Shadows

Today's news, probably more starkly than usually, is about what people see and and how they interpret it.   When we see what's real, who do we interpret it?  When we see shadows of what's real, how do we interpret it?  

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the interpretation of shadows of shadows (can shadows have shadows?) coming out of the US administration these days.  There is so much focus on shadows rather than on the thing itself, and shadows of things that aren't that important.   Wiretaps?  Budget cuts?  Everyone acting as if the shadow in the white house is an actual president.

So I thought it might be best to just focus today on shadows and their interpretations.

Some thoughts from others on shadows:

“What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
― C.G. Jung 

“It's part of what we call the Shadow, all the dark parts of us we can't face. It's the thing that, if we don't deal with it, eventually poisons our lives.”
― Michael Gruber, The Good Son  

“Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains 

“One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.”
― Jean Rhys, Quartet 

“I consider a dream like I consider a shadow,” answered Caeiro, with his usual divine, unexpected promptitude. “A shadow is real, but it’s less real than a rock. A dream is real — if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be a dream — but less real than a thing. That’s what being real is like.”
― Álvaro de Campos

“Facts are delusion," he said. "They are a delusion of truth as a mirage is a delusion of sight. The real facts lie in people's minds and not in fingerprints and books and photographs and all the other physical things which are only the accidents that occur as a result of what lies in the mind. Truth is a matter of the mind and all else is only a blurred shadow to reconstruct the original image. Bit it is the image we are searching for.”
― Leonard Holton, Out of the Depths