I'm exploring this concept at the request of Kathleen V., who is leading a Crone workshop in which I'm participating. She asked whether I'd ever written about any aspect of my shadow self in my journaling over the years. I immediately thought of one experience I had in my early 20's. I had just left a difficult relationship and had moved to a house with two friends near Bass Harbor, Maine. The small house was rural, built above the rocky shore facing the harbor. Behind it the forest rose up into the hills. One winter night I was dropped off on the road. As I trudged up the lonely driveway to the house through the snow I realized the house was empty. I had not lived there long, and I had not been home alone before. I kicked the snow from my boots and opened the kitchen porch door. As is the case for many farm houses, the small enclosed back porch stored coats and boots and when the outer door was closed an inner door helped p...