A Lesson on Shadow from Shakespeare

Jack and I are studying Shakespeare this year, and I'm remembering my own foray into his great works, most recently, as we read about Macbeth. I laughed as I relayed and remembered the tale of my husband Wes and I and my best friend Irene at the time all having to play the three hags for our AP Lit class senior year. I remember we were all busy, but we managed on the night before the assignment to video the scene in his barn, which was so much fun, though we groaned and had no idea it would one day be a sweet memory. We'Double, double, toil and trouble'dwith all the hubris of high school seniors, and I wish I had the video my friend got, but I have a feeling she wouldn't part with that embarrassing old gem for the world! This quote below from Macbeth also caught my eye, since all month long onThe Enneagram & Marriage Podcast, we're talking about shadows. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more.- William Shakespeare Shakespeare, at least while writing this tragedy of power and conquest (not dissimilar to the Ring in LOTR), laments through the voice of the power-riddled King Macbeth, that not only do we all get caught in the trials and shadows of life, but that life is a brief shadow, and I do get that - we are but dust. Yet while it's true that we all have cultural shadows and biases (Plato) and individual shadows (Jung), I also want to name that the characters of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, most famous for her irreparably blood-soaked hands, were wrong about something. A life well lived is not JUST shadow. A life well lived is more like a seed that germinates and is reborn and takes root and feeds others, part of a bountiful cycle of generational giving. A life well lived is like one of my favorite species, the painted lady butterfly, which, in turn, takes flight, among many generations of ancestors, its tiny body crosses continents. During this multi-generational, nine thousand or so mile journey, she flies on high-altitude winds at speeds up to 30 mph, mating, pollinating, and laying eggs continuously along the route, all so that future generations get to complete the huge cycle as well. When we are in shadows, we lose the bigger perspective and the goodness of what our life can mean, and we pridefully think we need to be above others in order to have a good life. We can't see the skies clearly, or the depths either, for that matter. And friend, if we don't take time to be thoughtful about our lives, we too could be like Macbeth, and truly listen to poor and selfish advice, the kind he took from an insidious wife who took the Eve concept of 'I wonder what's over there?' and the Jerry MacGuire concept, 'Show me the money' to a terrible level, all but forcing his hand to kill someone for power, and then he himself, without her 'help', killed all kinds of other people to protect the first killing and to ensure he NEVER lost power again. Because he did not do his own work of penance, he kept that cycle of fear and power grabs alive and well, and operated from a place of 'If I do not have power, someone else will, and my wife will not respect me.'(See how it often comes back to marriage?) His wife knew his pain point - the question of his manhood - and she used it to get him to do terrible things.'When you durst do it (kill the king), then you were a man.' She was desperate to rise to the top and thought the only way to a good life was to be better than others, and not just for one generation, but to ensure every other survival-of-the-fittest generation behind them was on top as well. What the three hags (or messengers, as we need a WHOLE blog about how all older women are depicted as hags, ugh!) foretell is that Macbeth, instead, despite his vicious attempts to change fate, willnotbe able to deter the fact that his reign will be short, only then do we get that lament above from him about life as shadow. His demise is certain when he stops caring altogether about this wife he so wanted to impress, evidenced in that when, driven by her own guilt, she takes her own life, and he's basically upset that she chose that hazy day when he apparently has too much going on to really care. Soon, of course, we see his final days lost to the rightful king of Scotland for not just this generation, but many beyond, since Shakespeare loves to give us a good tragedy. So I think, dear reader, we do need to learn from these quotes about how life is like a bleak shadow, and admit, yes, life does have its (extremely) bleak moments. But this month on the podcast, you will also find something else, and other choices you can make, versus the choices to willfully enter the shadowy places of your life or to otherwise stay there. Hope. You always have at least somechoicesas to how you live, even amid the bleak pieces, and friend, you don't have to live in a vice-filled way. We see this in Viktor Frankl's defiant optimism in the Holocaust, daring to hope- not toxic positivity but tragic optimism:'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' Yes, despite your foibles, that if you're anything like me, hit daily, youcankeep aiming for virtue, you can refuse to return a bad serve from your spouse or others, to use a tennis analogy, if they're in a bad spot, and youcanrise up from despair, and find other routes to goodness and safety that I know you crave and want to exude deep down, or you wouldn't be reading this. Even though we will miss the mark (a lot), and that will keep us humble, I hope, and I know, wecangrow stronger and wiser with time. Who helps you to find hope, my friend? Spend some time with them, soon, and offer them your gifts as well. ❤️ Love living intentionally with you, Christa PS. This blog entry was written entirely by a human. Though there is nothing new under the sun, all mistakes herein are mine. PPS. If you're a deeper diver reader, please see questions to reflect together on with me below! If you're not, but want to do some deeper diving work with this context, consider signing up for a nominal fee!