About The Church of the Golden Shadow Ministry

It is my hope and my prayer that you will find encouragement, hope, and healing in the words I write and the songs I sing. You are not alone.

My founding charter for this e-church established in 2016, is from the Esoteric Interfaith Theological Seminary. I chose to name it The Church of the Golden Shadow. When the recovery process leads us into the very difficult shadow work required to recognize how we blame and project onto others our deepest hidden fears, the results can transmute the shadow. Fear is indeed faced best holding God’s hand. Higher Power will chase us over the cliff, surprising us with a gentle landing into the safety net of Others. Those who tread the path with us recognize that cliff. We are the tarot Fool falling into the arms of the Empress, the Holy Queen of Heaven.

Our paths are well-trodden. We become more comfortable being uncomfortable because we allow Others to walk with us. The Church of the Golden Shadow is a virtual landing place within my soul. Perhaps through my inspired art, music and writings I may touch your heart as you, unknowingly comfort mine. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen

My recovery process is just like yours. We share the same emotions and hopes, to leave in the past those demons of desire and frustration, leading to just awful outcomes.

My recovery process began in 1988 when a friend took me to a CODA meeting. I had never heard folks speak with such honest awareness, just laying it all out for others to hear. Blew me away. I was not drinking or drugging, but was addicted to my inability to maintain healthy boundaries. I attracted a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts into my life, never understanding that I was their caretaker. Co-dependency as an illness is as damaging as drugs or alcohol.

A couple years before that meeting, I was living at my lake house in Alabama and had an awful run with alcohol, pot and tobacco. I think I just wanted to avoid the new me emerging, you know? This entire episode is detailed in the chapter called “Lady of The Lake “in my new book coming out this fall.

You see, I grew up in a family where my adults drank socially but not to excess. Alcohol was very much a part of the wonderful parties at our home...lots of laughter and fun, but no nastiness. I thought I could follow suit, but apparently not. I just cannot drink without falling asleep or acting like an idiot. Not cool. It has been over thirty years since I chose to avoid the stuff, so that’s that. I guess I was lucky that I did not continue to drink and develop the neurological pattern of alcoholism, right? But I will tell you that I feel the same as my friends who were not as fortunate. There is absolutely an addictive personality type. We just seem to overdo too much too often.

We are all addicted to something, even if it’s an addiction to not having an addiction. I recently heard at a conference in Montreal, the teacher Carolyn Myss explain that addiction is what holds our life together. Maybe we are an addict with a certain life style or food or way of thinking which allows us order in our daily lives, see?

The doctor Gabor Mate says something similar, but goes on to bemoan the heavy judgement society loads onto substance addicts, while offering help to those suffering from other “ more acceptable” diseases. Lots of opinions, you decide. Addiction can be behavioral or substance using, but co-dependency underlies it all.