Shadows

It’s almost 3 am. I squint at my feet in the shower while hot water washes over me and notice a shadow within my shadow. I move back. One shadow. I move forward under the bathroom light and a darker shadow within my shadow appears. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? My shadow has a shadow. Surely this is a metaphor for the darker side of our inner nature? I shiver at the thought. I need to go to bed.

I was fascinated by my own shadow when I was young. I remember one evening, in particular, running up and down my grandparents’ driveway, lit up by the white light of the full moon. I could see my night shadow. I befriended her. I even tried to outrun her. But she was my equal. She became my companion when everyone else went inside. I spoke to her. She was part of me. 

As I got older, different shadows came to visit me. Those night figures were not my friends. They would float from the dark hallway and glide over to me. They would lurk by my bedside and reach for my face. They scared me. Sometimes they seeped out of my bedroom walls and tried to climb inside my mouth. Their shifting dark features existed in a smoky haze. Where had my moon shadow gone? What horrified me the most was the thought that one day when I die, I too would become an eerie faceless shadow. 

Are illusions shadows of the mind? Perhaps some of us spend our lives living in fear of our own shadow, casting shadows within shadows. But without a source of light, we all live in darkness. The more light there is, the stronger our shadows can be. Our clearer, defined, recognisable moon shadows can be with us too. 

Sources of actual light cannot be recreated by the sun or the moon in paintings and photography, just represented through the use of shadows. An image can only implant the idea that light is being used, and this illusion can provoke emotions that manifest an experience of reality.

Shadows are both real and unreal.