What Is Covered In Your Shadow?
What Is Covered In Your Shadow?
Lucky Luke, HCA, and the Underworld.
Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly - Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
The reader interview is my favourite part of doing this newsletter. Each week I get to write a short letter of appreciation to readers. It is nothing short of a fantastic feeling to vocalize gratitude beyond the easy double-tapping, emoji reactions and simple thank yous. By doing this each week, I realize how rarely I take time to give compliments.
I’m also always curious to read the answers. But to be honest I am equally excited to discover what questions the person has decided to answer. I don’t know this beforehand as I let the interviewee chose from a list. Often the questions they answer tell as much about the person as the answers themselves.
On the list there are sixteen questions. One question wasn't answered until this week. Therefore, I was happy when I noticed that Sarah had decided to answer the question “what is covered in your shadow?”. Just like I should become better at giving compliments, I ought to turn my head and observe my shadow more often.
Enjoy your Sunday!
With care,
Kristoffer
VISUALLY DISTURBING
Flying to Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
READER INTERVIEW
Sarah Basha made her search for Home and what she calls the pursuit of Joy into an art project. From Digital design consultancy in Brussels to a creative life in the Portuguese countryside, Sarah has been on a long journey. While there has been growing physical distance between us, Sarah has remained close to me since we bounded over bikes and citizen engagement in Brussels six years ago. Make sure to follow her on Instagram to feel her strong values, personality and astrology reading.
K: How do you think about time?
Sarah: I love thinking about time. And space for that matter, and how they relate. My current art residency actually explores these notions and how they influence and affect us. For me, time is precious. And the more I honor that, the less it feels fleeting. Of course, there is a sense that it’s impossible to grasp. It feels like yesterday I was a twenty something going through a heartbreak, doing the corporate job, thinking I had it all figured out. And yet, twenty years have passed.
Perhaps that’s why I often pull out photos of my babies to show them how tiny they were - a 5 year old and a 2 year old look like giants against those photos and their lives, even in such a short while, are so different.
So I honor time. I do so by celebrating and ritualising, by mastering my calendar - it's the Virgo Moon in me who likes things to be simple and efficient. I have everything in the calendar, and although I don’t follow it scrupulously it allows me to be aware of what my intentions are with regards to time. More recently, consciously connecting to nature and its cycles has also allowed me to honor the nonlinearity of time, of my own fluctuations of energy that evolve with it, whether it be an hour of day, a phase of the moon, or season of life.
K: How do you prepare for death?
Sarah: By living. By living fully. By saying all the words you want to say, by doing all the things you want to do, by being all the people you want to be, by being yourself truly.
For having accompanied two of the people I love the most to their last breath I have learnt, there is no amount of preparing for death that can actually prepare you for it. Yes of course there are the logistics of what you do with your possessions, how you want to ritualise your death and your body, but these are merely practicalities that if organised allow those who remain to tend to the process of grieving with a clear mind and full heart.
K: Who would like to give a gift? And what would it be?
Sarah: To You, Ana and Uno. A family moon chart reading. Our moon is our inner world, our needs. Mapping each other's moon can highlight how you can nurture each other, support each other, parent.
K: What is covered in your shadow?
Sarah: Jung used to say that the brighter the light the darker the shadow, and that enlightenment was being conscious of our shadow. This year of Covid has allowed me to see my shadow more fully, uncover the bits of it I thought I had healed, the bits I didn't realise still played out in present behaviour or thinking.
My shadow is made up of old stories from my past, maybe even past lives, wounds inherited from my ancestors. This year has also taught me that when we heal ourselves we heal our past and futures selves, our ancestors and our children. And I’ve learned that healing doesn't always look like a finished polished thing but rather a journey, one of acceptance, forgiveness and awareness. What I’ve discovered is that specifically and somewhat superficially my shadow is made up of shame and fear.
K: Who are your spiritual mothers and fathers?
Sarah: My spiritual father is without a doubt Jung. I always loved how he connected all beings and things through the power of Story, connecting the individual and the collective through the collective subconscious, the literal experience with the symbolic and spiritual ones, the micro and the macro.
Recently, when completing an Astrology certification, I discovered that he was also an astrologer! He too saw the connection between our personalities and the energy of planets. I am thrilled because I intuitively deepened my connection to his work and ideas, and although it was considered a bit woohoo when I started using archetypes for client branding and communication strategy, now it's cornerstone to what I do and how I do it. I love that I can address company identity and individuals’ purpose simultaneously. I totally geek out about this stuff!
K: Where do you go to get lost?
Sarah: In my mind, in pages of books, in my endless tabs, in the green hills of my new homeland.
K: What would you be doing if given financial stability and three months space?
Sarah: I’d say probably not much different to today. I've worked hard for it. Carpe diem!
K: What emotion is lost online?
Sarah: I had to google what are the basic emotions. And on the list of the ten basic ones - that didn't by the way include curious or surprised - anticipation was the only one I think is lost online. There is not much anticipation of anything online... except perhaps when the chat bubble shows you that the other person is typing or has seen your message but hasn't yet answered.
K: What question would you ask a tree?
Sarah: How are you? Is there anything I should know today?
We have a tree in the garden, an olive tree, and most mornings I start the day by heading out to say good morning to it with my children. Many years ago I was introduced to tree hugging and the language of trees, and although I don’t literally hug trees, I find there is something very powerful with just sitting with a tree, as you would an elder. I have to admit I haven't asked it anything yet, but your question is a good prompt to do so.*
K: What was one rabbit hole you recently fell into?
Sarah: Ha, I live in the rabbit hole. It’s my own mind. I was born a daydreamer. I’m constantly thinking, reading, researching, and listening to podcasts. Recently, I’ve been looking into the language of the body, whether it's chakras, hormonal cycles (did you know a man's full hormonal cycle is one day, and a woman’s is approximately 28 days), or spiritual meanings of pains. The body speaks if we are willing to listen. And this week I signed up for a course in medical astrology, which Im really looking forward to!
K: What is your most frequently used emoji?
Sarah: ❤️✨🌸🤗
K: What would you love to sell that no one wants to buy?
Sarah: Call me cynical, in a capitalist world everything is for sale, everything has a price tag and it doesn't necessarily reflect any true value. So I can’t think of anything no one wants to buy, and I can think of so many things I would love to sell.
—
*I asked it the next morning. And it's said, today have fun!
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
The physical traits that define men and women in literature.
Buy anti-racist books from black-owned bookstores.
All the tweets, all the minutes.
INTERNET STORIES
Community Defense: Sarah T. Hamid on Abolishing Carceral Technologies
Read of the week. Impressive interview in Logic Mag about police technologies. New technologies promise to keep the public safer, but end up making policing deadlier and less accountable, especially for minorities.
TestFlight Forever: Developers are Building a Better World Outside the App Store
TestFlight is the AppStore for apps still in beta. It is a controlled place for developers to test their apps with real users and less app restrictions. However, more people have started to release apps on TestFlight without intentions of ever scaling it further. I applaud.
I wish more articles on the Internet was unfolded as Weiwei Hsu’s reflection on where’s home. (Probably I should start by occasionally breaking the format of this newsletter.)
INTERNETMEZZO
“What if you could zoom out to see your tabs and browser history?” — Nate Parrott
INDIEHUNT: DISCOVERY
I’m obsessed with finding new ways to find obscure, beautiful, and random links on the Internet. Lately I’ve come across a few projects with novel approaches to uncover such links. To be honest, it is more the approach than the outcome I find intriguing.
Readup — Each day an “Article of the day” is being awarded to one of the articles shared by the users of Readup. Instead of letting the article being based on whichever receives most clicks, it is being awarded to the article most people actually read.
Arbtr — An app where you can only share one link. The longer you let your link mature without sharing a new link, the higher prominence it receives in the app.
Winning The Internet — Is an automated newsletter sharing the most popular links across more than 100 selected newsletters. Curate the curators as they say.
Naive Weekly
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly - Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
William, thank you very much for becoming paid subscriber. I googled to see who you are. I hope other readers will do the same, because your digital shadow is impressive.
Last week this newsletter was sent to 618 people. Twenty-eight people are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write this newsletter: Nikolaj, Lars, Ditte, Jakob, Antal, Cecilie, Søren, Dries, Tina, Gautier, Sarper, Maarten, Mystery, Joshua, Thomas, Mikkel, Aydo, Lukas, Hans, Vibe Johanne, Csongor, Dad, Ida Marie, Yinka, Stine, Troels, William & Angela!
Photograph by Ana Santl.
<3
Kristoffer