Halloween: A Chance to Dance with your Shadow

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.”
— C.G. Jung

It was a sunny day yesterday and I took a short walk. At one point as I was looking down because the sun was so bright I saw the perfect shadow of a butterfly. The shadow was huge and flapping and caught me by surprise because you don’t expect to see a butterfly when you look down.

The shadow was this sign that there was something else, something beautiful if I could find it. I looked up and the sun was bright and at first I couldn’t see the actual butterfly, just the shadow, the sunlight obscured the butterfly as a silhouette. I stood patiently, and had to look away from the sun for a moment—and then I saw it. Bright orange and brown. Flapping toward the autumn trees, practically blending in.

I need to see my shadow, befriend it, and by doing so, find my own beauty.

Everyone has a shadow side, the side we don’t want to show the world. The things we don’t like about ourselves or others. Our shadow isn’t always bad, but it’s the part of us we don’t know, don’t want to know, are afraid to know, or don’t know how to handle.

And that brings me to this holiday: Halloween. It is the holiday of shadows—of bringing what most frightens us, what is hidden from us, what is unpracticed in us—out in the open. It is the opportunity to ‘come as you aren’t’—which children know instinctively. They dress as the most powerful beings they can: superheroes, princesses, ninja warriors—they dress in costumes that makes them feel all the power that they usually aren’t permitted to— and they revel in it. The bigger the cape, the longer the dress, the more pretend weapons they carry—the better.

Halloween allows you to literally live and play inside your shadow—dress as your darker side, your lighter side, you more feminine side, your more powerful side. See if you notice an ability to do or say things that you can’t normally do. Ruth Reichl, in her book Garlic & Sapphires, talks about her experience as a NY Times food critic. She would dress in disguise as a variety of characters so that restaurants wouldn’t recognize her and she found that in certain disguises she had the power to do things she couldn’t as her ‘regular self.’ For example, in one disguise, she could assertively send food back to the kitchen –something she normally couldn’t do.

So let this Halloween be a beginning.: A new year’s celebration of your shadows. A chance to bring one of your shadow selves out for a dance—out in to the light for chance to see it’s beauty, it’s usefulness, it’s strength. You could bring it out playfully in costume, or simply in spirit.

And when the holiday is over—you can still find ways to make friends with your shadows. Whatever you are working with right now. My experience is that something happens, some small piece of growth happens, some new view of the world occurs and something cracks. Something cracks enough for light to shine in on the hidden things and you can get a glimpse of the shadow. These cracks are permanent. And once light gets in, the shadow is seen, it’s attached, it’s connected to who you are.

Our shadows, the things we don’t like, can’t do, do too much of, can’t feel, feel too much, feel shame about, can’t tolerate—all these things over the years are hidden—they are our shadows. But they are also what makes us whole. Hidden in our shadows are also our butterfly wings, our superhero capes, and our dancing shoes. Take them out, get to know them, and twirl around. 

© 2015/2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

A Hope That Has Known Sorrow

Many years ago I had the privilege of working with leaders in Cambodia who were creating a national and regional response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But HIV/AIDS wasn’t the country’s only challenge. These leaders had lived through the genocide/civil war with the Khmer Rouge and the occupancy by the Vietnamese. They were struggling to rebuild their country and repair the social fabric that had been so torn apart. On one of the days of our work together, the team I was working with helped this group of 100 leaders meet in regional groups to plan projects they could do locally based on research they had done in between meetings. Under a large wooden canopy, 12 groups of eight people sat in circles working together.  

I watched them talk and laugh with each other. I watched them write flip charts in a language I couldn’t read. I watched their energy lift as they worked through the afternoon. Given the level of the challenges they were up against and the amount of trauma that they had experienced, individually and collectively, I was struck by their level of hope—hope that was rising into action.

Looking at the group I thought of the temples of Angkor Wat that we had explored during our first meeting together. Temples that took centuries to build—and I thought about the fact that the people who had this big task to rebuild their country and repair their communities were descendants of the temple builders. I thought about the fact that persistence and vision and hope were part of their culture—culture that had been briefly lost, but they were now rebuilding.

Where do you find hope? Because what I witnessed wasn’t hope that was polly-annish or sparkly. It was more what I have come to describe as mature hope. Hope that has grown up. Hope that has known sorrow. Hope that knows how to roll its up sleeves and take on the hard tasks that are needed to rebuild and repair. And maybe that’s the hope we need to be able to trust right now. The hope that has known sorrow. The hope that is exhausted. The hope that has lost its shininess –but is not afraid of getting its hands dirty—and moving one simple stone.

 The Temple Builders

The temple builders are mostly tired

I think, not visionaries, so much as laborers

engaged in moving one stone at a time

with calloused hands and long ropes using

strength and leverage and hope.

One lifetime, one corner, one stone

is not the scale that we aspire to,

we want the finished temple before us

at the end of the day, we want to stand back

and admire our finished work, certainly

not our daily labor, one simple stone.

It isn’t some higher calling that gets them

up each morning, no, that is the old woman

who lived through the dark years,

the dark days, when no temples were built,

except deep, deep in the heart

where they could not be found,

or destroyed.

She knows, though they do not, why they

must build the temples, shifting them out of their

hearts, and onto the soil, one stone at a time.

She rouses them in the dark without apology,

for she knows without them the temples

will crumble and be buried in the hearts

of those who carried them for so long.

Now is the time for labor, she says, and she

hands them a pail of rice. This has built temples

for centuries, she says, and she doesn’t mean

the rice. Someone must hold the vision, she says,

and she doesn’t mean the temple,

or at least not the whole temple,

but the single stone

they will move today.

-Gretchen Schmelzer*

© 2025/2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*Written at the end of the day with the groups in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. 2005

Thruway

It’s not the car

but the longing

that pulls me forward--

that’s what mountains do

they have a hold

on my heart.

 

In my imagination

I take the next exit

to the trailhead,

the lake, or cabin.

 

These mountains

belong to somebody.

I can feel it.

Not because they

are owned,

but because

they are loved.

 

Someone loves

that ridge,

that forest,

that outcropping of

sandstone, shale.

 

Here someone

saw their first

lady slipper,

trillium, or hawk.

 

My father-in-law

walked the same

wood path after

work each day

past granite

under oaks and

pine.

And those trees

still stand vigil

at the edge

of the field,

waiting

faithfully—

they whisper

his name with love

in the wind.

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Longing

Longing

There are so many trees,

so many arms

reaching up to heaven.

Do they ever get tired?

 

I do.

 

There are so many trees

and I don’t know

which ones to climb

or which ones to

lean against and rest.

 

When their leaves

flutter in the wind

flashing green and grey

are they nervous or excited?

 

I wish I could see

their deep roots.

I wish I could see

how they hold

each other tight.

I wish I could see

what it takes

to grow forever.

 © 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD