Dig Deeply for the Gold

 

The underworld is a realm of only psyche, a purely psychical World. What one meets there is soul, as the figures Ulysses meets—Ajax,Anticlea, Agamemnon—are called psyches, and the way they move is compared with dreams; or to say this in another way, underworld is the mythological style of describing a psychological cosmos. – James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld

As we have begun this new annual cycle in mid-November, this month’s process is a shorter version of a full monthly cycle. Let’s complete this month by considering how you might combine the Better Endings Life Metaphor of LIFE IS A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY with the DESCENDER Archetype Ally. How might your Descender traits help you to manifest your golden aspirations?

First we can look for some parallels to this pairing of metaphor and archetype, in popular or mythic tales, or in your own life and dreams. An excellent mythic parallel is Theseus and the Minotaur.  In his life adventure en route to assuming his father’s throne in Thebes, Theseus goes to rescue a group of his compatriots who have been captured by the King of Minos to be fed to the monstrous half-bull/half-man Minotaur. The Minotaur and the sacrificial prisoners are hidden deeply within a labyrinth; a maze nearly impossible for one to escape from.

Theseus receives a special gift from King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, who is taken with the handsome lad. She gives him a skein of golden thread that Theseus can unwind as he enters the labyrinth, so he can escape by following this thread out again after defeating the Minotaur, manos a manos.

 

Theseus, as fate would decree, does kill the monstrous foe, freeing his compatriots, who all escape with him by following the golden thread. Theseus and his men depart Minos (without Ariadne). As they approach Thebes, accidentally a wrong colored flag is displayed on the boat, leading Theseus’s father to believe Theseus has died. The King attacks and is killed in the ensuing battle, resulting in Theseus assuming the throne sooner than otherwise.

Entering the mysterious Labyrinth is a classic image of Descent, as walking a religious labyrinth likewise can guide you pensively to a heartful core or Center from which you may then re-emerge. So, how can your Descender help you to achieve a golden opportunity in your life? What does the golden thread of Ariadne represent to you? What is it in your own life?

For me, for example, I would say it is spirituality. This is a thread I have followed for as long as I remember in this life, and I continue to follow its winding Song.

One flake from the wall of a gold mine does not give much idea what it is like when the sun shines down inside and turns the air and the workers golden.

 – (Rumi: “Word Fog”, The Big Red Book, pg. 149-150)

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I welcome your Comments and Stories!

 

 

Alchemical Pairing: Metaphor Plus Archetype

Life is a Golden Opportunity, as an envisioning metaphor, reminds me of the concept of Emptiness expressed in the Tao Te Ching:

Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching:  

  Thirty spokes unite at one hub to make a wheel, But what is missing makes it useful.

Clay is shaped into a bowl,
But it is the empty space that makes it useful.

Cut out doors and windows make a room,
But its empty space makes it useful.

So, what is there is beneficial –
But what is not there makes things useful.

From the unknown the known emerges; from an appreciation of infinite potential, all is possible.

So allow me to explain further what this new year at Life Paths for Better Endings aims to provide for you. Week One of every month I will present a positive Life Path Metaphor which we will explore and that you can contemplate in relation to your own life.  Week Two presents a relevant monthly Archetypal character image based on Dr. Charles Bebeau’s approach to archetypal psychology which he derived from Sumerian mythology and astrology.  Week Three–beginning in December–will invite you to combine the monthly Life Metaphor with the monthly archetype in such fashion as to consider how you can harness the character Strengths of this Archetypal Ally in realizing the positive potentials of the monthly Life Metaphor. At this stage you will be combining two “elements,” one conceptual/schematic (the affirmative Life Metaphor) and the other personal, based on the ‘personal unconscious’ architecture of your own Psyche in Carl Jung’s or James Hillman’s terms. Then, in Week Four every month, this blog will explore results from combining these elements, both in our own lives and in popular stories, mythology, or in the universe at large.

 

In other words, each month I will be inviting you to engage an alchemical sort of psychological pairing process, bringing positively oriented Life Metaphors into conjunction with Archetypal Ally energies to help you develop understandings about your own Better Endings potentials. So then, Life is a Golden Opportunity; it offers the opportunity to fashion something “golden” out of the raw materials of present conditions in relation to your goals and Dreams.

  

This monthly process was made more clear to me last Sunday night, while I was contemplating by using Life is a Golden Opportunity as a mantra in relation to my own life. Knowing that the November archetype I will be presenting for you next week is The Descender, I asked inwardly of my own inner guidance to be shown how my own Descender energy might align with this month’s Golden Opportunity metaphor. In my dreaming that night I was shown how the most deeply challenging situations and relationships in my life have offered the greatest opportunities for learning and for personal growth or development. Rather than avoiding those situations that tend to bring out ‘the worst’ in myself or in others I am placed in association with, if I embrace the opportunity for growth and new awareness, I can change how I deal with such situations and TRANSFORM the conditions underlying that situation altogether.

To be clearer with you about what my dream revealed, it showed me seated between two people who are so different in outlook and personality from me that we have generally irritated one another to such an extent that for over 15-20 years we have chosen to simply avoid one another altogether, “giving space.” No overt problem due to our avoidance, but in my dream I came to understand that these few uncomfortable relationships are spiritually neither accidental nor meaningless. Being positioned in relation to people with extremely opposing philosophical or theoretical outlooks on life offers me a tremendously “golden opportunity.” If I can transform these relationships, by expressing an authentic, genuine interest in these persons’ outlooks and sharing openly from my own for them, we could all potentially reach a higher state of ‘balance;’ see?  By combining disparate elements–viewpoints in this case–in new ways, the opportunity for genuine growth in my own outlook is possible. I can free myself from an attachment to a narrower outlook by opening to the ‘antithetical’ expression of a counter-perspective, arriving at a new order of Synthesis.  This can induce a metaphorically alchemical sort of psychological transformation! My Descender is a part of me that avoids conflicting relationships, rather than confronting or embracing them.  But now, I can be more open to changing these relations, to ACCEPTING the golden opportunities they offer.

 

Next then, this Sunday, I will introduce The Descender to you! Meanwhile, I invite you to continue to ponder about how Life is YOUR Golden Opportunity, day by day, moment by moment, with every situation and relationship you encounter.

I invite and will share each of your insights, comments, and stories.

 

Using Life Metaphors as Positive Affirmations

Life Is… A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY! This is our Life Metaphor theme especially for this week and throughout the rest of this month of November.  A Golden Opportunity means, you have the freedom to be creative in your life, every day and always! There are opportunities around every corner, every turn in the road.  Setbacks are opportunities for change or a new direction. Hardships offer lessons, opportunities for new growth, new vistas.

Why focus on positive or “Better Endings” Life Metaphors?  A metaphor is a cognitive scaffold; it allows us to orient ourselves to the images and to the PATHWAY represented therein. As a Golden Opportunity, life is OPEN in all directions; nothing is set in stone; everything is rich in rewarding choices.

Can you think of times in your life when you have realized how life is a Golden Opportunity? Maybe when you graduated from high school or from college? Suddenly the “world is your oyster” (another positive metaphor”: you could take the job of your choice or travel to live in a setting or location full of rich possibility! Or perhaps your marriage or the birth of a child brought joy to you in the awareness of life’s infinite potentials.

On the other hand, is there a situation in your life right now where you might be feeling “stuck” or “pinned down”? Those are also metaphoric scaffolds. You can apply a positive Life Metaphor as an AFFIRMATION. Look at this “stuck” situation and replace it with the repeating mantra: “Life is a Golden Opportunity”! As a creative exercise, repeat this affirmation; write it or say it aloud or inwardly 12 times, while gently focusing attention on your situation.

Do you begin to see some light ‘around the edges’ of your stuck situation? What OPPORTUNITY is implicit, even if heretofore hidden, in your present set of conditions? This is a question ripe for active imagination, contemplation, meditation or prayer.  Ask inwardly to be shown, how might this situation offer a Golden Opportunity?

What can you be doing in your life Now, to manifest this opportunity?

As you arrive at some insight, you can journal about it or talk about it, or create a poem or artwork to ILLUMINATE and to remember and reinforce your new awareness.

For me, I can acknowledge feeling stuck in a particular situation that I have not felt I have much control over, lately. But, Life is a GOLDEN OPPPORTUNITY! So, I will maintain faith that things are as they are meant to be, Now. I will look for the opening, for the opportunity to ACT in a manner that may release the potentials I long to realize; the Gold at the end of the Rainbow!

I welcome your thoughts and comments about this theme. How is YOUR life or a specific situation you have been feeling stuck within actually or also a Golden Opportunity?

 AND:

Synchronicity Sharing:

Isn’t this image and thought below a beautiful awareness that highlights how life is full of possibilities?

This artistic image with words about how Life is a Golden Opportunity is reposted from Mandi of Caged No More, who reblogged it on Nov. 14 from Mimi’s blog, Everyday Positive Quotes (Nov 15, 2014: http://everydaypositivequote.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/new-beginning/ ). Mimi’s title for the post is: New Beginning!

 

Life Is… Your Golden Opportunity!

Welcome to Year Two of Life Paths for Better Endings.Here we explore approaches to Life Mapping and other self-help modalities to help you enhance your Life Path by envisioning and manifesting “better endings”.  Two key concepts that are helpful for establishing a positively oriented Life Path–i.e.one that will empower you to realize your Life Dream–are Better Endings Life Path Metaphors, on one hand, and active imagination to harness the strengths of your own unconscious archetypal character strengths associated with the Life Themes you have already developed in your life experience.

This year, I will be inviting you to creatively explore these two elements of anyone’s Life Path in some depth. Each month we will explore one Life Path Metaphor that frames a positive orientation, and each month we will encounter and get to know one  of 12 Universal Archetypes that were first introduced into Archetypal Psychology by Dr.Charles Bebeau–along with his wife Nin and co-teacher Debra J. Breazzano–at the former Archetypal Academy in Boulder, Colorado. These Twelve universal archetypal character figures exist at least unconsciously in everyone, though the form and prominence of these twelve will vary from person to person.

As we experience recurring Life Themes, or KINDS of life events in our lives, we develop strengths–or, sometimes, challenges or inhibitions–with regard to specific aspects of these 12 primary archetypal character modes. For example, if you are aMother, you may be strengthening your Nurturer archetypal character traits; or if you are a teacher, the Teacher archetype may help you to enact this role in the classroom.According to CHarles Bebeau there are also astrological associations with these Twelve that derive from Sumerian mythology and astrology. So, we will focus on the Archetype each month that corresponds mainly with that astrological period.

So, let’s get started!

Our first Better Endings Life Path Metaphor, that we will focus on from now until December, is:

Life Is...Your Golden Opportunity

So allow me to introduce this metaphor by reference to a very meaningful envisioning experience in my own life, one that propelled me to develop the entire approach that this blog–and the book, Life Paths, that it serves to introduce–represents.  Some fourteen years ago, while I was experiencing what I called at the time a “mid-life crisis,” I went seriously inward for several months, asking for inner guidance.  Was I to remain in an academic career (I’m a professor of cultural anthropology and linguistics in Colorado), or should I quit to focus entirely on my creative writing “calling”?  One morning the answer came through in the form of a clear “wake-up call”.  Plastered before my eyes inwardly was a square white sign with bold black letters, that said:

YOU HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY

TO REALIZE YOUR DREAMS

NOT JUST FOR GETTING BY

What a gift! This inner message changed my life.  It told me that I have an OPPORTUNITY to realize my dreams, and that I should aim always to fulfill that opportunity; YOU, TOO!

So, what is YOUR Golden Opportunity? What are you here to REALIZE or to FULFILL that will meet this responsibility to manifest your LIFE PURPOSE, your LIFE MISSION, your LIFE DREAM? How can you establish a LIFE PATH that will keep you true to this Responsibility to REALIZE YOUR DREAMS?

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This week, I invite you to actively CONTEMPLATE, TALK ABOUT, and/or to JOURNAL about your Golden Opportunity in this life. What IS IT? What are YOU here to Realize? How does this relate to your current life context (job, relationships, spirituality, vocational activities, etcetera), and how can you adjust your life to focus more and more on realizing your Dreams? 

I welcome and will share your Insights (please Comment below) and your Stories!

Later this week, we will continue to explore how your life is a Golden Opportunity! Then, stay tuned  as next week I will introduce our monthly Archetype Ally for November: The Descender. How might these two be related?