with the aspects of our psyche, or the places in our personality that are more in the “dark” and have less light of awareness. It is the process of engaging with the unknown, that which frightens us, and the things we avoid, thus expanding our boundaries and our consciousness. It is this work that eventually opens our hearts, allows our full potential to manifest and the light of our being to shine.
It seems shadow work is becoming more prevalent in our society at this time. Why do you think this is happening?
I like to believe it’s because our planetary consciousness is changing. Change requires the death of the old form in order to create space for the new. The socio-economic system we have created can no longer be sustained. We see it collapsing all over the globe. This system is based on greed that leads to exploitation and depletion of the planetary resources but also of the human resources. Greed has a lot to do with a wounded ego. Greed disregards
Photo by Bryce Ward
what and who is around us, thinking only about personal gain and prosperity, perhaps feeding a deeper wound in our psyche. Greed has to do with competing against instead of succeeding together. However, substantial changes in the collective level as well as in the individual level come with a crisis and a breakdown. Crisis comes with fear. If we try to avoid that fear, then we tend to react instead of act.
We then get trapped in a circle where fear becomes our voice of authority and dictates our actions, which then feeds and grows our demons.
We can’t run away from our shadow; it is the shadow of our own light and one cannot exist without the other.
What happens when we repress or avoid our shadow?
Eventually all “hell” breaks loose, both in our inner and outer world. We can repress our shadow for a while but not forever. To repress something, to keep it under the surface, we have to use a force bigger than the one it is exerting. Both energies are part of our own
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