Your Warm 'N' Fuzzy, Vicious Animal Self: 'Shadowling' Unmasked

Life is supposed to be a game, after all, and we need to look no further than the games for children to lead the way. Between the board games of Candy Land and Shadows in the Forest lies the exquisite partnership and balance within unified duality: one with its overt message of seeking goodness and the other with a more direct message of unmasking a 'Shadowling' when it is found by the 'light'. Adults who live in Candy Land fear the goodness will run out and also fear being unmasked because no one Animal on Earth is THAT good, and without a doubt, Animals we are.

https://www.dadsuggests.com/home/2018/10/12/shadows-in-the-forest-a-board-game-to-play-with-the-lights-off

Transcript

I'm Lizanne Flynn. I'm a master healer who holds space for any Earthling as they reunite body and soul. I am a bridge for relationships between all species so that 

the heart bond becomes stronger, deeper, and more loving. I serve in the roles of animal communicator, medium, and medical intuitive, and I use the tools of shamanic journeying and soul retrieval 

to support all Earthlings in their recovery from past trauma. I'm certified as a canine massage therapist and Reiki Master Teacher. This is the Animals' iView podcast.

The Animals and I would be the first ones to validate how the swirling Energies of not only the planet Herself but also those souls upon Her can affect all of us physically first, then as our bodies translate that Energy for us, mentally and emotionally. If we pull that microscope out a bit so that it magically becomes a telescope, we could add in all of the planets in our solar system - don't forget Pluto! - their moons and the stars. Back to the microscope again for each of us, we could add in the movement of the planets, moons, and stars that we were imprinted with at the moment of our physical incarnation on Earth. Telescope out and beyond our galaxy is the multi-verse in which reside - or so we're told - potentially millions of other galaxies with perhaps their beings, their swirling Energies, their beings, and their stars. Wowsa - that's quite a bit of bang for your buck as the saying goes for each one of us and more accurately our bodies to interact with on a moment to moment day to day, etc. basis. So if of late you're feeling like Wily Coyote in the cartoons where he's been smashed up against the grill of a 14-wheeler barreling down the highway at 90 miles an hour, well, that's just situation normal, doncha know. And it's interesting to note that while we think we're meant to break the bonds of gravity and seek the stars and frankly anything off the planet to give us a bit of respite, right now gravity can absolutely be your BFF, emphasis on the forever part.

Part of what's happening according to the Animals, is that the paradigm we've created for ourselves has long been in need of cracking at its base and sending a splinter of Energy upward that threatens the integrity of the whole shebang. That means our belief systems, both internal and external. That means our cultural divisions and our human experience ancestral legacies. And most importantly, that means how we view and attempt to plan for the future for ourselves and those who come behind us. Nestled inside this glistening paradigm is all of us so just like the ripple effects of Energy on and off the planet affecting you in a visceral way, so too is your past, present, and future trembling at what is being dismantled. Because this behemoth that we molded over centuries of our evolution isn't going to go quietly and deep inside of it lay buried, deliberately so, the parts of our very nature, our energetic DNA, that is separatist, elitist, and that worships at the altar of the human Animal overall. Yeah, it's not a pretty picture yet we try so dang hard to make it that way. To dress it up by saying "love everyone" and "do good" to everyone and "be kind" and other kinds of euphemisms that betray the organic-ness of our warm 'n' fuzzy, vicious Animal selves. Because whether we like it or not, we are patterned after Earth and that is a fixed design of partnership and balance within a unified duality. We're not going to change the design itself; it's like one of those swap houses design shows that were all the rage starting in the 2000s, where you definitely rolled the dice when you took over a room in a friend or neighbor's house and kinda sorta followed their design. Except when you were paired with an eclectic designer whose tastes were the exact opposite of your friend's cozy cottage genre. We all saw what happened then; tears were shed, people walked off camera and still others said, "When can I change it back?" Because that's us, right? If it rankles us a little or a lot we consider it our prerogative to change what we don't like. It's a great metaphor for where we are now in our relationship with the planet and all of Her beings because honestly, they're the ones who are shedding tears and seriously reevaluating their relationship with us. I can hear even now, "Don't you know us at all by now?! Do you honestly think that all the parts of you that you want to project onto and blame us for haven't been noticed?! How can you possibly justify your actions of decimating the Earth, each other, and us when you know it's shortening our lives and those who come after us?" 

We've somehow manufactured this Candy Land of human experience with only good things for us that also fosters a necessary balance of unity that's made up of the yang part of the yin/yang dynamic. Y'all, it's literally impossible to have just yin because that's not the design of this planet. We have spring and summer for sure and then what happens? We have fall where leaves become brittle and die followed by winter where - at least to our eyes - nothing is growing and nothing is available to us - or so we think - of sustenance. Yet sure enough comes spring and summer again, etc. We've attempted to push the part of us that reflects this death and sleep so far away from ourselves that guess what - it takes on a life of its own. We become fearful of each other, of the Animals and the Plants, of the elements, of the planet - all because we refuse to accept that right next to our warm and fuzzy parts lives a part that is vicious and mean and hard. We like to say that kids can be shockingly cruel and yet aren't they just honoring their unity of duality by saying the things that polite society says they're not supposed to say. "Mommy, what's wrong with that man's face? Daddy, why does that woman have a hook for a hand?" They are seeking to bring into their almost blindingly light Energy fields the very thing that they know will balance for them their own human experience. Without this balance, we become overly voracious about getting any kind of "light" or goodness into our bodies and our hearts regardless of who pays the price for that. Without our realization, we become a warped version of authentic balance in soul innocence and become more vicious and aggressive and completely out of balance with the planet, the Animals, and most definitely with each other. We start to project this increasingly fearful perception of "other" onto others because we don't realize the other is us and we have become split apart from our true Animal selves. I've said it before - calling ourselves human beings is one of the worst things we could have ever done. We turn away from what we think is the horror in Nature, the dance of predator and prey because we don't see a dance where one leads and the other follows. We see a one-way street of either winning or losing and goddess forbid we have that in our lives.

I searched the interwebs for a balance to the board game of Candy Land and sure enough, there is one, thankfully. Shadows in the Forest is published by Thinkfun, and it’s a re-release of Vald-schatten - spele Waldschattenspiel -  a German game originally made by Walter Kraul in 1986. In the original version, the game board is illuminated by a single small candle. In this new version, the candle is replaced by a cute, little LED lantern. There are these Shadowlings who are hiding in the dark forest and who are being hunted by the one who holds the light. They can be placed anywhere on the board in any of the designated locations as their goal is to hide from the light behind objects in the woods, which includes trees, stumps, shrubbery, and rocks, and avoid it as the lantern moves about the board. The Seeker is in control of the lantern and everybody else cooperatively controls the Shadowlings.  At the start, the Seeker will place their lantern in one of the corners and leave the room. The Seeker rolls the glow-in-the-dark die and moves the lantern around the forest trying to shine its light on a Shadowling. If a Shadowling is exposed, it is frozen and you remove its little mask. Then the Seeker closes his or her eyes and the Shadowlings can move about the forest. They must stay on the game board and they must stay in the shadows (you have to be honest here). Like freeze tag they can unfreeze their friends at this time and put their masks back on, but only if they all remain in the shadows. If all of the Shadowlings can make it to the same tree or boulder, they win. If all of the Shadowlings are frozen, the Seeker wins. It sounds like a really fun game to play and it's recommended that you play the game in a dark room or outside at night say, when you're camping, and if you feel a delicious thrill run up your spine just now, the Animals say you're catching on to the whole point of life on Earth!

We hide from ourselves and each other because we're deathly fearful of being exposed and being known for who we are, most especially our vicious parts which, when they are exposed to a bit of light and fresh air turn out not to be exactly vicious at all. This is the predator aspect of our species and we see it as vicious because we reject it in ourselves. We don't see that strong, fierce, and intense emotion and thought are necessary at times. That's our protector aspect of predator - to not only protect ourselves by seeking abundance but to also protect that which we seek so that it remains healthy as well. We don't see that lightning-fast, explosive, and shocking action that is perfectly paired with the emotions and thoughts because we're so unaccustomed to feeling it as anything other than wrong and certainly not something we want for ourselves, thank you very much. We'd much rather make judgments about the Animals and the patterns of Earth that are actively seeking balance all of the time as abhorrent and wrong because Candy Land beckons with its sickeningly sweet temptations of more and more and more goodness. I'm hearing just now, "Yeah, it doesn't work that way. You don't have to be lost in the forest and in the dark to know that you are the light you carry with you at all times. Keeping the warm and fuzzy away from the vicious means both don't find their perfect partner in Energy so that you might have viciously warm or fuzzily vicious." See, even with that play on words we've bridged the divide between our fear of not enough warm and fuzzy and our fear of too much vicious; they were made to play and jab and frolic and smack together. Otherwise, it won't be the vicious that gets you in the end, it will be the warm and fuzzy believe it or not. At least that's how the Animals see it.  

Thanks for listening today. Leave a review and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. I offer all new clients a free 15-minute 

consultation, to schedule online go to lizanneflynn.com. Come find me on social media - 

FB, X-Twitterverse, Instagram, and Linkedin. I encourage you to sign up for my quarterly newsletter on my website where I also post notices 

for upcoming events, the starting date of courses in The Animals' iView Academy, and online psychic fairs. The episodes of this podcast are available

on my YouTube channel complete with subtitles, you'll find that link in my podcast footer, and be sure to subscribe. 

This has been the Animals' iView podcast - I'll see you next time.