General Yang Xin & his Lessons in 2021

Han versus Huns

I choose this image not because I view the Han Dynasty as “heroic”. In fact I have a great admiration for the people of Mongolia. I choose it because it’s perfect for this year. Angry people with weapons killing each other. And the darkness of winter.

I can’t say I’m surprised at the lessons of 2021. I knew that the Chinese Astrologers would be right. General Yang Xin, the Tai Sui of this year has removed the mask of hypocrisy from many. My spirits were also correct in telling me this was a year would be for ending the conflicts and problems of the previous year. And finally I realize that I was correct in what I felt on New Year’s Day.

Just moments after midnight. When I felt the intense spiritual pressure on my head. I felt like a walnut that would be cracked. I knew then that this year was going to be shitty as well. Probably worse than last year.

Though I still hope we’ll be proven wrong.

But I have learned hard lessons from the General. I started meditating with him just a few days ago. And I learned to find solace in the darkness of my own soul. No this isn’t a goth thing. The dark doesn’t need to be some twisted and tortured thing.

I haven’t done shadow work in a long time. And the General has been getting me back into it. Shadow Work for those who don’t know, is when you talk to your Doppelgänger. Your spirit double. The thing is there’s more than one double.

And this double is the dark side of every person. It is your literal shadow that you cast when light hits you. So you enter a meditation and basically talk to yourself. Your shadow has all your repressed desires. Your anger and your hate if you don’t meditate with it.

If you ignore your shadow, it becomes unbalanced. Hence stories of malevolent Doppelgängers who seem to hate their living twins. Or people even killed by them. These are angry shadow versions of themselves. The first time I spoke to mine, he hated me.

Because my shadow had become the living embodiment of all my self loathing. And he hated it. He hated that I treated myself like crap. Because he was me, and therefore I was abusing him. So it was more complicated.

But after I began listening to myself, and learning not to hate myself, things changed. He’s still dark because he’s a shadow. His existence is some kind of energy humans can’t comprehend. But he isn’t violent anymore. And by loving him I learned to love myself, because he is me, an aspect of me.

In the old days, I would sleep with a girl even if she treated me like crap. Or if she had pretended not to know me before, then showed up wanting a booty call. Now I’d just tell them to fuck off. Or I politely decline. Something that my teenage self would have decried as blasphemy.

Because I learned that I am worth something. I am worth being loved. Truly loved and cared for. Not treated like shit. And believe me, that I can say this now is revolutionary.

Because I was so sad and needy all of the time (which I hid behind my playboy exterior) that I slept with anyone who offered. My shadow forced me to take a hard and good look at myself. Something I never did. I grew up in a cult. And part of all this screwing around was rebellion on my part.

But it was also that I was devalued for most of my life. Even by my family who I’m sure wouldn’t agree with this if they were reading it. They basically taught me not to complain. Because if I dared thought I deserved more then what I got from them, I was just being a pest. Or being spoiled and selfish.

And so it has taken me many years of shadow work to remove this kind of programming. It was first taught to me by my medicine woman when I was being trained in some of the Red Road. Let me tell you, native magic isn’t all fluffy bunnies and crap. I was taught that part of my healing was I needed to meditate inside my own pain. To understand it, learn from it, take power away from it, and heal it away.

Lots of discipline goes into this kind of magic. At the time I hadn’t realized it even had a name. I heard wiccans refer to it as shadow work. Later I did it with different religions. Different Gods or spirits.

And now it’s General Yang Xin calling me back to it. And I have learned a lot about myself. And I have learned new things. And I am trying my best to end bad ideas and programs. Yang Xin is teaching me to stand up for myself.

So I ask all of you reading this, what are you doing this New Year? What are you using it for?

– M