Your Wild Mind - The West and Our Shadows

<p>This is the <i>final</i> episode in our 4-part series on our Wild Minds, based on the book of the same name by Bill Plotkin. If you missed any of the previous parts, I’d encourage you to check them all out - links in the resources!<br /> </p><p>This week, we’re talking about the West, where the mystery and the qualities of Soul lie. I love the depths, mystery, and romance with the Divine that are available to us in the West.<br /> </p><p>The West is where the sun sets, bringing us into the night, and the darkness. In the same way, it brings us into the darkness of our psyche, turning us inward and wondering about the meaning of things within ourselves.<br /> </p><p>It’s often paired with mystery and shadow. Think of the repressed, “forbidden,” unconscious pieces of the psyche. Those are in the West – and while they may seem intimidating, they are also juicy AF.<br /> </p><p>Why do I find the West so delicious, when it has to do with things like darkness, fear, death, grief, or the unknown? And why even <i>begin </i>this journey into the Mystery?<br /> </p><p>In the facet of the West, we can glimpse and be taken over by the version of who we were meant to be in this lifetime. This “death” of sorts of our prevoius selves allows us to reshape, like a caterpillar dissolving so we can eventually express our <strong>true </strong>identity, like a butterfly.<br /> </p><p>This facet of the West can be called our Inner Beloved, Muse, Soul Guide...I personally identify my work as a Guide in the West as being a Soul Midwife.<br /> </p><p>When we experience love in the West it’s like romance... like that profound love you feel that you just know you’re totally screwed when you feel it. Bill Plotkin says it promises to “devastate us in all the right ways,” and I have found that to be 100% true.<br /> </p><p>This romance isn’t just with another human - it’s being entranced by sunsets and sunrises, raging rivers and babbling brooks, raunchy dance parties under the stars and the delicate flutter of ballet slippers. It being i