I was back in 1959 wound as tight as the top I sent spinning on Christmas morning. In a flash, I was a child again, throwing an inner tantrum. Of course it was private; admitting it out loud might release the monster, living under my bed, to come out bigger than my skills as Shadow Whisperer could handle.
Shoving it out-of-the-way was my first inclination. Shadow Whisperer reminded me to sit with my reaction and discern the message by mining for treasures in what seemed negative.
Days later an uplifting circumstance took me to a summer in my adolescence. My hula-hoop and I whirled in perfect rhythm. I found an effortless connection. I claimed that this was the truer I. Shadow Whisperer harked back, “neither top nor hula-hoop have betrayed you”.
Giving my head a good shake, I came back to the present with metaphorical toys, for grown up challenges; coy questioning, manipulating for answers without ever having to risk emotionally or perhaps sophisticated falsifications, vying for position, rather than humbling ourselves before one another.
Journeying together, we heal and hinder each other. When we tend our experiences, we are able to heal, through our sacred wounds, rather than piling additional hurt onto blameless bystanders.
Shadow Whisperer reminds me to look at the underbelly of things. The random path of a top, out of control, may hold valuable information, take a breath, take a stand, consider the origin of a reaction or simply let go.
Sometimes I find a graceful rhythm in life, as I once did with my hula-hoop. It does not happen when I refuse the arduous parts of myself, but rather when I embrace the whole of me. In accepting the entire story, I am able to offer a little more space to others, when they spin out of control.
As I move with regularity to the tempo of the hoop, Shadow Whisperer begs courage from my agile spiraling to find that one glorious spin in my toy top, the gift in what’s underneath that waits to draw me deeper into authenticity. In that moment, transformation of the perpetrators, within me, begins.