The Shadow Lover

I hope you had a great holiday and that your new year is off to a good start. I am looking forward to seeing you on Monday. We will be diving into the section of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover that is titled The Shadow Lover: The Addicted and the Impotent Lover (pp 131-139.)

It is not easy to admit that I have inhabited both sides of the shadow lover. More of my struggles have been on the addiction side, but I’ve been in more than one relationship where I experienced myself as the impotent lover.

There is a lot to look at here. And, again, the authors make a couple of assertions that I certainly disagree with. But the spirit of the book holds, as does the essence of this look into the shadow side of the Lover archetype.

Two quotes that stood out to me as I read the section:

What the Addict is seeking (though he doesn’t know it) is the ultimate and continuous “orgasm,” the ultimate and continuous “high.” This is why he rides from village to village and from adventure to adventure. This is why he goes from one woman to another. Each time his woman confronts him with her mortality, her finitude, her weakness and limitations, hence shattering his dream of this time finding the orgasm without end—in other words, when the excitement of the illusion of perfect union with her (with the world, with God) becomes tarnished—he saddles his horse and rides out looking for renewal of his ecstasy. He needs his “fix” of masculine joy. He really does. He just doesn’t know where to look for it. He ends by looking for his “spirituality” in a line of cocaine.

Which feels painfully familiar to my own story of recovery (minus the cocaine) and this ongoing effort to become more conscious.

The other one is that: “The Bible says that ‘without a vision, the people perish.’ It is specifically without the imagining and visioning of the Lover that people perish.”

I am intrigued by this connection between vision, imagination and the imperative of having an enlivened connection with the Lover archetype that is meant to manifest within each of us. Without it, we lose our potency, our zest for life. We wither. We recoil in fear of that which we desire but can never fully know.

For Monday, give some thought to the way the “shadow lover” shows up in your life. Where does it show up as addiction? And where does it show up as impotence?

The courage to be honest with yourself, and to be honest with each other, will go a long way to bring your fullest, truest, Lover self from the shadows into light.