It is fascinating for me to see how synchronous these topics are being as they come up; I suppose that is because they are sequenced within a definite process. So I’m hoping you may be finding the same as readers. This week we are focusing on DRAGONS: those unconscious monsters that pen us into a guarded space and do not allow us to soar freely toward the fulfillment of our goals or desires.
This week for me the Dragon has surfaced while writing an invited book chapter I have committed to deliver. Most of it is ready but I am hemming and hawing about the most important piece: my own unique data and interpretation. So, let me walk the talk by engaging in an Archetype Dialogue with this Dragon that smoulders within:
L: Hullo! I see you there, hiding in the Shadow of your Cave.
D: (Snorts, pulls further back into the Cave’s interior.)
L: I need help!
D: (Dragon says nothing but steps a little forward, into better hearing distance.)
L: I don’t know if I can do this! I am afraid that whatever I turn in will be attacked because my viewpoint in this paper is opposite in theory to almost all of the other authors. I was invited to represent a competing point of view.
D: (Breathes fire in my direction, landing just in front of me; I back away!)
L: So is it you preventing me from finishing? I have one major section left to produce. The deadline is in two days.
D: (More Fire-Breath; I back into a corral; the gate closes me in.)
[Thoughts aside: I recognize this is self-protective behavior. How can I get beyond my Dragon’s charge?]
L: Dragon, please let me out. I really need to do this. We have been asked and this gives back to our friends at Zuni. I’ll take the responsibility. Could you help in another way? Maybe if you let me ride you we could scan the work in progress together so then from a higher perspective I could finish and still be safe. Could we do that together? I really need your help. I need the ‘distance’ factor.
D: [Fire burns the gate right off its hinges! Dragon approaches and lowers Her head into the corral. I clamber up onto her scaly back, where a natural saddle appears.]
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Next Day: Fellow readers and bloggers I have to tell you this: It worked! After reaching the awareness that I needed “distance” from the task that I had allowed to intimidate me, I went to the office the next day and “got it done”! I felt inwardly supported throughout the day’s work, too.
Archetypal dialogue journaling helps you to exteriorize a situation at the same time as it helps to ‘interiorize’ by “going Down/ or Within.” As both James Hillman and Carl Jung emphasized, it is important to meet your archetypal personae—including your Dragons—in their own domain, rather that expecting them to “come UP” to meet with you or to express their concerns. It is the dynamic tension between Up and Down, or conscious and personal unconscious that may in fact spark change. Stirring up the Depths can release awareness you might otherwise overlook.
Try it with your Dragons, if you would! They are not here to harm you, Really!
Better Endings 