Publishing my poetry books on Amazon Kindle has become a nightmare.  Last night, I saw all the poems scrambled into formless blobs and burst into tears.  It is tough to put my writing into the world, and when it is reflected at me like a grinning chaotic shadow in cyberspace, all my resolve crumbles into fears well-known – churning, burning discomfort in my belly, running mocking circles around my so-called dan tian – the reservoir of my inner strength, and life-force – Momus, the god of satire and mockery, himself, riding on the back of Carol Lewis’s mock turtle with the head, hoofs and tail of a calf – taunting, jeering evil-spirited blame and shame – teasing me contemptuously – lifting the mask of his face.

And then, the inner voice…

Remember that your only way forward is to become fearless, like a Bodhisattva, a path you chose a long time ago after you were extremely ill.  Stop the trembling in your heart, close your eyes, sit in Padmasana in the middle of your existence, and let all the emotions become the ebb and flow of the eternal sea of infinite becoming. Nothing can harm you in remembering the all-embracing nothingness you are. Your poems are only a continuous manifestation of your rigorous self-inquiry, repeatedly asking the ultimate timeless question, “Who am I?” “Who am I?” in the absolute eternal ‘here and now’. Nothing that does not belong to your innermost being can happen to you.

To condemn life as dark and sinister, unpredictable before exhausting all its possibilities, is presumptuous, unreasonable, and utterly foolish. You are only encountering your shadow. Declaring the task ahead as impossible and absconding prematurely are the acts of the shadow, grumbling in the unknown corners of your mind, judging, criticising, severing connections and debasing what you already know. Practice perseverance and patience to give the troublesome matters, the difficulties, and the seemingly attainable time to mature. Allow the unripe fruits to ripen and allow the turbulence in the stormy sea of your mind to subside – wait, wait, wait…be still.

I hear an old woman cackling mischievously, prompting me to show myself.  I also hear the charming calls of the Sirens to swim fearlessly in the universal lake of ‘becoming’ somewhere on the top of a mountain in the middle of the world. And then the tolling of a bell, reminding me to say goodbye to my body home, as I dissolve into a fearless particle of consciousness in a speck of dust.

Writing down these thoughts, I realise that “the only thing worth falling in love with is the word itself” –

that writing has become a way to hunt shadows, mine and the collective, continually researching, exploring, peering at the periphery, figuring out the edge of things, attempting to catch glimpses of changing and illusionary forms; pinning them down like dead butterflies on parchment with existing words, made-up words and sounds, with the fusion of words and images, looking through a macro camera-lens into the microscopic wonders of textures and writhing life, to catch the untouched and perhaps untouchable shadows in myself and the collective.

I follow Bella’s cues – hovering quietly with her when she tilts her head in the direction of the unseen shadowy vapours of nuance, the invisible currents of formless energy, moving her ears delicately to catch the sound of the silence, holding the movements of wildlife, and the windchimes of the breaking waves.  I stretch with her when she lifts her tail and points to invisible presences, feeling the pinprick subtleties of the unknown, hunting for shadows. Sometimes, she blows air through her mouth, delicately puffing up her cheeks whilst sniffing the air.  In these moments, we became shadow hunters, moments revealing the unsaid, catching the unlived and unknown, which is an integral part of life on earth, fearlessly.

Bella is standing in silhouette in the shallow waves, looking at her shadow. For a moment, I understand that the clarity of the moment’s immediacy makes it possible for us to merge with the hunted shadow, our darkness, as our other, or alias, when we call it by name.

The words we form break through the thick veil between us and the unknown.  This can only happen when we are fearless shadow hunters in a masked, opaque, and veiled world.

This encounter, integration and merging with the shadow in spirals of deepening awareness, or as Carl Jung refers to it, the “process of individuation”, requires a finely attuned mind that centres itself in the movement of involution and evolution, synchronised with the natural ordering laws of all nature.

I feel the fiery tentacles in my belly, masked in the anger of my projections, lift, and the smell of fear of burnt coffee beans and camphor mixed – abating.

It is still raining unashamedly in the dry Karoo…and I… wait…wait…wait…a momentary still point, in the whirling of the cosmos.

In hunting our shadows, we are living the questions…

This is the path Louisa has chosen.