shadow work

She has been spending a lot of time lately doing shadow work.

Not the aesthetic version of it. Not candles, pretty words, and pretending darkness makes someone profound. Real shadow work is uncomfortable. It means sitting still long enough to recognize the parts of yourself capable of hurting other people. It means admitting that trauma can become armor sharp enough to wound others, even when you never intended it to.

She has been trying to look honestly at herself, especially in relation to the trans community and the people around her. At the grudges she carries. At the fear. At the defensiveness. At the ways pain can slowly twist into isolation, cynicism, avoidance, or anger when it is left untouched for too long.

Healing is strange because it is neither linear nor clean. Sometimes growth means realizing you were not always gentle. Sometimes it means accepting that people were hurt by your actions even while you were hurting too. Sometimes it means understanding that accountability and self-compassion must coexist, or both collapse into something poisonous.

Shadow work is not about declaring yourself evil or broken. It is about refusing to lie to yourself anymore.

There are still parts of her that need work. There probably always will be. But she believes there is something sacred in continuing anyway. In choosing growth instead of stagnation. In becoming softer without becoming weak. In learning how to protect herself without becoming cruel.

Especially in trans spaces, where so many of us are carrying years of rejection, fear, dysphoria, loneliness, and survival, it becomes easy to forget that wounded people can wound each other. Healing the community also means healing ourselves.

// Her next move matters more than her last mistake.

Lilith first mother and queen of the night
To you belong the hours after I rise
Devoted, I who bear the witch’s mark

Desired, you who sends forth sacred dark
From primordial void your voice becomes life
In flickering candle flame I write my heart

Mother, watcher since my youth
To thee my love hath sworn
From primordial void your voice becomes life

Lilith, first mother and queen of my night
Lilith, first mother and queen of my life

///

Lilith, night mother and ruler of my life
Illuminate my temple in black and holy light
Night mother, consume me in your embrace

I called to the Christian god and found not grace
Your love called out to me while falling, I chose embrace
Lead me safe goddess of infernal realm

Mother eternal, consume me in your love
And the promise of transformation to take hold of
Night mother, consume me in your embrace

Lilith, night mother and ruler of my life
I called to the Christian god and found not grace
Mother eternal, consume me in your love

Lilith, night mother and ruler of my life