As with any good tale, your life story—your Mystory—contains a dynamic cast of characters, externally and inwardly as well. Your constellation of family members, friends, pets, and associates may vary across your different life chapters or by Theme (Work, Romance, Travel, etc.), but with any given life event or situation, a cast of characters is on set to help enact the scene.
Inwardly, your own ensemble cast of characters include what archetypal psychologists (e.g. Jung, Hillman, Bebeau, Myss and Campbell) might call your inner assembly of unconscious persona archetypes. Your external networks or bands of associates may also carry archetypal significance for you, as they may represent ‘types’ of relations with which you have more or less patterned kinds of relationships, and from which you could derive “lessons” as well as meaningful benefits.
To become better acquainted with what—or, whomever—you bring to the scene from the vantage points of your unconscious persona archetypes, a dialogue journaling technique can be used which I call (Stage One of) a Dynamic Archetype Dialogue Process. (See my book Your Life Path, 2020; or you can download for free my workbook on Life Mapping available in the right panel of this blog site.)
If you feel comfortable trying this approach, you could sit in a comfortable chair or sit propped up with pillows in bed. Take a few deep breaths and focus your attention inwardly in a gentle fashion… Invite your various ‘parts of Self’ to introduce themselves to you, one at a time. You could engage with this inner dialogue just with your active imagination, or, as I prefer, you can journal or write out the dialogue as it emerges. You might be surprised to discover how easy and natural this ‘dialogue process’ can be. Be sure to use first person, present tense in your conversation with your archetypal parts of Self.
You could set up your archetype dialogue based on a specific situational context, say by inviting parts of yourself involved with a relationship, or able to help you face a significant decision, or in conflict over some difficult consideration. Or rather, you could simply open the dialogue to whichever members of your Inner Council would like to ‘step up’ to the mike. I usually open such an encounter by offering a safe space and asking for different archetypes not to interrupt each other. [Please note: This is not an official therapeutic process and I am not a professional psychologist, so please proceed under your own reconnaissance. I usually let people know to discontinue the dialogue if any discomfort or negativity arises.]
You could use some handy prompts to help develop the dialogue, such as:
Who are you?
Tell me about yourself (e.g. your likes, dislikes; hopes, fears; strengths and weaknesses)
What would you like me to do/ know/ be with regard to a situation you are active with?
How could you help with this situation?
Archetypal psychologists and philosophers of the Self, such as specifically William James in the late 19th century, have observed that we are each ‘multiple’—most of us in a balanced, more or less well integrated manner—such that it can be healthy to explore and attend to disparate or conflicting internal viewpoints within the unconscious psyche. Joseph Campbell often stated that suppressing your conflicting internal perspectives could result in a ‘schizophrenic’ breakup of the personality.
The ‘devil-on one-hand; angel-on-the-other’ sort of scenario, for instance—or whatever contrasting parts of Self you might acknowledge—can be essential elements to include in a balanced consideration of choices and opportunities you aim to achieve.
So, for any particular situation or life chapter, what internal ‘character cast’ is present, and also what external types of cast members are you engaging with (n.b., this could include dream characters, too)? How can you best engage your Inner Council (/counsel) to help you understand and achieve your goals and strengths? How might you best cooperate or co-create positive outcomes by combining your inner council with your external character assembly?
images are from pixabay.com
When your external and internal cast and crew are integrated and well engaged, as with the ensemble cast of any good transformational novel, film, or historical moment, tremendous outcomes—and important life lessons—are always within your reach!
Following from the last post where I mentioned Carl Jung’s Red Book, which was his record of active imagination encounters with his personal unconscious archetypes, allow me to add to the exploration of (your) MyStory memoirs a way to identify your own “Archemes;” a concept which I introduced in Your Life Path (Skyhorse, 2018). Just as we each have a finite number of definite themes or threads of experience that run through our lives either in whole or during specific life chapters or segments of our lifetimes, with each of these Life Themes we also all develop specific sorts of ROLES that pertain to those themes and that transform dramatically over time just like the character arcs of any narrative epic protagonists.
For example, some common Life Themes people identify by sorting types of their significant shaping events into KINDS of events include: Family, Education, Work/ Career, Romance/ Relationships, Friendships, Spirituality or Religion, and Travel. Notice how when you reflect on some of your own significant or “shaping” moments with respect to a few of these different Life Themes, you are somewhat a distinctive character from one to the other, and these characters evolve or transform as you have developed through these thematic movements in your life.
As an educator, for example, Education has certainly been a major, lifelong theme for me. And within that theme I have been the STUDENT (role type/ character) and the TEACHER, in various modes over time. Friends have sometimes chided me when, during a conversation, I might “shift into Teacher mode.” Whereas, as a spiritually oriented person, my persona can be quite more ‘esoteric’ or even ‘dreamy,’ as I practice daily contemplation, chant mantras, keep a dream journal, and allow myself to “surrender” to inner awareness or nudges from inner guidance. Yet still, with my pets it is all about unconditional love and gratitude; I sing spontaneous song lyrics as though life is a musical while walking with my beloved dog, Sophie. So yes, I recognize a pantheon of characters within my Self, as did Carl Jung. Like Jung I also realize how we project archetypal character forms onto or into those we interact with in our life relationships.
This week then, I invite you to take some tome to reflect in your MyStory (or any) journal on who you ARE, how your character shifts with different thematic expressions of your own Self. You could simply list some of the Life Themes you recognize, and next to those, name the character Roles or personas you have been developing in your life with regard to those different themes.
Which of these Archemes are best or least mature or developed in your life? Would you like to give some of your more submerged selves some more breathing room by getting back to some hobby or pasttime that helps you expand your deeper self?
Why do we so need a good Vacation or Holiday now and again? (For our more carefree Traveler or Family based selves to emerge for some needed ‘time out’?) Why do we wear special apparel and let ourselves get so excited by some hobby or at a Sports event? More profoundly, how do your different Parts of Self relate to and interact with others as well as among themselves? Try dialoguing in your journal sometime amongst some of your own various personas, especially with regard to some difficult decision or choice you might face.
Recognizing some of our own distinctive archetypal personas allows us to move consciously in the direction of a higher integration or polishing of our individuated Self, in Jung’s parlance. Joseph Campbell noted that those who refuse to accept and exercise their own internal archetypal diversity are the ones most in danger of a ‘schizophrenic’ breakup.
As we proceed with building a corpus of MyStory tales, our most memorable and thematic life stories, I am reminded of Carl Jung’s significant record of his own ‘depth’ MyStory explorations in The Red Book. Jung used active imagination (contemplation) techniques to sink deeply into his personal unconscious realm, to explore and interact with his internal archetypal personae. After engaging with each archetype long enough to glean its message for Jung’s emerging, more fully integrated Self, he artistically created a colorful Mandala image and wrote in his Red Book (journal) about what he had learned. Jung recommended that anyone likewise interested in actively promoting their own individuation and integration of Self would do well to create their own ‘red book’: their own journal about their archetypal parts of Self, their own exploration of the Life Themes and character shards of their ever-emerging Self.
So that is what your MyStory is intended to be: your compilation of meaningful life stories that reveals the deep character of your dynamic Self.
For my part I find myself moving forward with my MyStory reflections to the Life Theme of personal relationships, which is a key theme for me, as it is for many. My most significant Relationship theme stories are rather too personal to write much about in a public blog, but some of the most transformative of these are fodder for deep excavation and I can share at least some shards here which I will explore more deeply in my private MyStory journal. In the process of exploring Life Theme lessons and insights, it is vital to detangle the curious web of relationships that have emerged and developed over a lifetime (at least!), to date.
Donna/ Don
To know me at all deeply is to know something of my relationship with Donna (pseudonym here). This relationship has evolved since I was 17 and continues even after this dear friend’s passing around six months ago. I will share some of what I can here, embellishing further in my private MyStory logs, seeking to unravel through layers of import to better glean kernel messages from this relationship for my Soul journey going forward.
I met Donna when I was 17. A good high-school friend, Larry, himself a budding poet and close comrade in our drama club (the actor who played the soldier dying under a tree in Viet Nam as recalled in the previous post), approached me in the hall one day at school, and with his signature panache said:
“Say Yes!”
“Yes,” I responded faithfully. “What did I just agree to?” “Fencing!”
Thus began a journey that has woven through my life ever since, both in terms of wonderful adventures with fencing throughout my college years and into my life overall, and through my relationship with a dynamic, uniquely gifted lifelong friend, Donna. She was the instructor for a ten-week class in fencing at an arts center in my home-town (where I have returned to live recently, in part for the sake of reflecting on this deep relation).
So, Donna, and fencing (the latter a theme I will explore separately down the road). Donna is one of the most dynamic persons I have ever known. I feel most fortunate that after the ten weeks of our fencing class, she invited the students to order some equipment and I ventured to her apartment one Thursday after school to pick up a mask, glove and foil that would launch my later fencing career (on a college fencing squad), and that would initiate one of my most influential friendships. We began a conversation that afternoon that developed and evolved such that even in my current active contemplations and dreams, I still visit with this dear Soul friend.
Donna became a mentor and friend over several years throughout my last two years of high-school and through my college years in Buffalo, continuing by phone and letters after that. She took interest in helping me explore and develop my own creative and spiritual awareness. I shared my journals with her and she gave me lists of books to read and discuss, as we met weekly for the next two years, every Thursday after school. As Avatar portrays for a close connection, Donna “saw me,” and in turn, I now realize, I saw her, as Soul, too.
Some shards of memory from those initial several years of my connection with Donna
Books and poetry, including: Camus’ notebooks and The Stranger; Schopenhauer’s Either/ Or; Yeats’ Selected Poetry of W. B. Yeats (much of which I memorized) and The Vision; Nightwood by Djuna Barnes (whom Donna knew in NYC while an actress there); The Moveable Feast by Hemingway; Anais Nin’s diaries and Seduction of theMinotaur; The Chalk Garden play (the first work we discussed); and The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (the second). (These and others set me up very well for my English major studies to come in college.)
“Who is the real LW?”
Fencing: Donna’s visit to my fencing club, where my early coach was also one of her friends; Our team’s (and my own) placing 9th (by 2 pts from 7th) of 125 or so university fencing teams in intercollegiate nationals, 1975
Visits to Donna over college breaks and over summers
Visiting Donna at a hospital’s mental health ward when she was in for ‘nervous breakdown’ and MPD was diagnosed (see below)
My own poetry about our friendship through the years; her mentorship continuing through my undergraduate and Masters study college years
Flash forward: to my early doctoral study times in Arizona, some ten years or so into our friendship. One night I felt a clear inner call to communicate with Donna. We had long shared an unusually ‘psychic’ connection. The next morning I dialed her number (she by then living in Florida) from a pay phone at the Anthropology building at ASU:
LW: “Hello. Is Donna there?” (her housemate/ partner had answered)
K: “Who is this? Yes, Just a minute…”
D: “Hello?” (a deep voice at the other end of the line;
was this a friend who was to tell me
of Donna’s recent passing?)
LW: “This is Linda…”
D: “Yes, hello!” (It was Donna; as I listened more closely
I recognized my Friend)
D: “I have changed my name, Linda.”
LW: “Okay.” (I took out pen and paper, ready to write down
Donna’s new married name.)
D: “It is Donald. You have called on the very day
before I am going for my final operation.”
I had not communicated with Donna for nearly a year, so this conversation brought quite a surprising revelation about my dear mentor and friend. Lots had developed that I have mostly not recorded above that led Donna to this transformational choice. She had experienced several years of eventually successful therapy after a diagnosis of Multiple Personality Syndrome. A highly talented actress and theater director, Donna had developed a panoply of at least eleven distinct personalities since around the time of my sophomore year in college. She had first been diagnosed with ‘nervous breakdown’ episodes, then her MPD condition fully emerged. She underwent a successful hypnotherapy program, but it revealed that Donna’s core personality was actually, at least after the integrational therapy, Donald. So, after the requisite year of transgender living and hormone therapy–during which it was discovered Donna had had a blue bracelet applied after birth, with a surgical “correction” such as more babies than most of us realize still receive—doctors unanimously approved Gender Congruence Surgery, and Donna transitioned ‘in place’ in Florida, to Donald. This baby then, raised as Donna, had never been fully comfortable in that persona. Donald was central to this Soul’s outlook and personal consciousness.
Okay, so the first time I met Donald in person was the summer after that revelatory phone call. When I saw him (as him) for the first time, at the airport when He came to greet me, inwardly I felt myself stating over and over: “That’s it!” There had always been a sense of something mysterious and unusual about Donna’s persona—like there was always something hidden, something so unique that other than her amazing intelligence and creative virtuosity, I could never pinpoint. But seeing Donna as Donald ‘made sense’ of some of that mysterious quality.
My connection with Donald continued though not at the level of closeness I had shared with Donna. Yet I found through the many years to follow something unexpected in my own internal, spiritual life: dreams of visiting Donna, as Donna, developed into a frequent feature of my very active dream life. (I have long felt there should be a clinical interest in such dreams of the friends and allies of ‘sex-change’ cases.)
The first dream: I go to a house and knock on the door. A man opens the door, and I ask if I can visit with Donna. He says no, but I can see her if I go to the patio. I am then on a patio that reminds me of a classical Greek villa (a courtyard surrounded on at least three sides by its house). Looking up to the top of a small knoll just beyond the house, I see Donna standing there, and she sees me. She sends like a girl scout down to give me a message. (Later I realized the other residents of the house included Donald—who had answered the door—and Donna’s other MPD personae. She had been sort of expelled from the assemblage.)
Another significant early dream: I see Donna at an intersection, a crossroads. I could tell she was in some pain; that something had been ripped out from her right shoulder. Around the same time a dream of seeing Donna at another crossroads, where two pathways were to diverge. Her path was binary, one person (Donald) moving off to the right, and Donna herself to the left. She held up a placard (like in a a Brecht play I had recently read, Mother Courage), with one word: Eternellement. (I felt she showed me this as a sign of our enduring spiritual connection.)
images aare from pixabay.com
Then over decades, similar dreams of Visiting Donna: I would visit her at an apartment overlooking a pond with a walkway around it. We would talk as we had in our earlier year visits. We would sometimes play Scrabble or some sort of game while overlooking the pond. (I felt that this apartment setting was like a “purgatory” sort of existence that Donna had to endure so long as Donald continued in his occupation of their erst shared body; that Donna would not be able to “move on” until Donald’s passing.
NOW: I maintained a connection with Donald through nearly forty years, visiting with him twice and more regularly (though not so deeply) after he invited me to play Words with Friends with him, where we sometimes would Chat, for around 15 years.
Donald had an excellent life experience, as a behavioral health liaison and eventually a director there, still active as an actor and director in local theater productions, and with a long-term partner for over twenty years. He experienced a lot of physical health hardships, as do many on long-term hormonal treatment. He dealt with joint problems then also cancer over a long duration until finally he transpired, some six months or so ago.
Yet my dreams of visiting with Donna continue. Only once so far, shortly after his passing, Donald communicated. He said there was something he had wanted to tell me. (I hope that would have been that he had always remembered the depth of our friendship.) I went to visit Donna recently at another apartment setting, but she was in a car in a garage with several people attending to her (it felt like she was in distress because she was still not being allowed yet to move on.) And last week, a sweet though brief visitation with Donna in the dream state, to suggest we will continue to be in touch…eternellement.
******
And you? What have been some of the deepest, most transformative relatioonships in your life? I invite you to write in your MyStory journal, to explore and plumb the depths of your core relations.
Several years ago I stumbled onto a journaling practice of composing “better endings,” at first for films whose conclusions I had never liked, then for literature and historical events (e.g. what might have happened if the Titanic had never sunk?). Then I realized I could apply this same principle of creative license to my own Life Story adventures, as could anyone. I began a blog called Better Endings (betterendingsnow.com) to explore this principle of creative re-visioning and discovered it is a rich tool we can use to review and reflect upon any life situation or ambition—past, current or to come—to envision ‘better endings’ scenarios, and to bring those about in our lives.
As a cultural/psychological anthropologist and linguist, I understand how we humans live our lives as episodic and even as epic narratives; we each gradually build our own Life Story that bends and turns in many directions and we construe our own mythic Life Story in terms of Life Themes, Life Chapters, Lessons, Quests, and Purpose or Mission. I like to say that we humans are Homo Narrativus: we experience and tell about our life events as structured narratives, full of meaning, lessons, and import.
For several years I taught a university humanities course—co-taught with a Classical historian, at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs—called Myth, Reason, and Your Life Story. The History professor provided lectures on the history of mythology for 8 weeks, while for the other 8 weeks (students shifted mid-semester to receive both segments), I engaged the class in a Life Mapping process. The Life Path Mapping process (see my resulting book Your Life Path; Skyhorse, 2018) guided the students–in conjunction with lectures on rites of passage, Joseph Campbell’s Hero Cycle, Jungian and more recent archetypal psychology integration techniques, research findings from my own intensive life mapping interview research, and a history of theories of the life course—through a journaling and creative life mapping process that let them review and reflect upon their lives: past, present and to come.
images are from pixabay.com
Better Endings: A Guidebook for Creative Re-Visioning (Central Park South Publishing, May 2022) is the next step in the life mapping process I developed in those humanities classes. This book offers the opportunity to “refresh” your life course midstream! I have included journaling pages in this book that allow you to play with the principle of Better Endings ‘re-visioning’: first (for Part One) with film endings, literature and historical events; and then (for Part Two) with critical events and situations of your own Life Story—past, current and to come!
The fun, interesting journaling prompts in Better Endings can help you—as they have for me—to arrive at meaningful closure for some of your life situations and to become un-stuck (!) from considering your current and future possibilities.
“Live Your Dream, Now!” was the through line for my 2018 book, Your Life Path. This new book, Better Endings, (now available in softcover, hardcover and eBook formats from all major book retailers) lets you take the next step in your own Life Story to create the life of your dreams. Better endings…are new beginnings!
Healer, Communicator, Teacher, Mystic: these 4 Persona archetypes exist as potentials in us all.
From a pantheon of Twelve universal Primordial Archetypes revealed by Drs. Charles and Nin Bebeau (co-founders of the Archetype Institute of Boulder, CO), these four together comprise Dissolving (or Resolution) personas that surface in us when we arrive at a positive resolution, or closure—hence, Better Endings!—in our significant life situations. Below is the complete system of twelve primordial, universal archetypes that Dr. Bebeau identified based on Jungian archetype theory in relation to Sumerian astrology (thanks to Debra Breazzano, MA, LPC for the archetypal chart design; and to Gianmichele Grittani for the chart graphics!):
TWELVE UNIVERSAL PERSONA ARCHETYPES
Creation
Maintenance
Dissolving
Earth
Elder Leader
Artist
Healer
Air
Lover
Idealist
Communicator
Fire
Warrior
Golden Child
Teacher
Water
Nourisher
Descender
Mystic
This system of primordial universal archetypes corresponds with the four (quaternal, to Jung) fundamental Elements, or human consciousness modes, in relation to the dynamic process of any life experience: from its beginnings or origination, through its maintenance or ongoing dynamics, to its conclusion by which a situation is ‘dissolved’ or resolved in consciousness. Endings, particularly Better Endings, when our experience of life situations achieve a positive sense of closure (positively, with lessons learned!), give ground to New Beginnings!
So this is the crux, the underlying intellectual basis, of why I pursue the topic of Better Endings with this blog, in my 2018 book Your Life Path (Skyhorse Publishers), and in my new, forthcoming book, Better Endings: A Guidebook to Creative Re-Visioning. (Better Endings is in final production stage now; I will make it available to you here when it launches, in about 4-6 weeks!)
The principle of Better Endings is a fun topic any of us can use to creatively and flexibly reflect about any event or situation in our lives—past, present or to come—, so as to playfully imagine and creatively re-vision that event for greater understanding of life’s forward moving lessons. Positively re-visioning your most significant or Shaping life events evokes (calls forth) in your mindful or conscious awareness one or more of these closure related “Dissolving stage” persona archetypes: Healer, Communicator, Teacher, and/or Mystic.
What sorts of character arcs and storylines do you find most compelling? Can you identify with a particular story; does it mirror aspects of your own life goals and challenges? I like to say, myth is the stuff our lives our made of, because myth is made up from the stuff of our lives!
Our lives have the meaning that we give to them, and much of the meaning we bring to our life experiences derives from stories we have related to from childhood. “The Wizard of Oz,” for example, tells the tale of a young person seeking to find her own strength so she can save her beloved pet dog from being taken away after having disturbed a mean neighbor’s garden. This story propels the main character, Dorothy, into her own unconscious archetypal depths to find the courage, heart, and wisdom she will need to face the wicked neighbor with a more mature, integrated sense of Self.
Many of us have faced ogres or so-called witches in our worlds, needing to dig deeply into our unconscious reservoirs of archetypal personas to assemble and marshal the character traits we may need to confront the forces of negativity and emerge whole from either a physical and/or from a moral and spiritual perspective.
In my book Your Life Path (2018), I present a Parallel Myth technique that can help you identify a story that resonates closely with the Life Chapters, themes, and character arcs of your own Life Story. (You can see a template for this technique without buying the book by downloading for free the My Life Path Mapping Toolkit from the right margins of this blog.) So one way to find a parallel myth to understand the meaningful stuff of your own life story is to discover your Life Chapters and compare these with some story you identify with. A simpler approach would be: think of or write a short list of stories you have always loved because somehow you feel you can identify either with the plot of the story or with a character in that tale. Let’s take that approach here.
So, make a list of stories from novels, short stories, or movies that you have long felt you can identify with. Write a brief account for each of these as to how or why you might identify. I will give an example of some of my own most meaningful stories just to demonstrate the process:
The Wizard of Oz: In my youth I would often “run away” because I felt berated or tormented by my father’s harsh temper. I would hide in a closet or actually leave for a while (or sneak out) to gain a sense of independence or freedom.
Contact: I share Eleanor Arrowway’s drive to pursue uncommon truths via both scientific and spiritual pathways.
Harry Potter: In my childhood I often felt myself to be the ‘runt’ of the family (short, awkward, plain), but as I discovered spiritual truths and a sense of spiritual camaraderie from my early twenties on, I have gradually gained tools, and friends (including in my family), that have helped me recognize my own strengths to be of service to others.
Do you have your list? Write it out. What are some parallel mythic themes, characters, and messages from these stories that are mirrored in your own Life Story?
images are from pixabay.com
Next then, what messages might you take forward from your parallel myth(s) that can help you achieve the Better Endings you seek in your own storied life? Review your listed parallel myths and pay attention to the positive potentials of these stories’ resolutions. E.G.:
The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy unifies her sense of self by combining her archetypal qualities of courage, heart, and wisdom so she can stay ‘home’ and face the dark forces that had beset her there. Somehow I figure at the end of the movie that Toto is going to be okay, because Dorothy is strong enough in her own more mature Self to face the neighbor from a sense of responsibility and courage. (My message: Find the courage to stand my own ground when faced with negativity or obstacles.)
Contact: Ellie discovers a parallelism between science and religion (mirrored in her own relationship with Father Joss) when her ‘through-the-wormhole’ solo space adventure reveals new dimensions to reality. (My message: Continue to plunge the depths of science and spirituality, sharing as possible, but mainly to deepen my own understanding and awareness of incontrovertible realities beyond the ‘pale’ of common knowledge.)
Harry Potter: Teaming up with his own archetypally well matched ensemble cast of friends, Harry solves some of the mysteries of his lower self to gain courage and self-awareness that can defeat any negativity that may confront him or his world. (My message: Stay true to who you are and stand up for your highest values despite any efforts to alienate or undermine your and your friends’ finest qualities.)
What messages do you derive from comparing some of your favorite parallel myths and your own Life Story (to now)? What do the positive endings or potentials of these stories offer forth to you about achieving Better Endings in your own mythic-story?
We live in a dualistic universe and, these days, I would say we in America and in several other societies have created a binary society. I like to think in terms of the outer reality being a reflection of internal states of consciousness, so if my outer world is polarized, politically or otherwise, and if I align with one ‘side’ to the point of feeling negative about or toward people or points of view from an ‘other/opposite’ side, I may question my own internal state as being itself conflicted or in a state of emotional or attitudinal imbalance.
How to resolve this? It would be false of me to claim or to defend neutrality in terms of values or beliefs. I do accept some values that–necessarily in this dualistic world–are opposed in principle to other, opposite points of view. I am a citizeb and vote according to my best understanding of positive values and policies that are, I assume, for the good of the Who;le.
However, I am old enough to not want to create or perpetuate conflict. Like Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce who chose to migrate his tribe into Canada rather than face another bloody battle or to have them be herded onto a restrictive reservation:
“I Will Fight No More Forever.”
images are from pixabay.com
My goal, spiritually, is to be “neither for nor against,” while at the same time not sacrificing what I hold to be true and good. With this I recognize how my values come largely from what I have been exposed to and/or conditioned by, as do everyone else’s.
To be neither for nor against while maintaining integrity means, to me, not to be attached to outcomes and to be willing to listen and to allow viewpoints other than my own. There are ideas and facts I will stand up for, even march for or represent in open forums, But having expressed my sense of truth, I must allow that others have too theire own truths and the right to express those as well in a peaceful assembly.
Let justice and the laws and moral fiber of a just society handle the rest.
Inwardly, I aim to resolve internal conflicts as they may arise. Listening, not closing off or closing out competing ideas or interests, can help bring my archetypal sub-selves to the Roundtable in search of a dynamic, harmonious solution to any apparent quandary.
If only we could agree to do this outwardly: to listen with deep care to one another and to aim to incorporate each other’s best founded ideas and viewpoints to serve the higher interests of the Whole.
While driving in my car via a new route for me, from Ithaca to finally settle in at my new lakeside community retirement house, I watched as a Golden Eagle carried its living prey: a snake, dangling from its beak. The eagle with snake flew in front of my car in my same direction for a long while, weaving back and forth like blazing my trail forward; then it veered off to the northwest, precisely in the direction of my new home.
I certainly accepted this unusual experience as a waking dream, and one that relates greatly to my June question: ‘Why Am I Here?’
My initial personal associations with this sign include that the Eagle could be understood as an Animus (a masculine energy form) in Jungian terms, with keen vision, sharp talons to provide for its young; also as positive purpose and clear directionality.
Online some of the information I discovered about this image revealed:
Eagles and hawks have the keenest vision of all birds; therefore they are symbols of visionaries and messengers;
eagle with snake, in mythology, represents the conflict of opposites (a dialectical, dynamic fusion);
the Mexican flag contains the image of a golden eagle on top of a cactus, grasping a snake: “the very image the people had been promised would direct them to the place they would make their new home.”
Golden eagles do eat snakes but only as 2.9% of their usual prey; this has not even been reported to occur in New York state.
images are from pixabay.com
I am grateful for this sign which feels like a blessing for my purpose in my new home. May I serve Life here in whatever capacity I am able.
I want to add a few words as a sort of preface to this blog post. It is all about GRATITUDE. I thank each and every one of you for reading Better Endings when you do, and especially I am grateful for every Comment shared.
This week I am particularly GRATEFUL to every one of you linked to this blog or from Facebook who took the time to come to the launch of my new personal growth & development book, Your Life Path (see side panel for ordering info and to read an interview about the author; the book is now available through all major outlets). Friday and Saturday nights March 9/10 were well attended and I got to see some of my best friends and closest colleagues along with several former students! To see you all before I move to NY after retiring this summer was such a blessing; you can only imagine how wonderful it was for me to touch base with each of you.
My Thanks also to all of you who have ordered this book, Your Life Path. It is a labor of love for over 12 years and provides the best techniques I can offer to you for engaging in the Art of Life Mapping. I have seen how the approach that has emerged with the Life Path Mapping Process embedded as a self discovery toolkit with this book has helped many people already to reflect on their lives and go forward with greater clarity and passion.
AND FURTHER GRATITUDE YET: to my Super Agent, Linda Langton and to the team of publicists Paula Kalamaras and Paul Kraly of Scribes Unlimited, without whose inspiration and expertise this book would certainly not have been manifested. (Further thanks are of course in the Acknowledgements to the book.)
A word to you ALL from the Zuni language, which I have been blessed with myself through the years:
ELAHKWA ! (Thank You!)
The Value of a Vocation
We are multi-dimensional beings. Within our core Identity we house several sub-identities, formed somewhat distinctly depending on the roles and statuses we “take on” in our lives. Jung called these sub-identities archetypal members of our personal unconscious domain of the Psyche.
Elder Leader, Lover, Warrior, Nourisher, Artist, Idealist Golden Child, Descender, Teacher, Communicator, Healer and Mystic : these are twelve universal or “primordial” personal archetypes recognized by the archetypal psychologist Dr. Charles Bebeau, founder of the former Avalon Archetype Institute in Boulder, Colorado. All of these are latent or active component sub-identities we may develop in relation to our relationships, our jobs, our hobbies or other activity roles and identities.
Most of us develop a few of these archetypal personas more than the rest. Some even become over-balanced in one or another of these ‘dimensions’ of the Psyche. A strongly developed or rigidly enacted ELDER LEADER mode, for example, may lead one to downplay their more nurturing or playful ‘sides’.
Vacations (I am about to step into Spring Break mode!–may not blog again until April) are good times to step away from primary workaday roles to expand or exercise other facets of your Self. The IDEALIST, for instance, is often associated with travel, and on vacation you can give yourself more freedom to enjoy your more idealistic nature as “a breath of fresh air.”
VOCATIONS also allow us to express a more balanced and integrated Self and Psyche. Hobbies, artistic practices and “callings” bring greater harmony of our “cast of sub-selves” into our core Identity. We benefit by expressing our full multi-dimensional capacities.
I value Julia Cameron’s invitation in THE ARTIST’S WAY for us to give ourselves an “Artist’s Day” at least once per week. Do something ‘out of the box.’ Take a new way home, go to a museum, walk by a lake or river, dream, journal, try some new food; anything to shake you out of any ruts you may be in.
images are from pixabay.com
Forge new pathways of thought and emotion. Expand your horizons. Let a part of you that you may usually submerge or repress “out.” Experience the FREEDOM to BE all that you are, not just your “responsible” or “dutiful” persona.
Allow me to share two difficult stories around the theme of re-integration this week. Carl Jung recognized three stages in the process of psychological individuation that are closely tied with the three phases of the hero cycle or the three stages of rites of passage cycles. For Jung these three stages of individuation include: integration, disintegration, and reintegration. The story of Isis descending to retrieve and reassemble the dismembered parts of her brother-husband Osiris well illustrates this process.
We may feel as if we are whole until some disruptive experience dismembers us and we feel we have “fallen to pieces.” Then we must “pick up the pieces” and “put ourselves back together again,” resulting in a new self with regard to difficulties we have faced.
On NPR on Saturday, I listened to a story that reminded me of this theme of Jungian reintegration. A mother, Sarah, was dealt the worst blow life has to offer: one of her two twin sons, Caleb, died from a genetic illness. Sarah donated Caleb’s body to science. Yet she found she could not leave it at that; two years later Sarah followed up on where various body parts of her beloved son were delivered and to what use they were being put. She found that Caleb’s cornea was still in use in studies of infant blindness; DNA studies comparing her two twins’ blood samples had revealed thousands of discrepancies of an epigenetic nature; and Caleb’s retina was a valuable resource in a Philadelphia study of infant illnesses.
In tracing what had happened with her son’s donated parts, Sarah was re-integrating her very memory of Caleb. He had not died without purpose or consequence, and Sarah’s decision to donate his young body to science had served more than to alleviate her own suffering. Sarah summed it up nicely:
“The choices you make affect others.”
images are from pixabay.com
The second story I wish to share is as grim as Sarah’s. Just yesterday while driving on an interstate highway to Denver, I passed a male deer which had just been struck by a vehicle. It was terrible. The deer had been impacted at its rear so that both of its rear legs were broken. I pulled off The highway to call the state police. That poor deer was scraping itself off from the highway shoulder, in terrible agony. He could not survive for long in that condition. The state troopers would euthanize this Soul’s mortal body. I knew this was the only way for this Deer Soul to return to wholeness spiritually, though it could never return to its physical family. I stayed until the troopers arrived, sending what peace and love I could to the struggling animal.
Reintegration is a reassembling of parts of the Self which may have been lost or dismembered through crisis. As we pick up the pieces we go forward with what we have left, hopefully contributing to others from the lessons we have gained from our ordeals, so that others may suffer less down the road.
These stories are grim indeed. But they remind us of how life may also deal harsh experience. Yet, the hero cycle or rites of passage allow the process of individuation to be always an upward spiral of growth and purpose.
Carl G. Jung found that his archetypal studies–whereby he personally engaged in active imagination to engage with his ‘persona archetype’ figures within his own personal unconscious domain–could be linked to Alchemy. Just as alchemists aimed to combine or mix chemical elements to produce a higher order of integration metaphorically described as the process of creating gold out of lead, archetypal psychology or Depth Psychology as Jung referred to his process aims to explore the character or properties of one’s internalized archetypal persona forms so as to integrate them into a greater harmony within the mature, individuated Self (or, Soul). Jung called the ‘sacred marriage’ of integrated archetypes within the Self, or more ultimately, of Self with ‘Divinity’ , a Mysterium Conjunctionis:
Likewise Joseph Cambpell, writing of the Hero Cycle we all undergo time and again as we work through our self-developmental passages within our individual Story, speaks of the ‘sacred marriage’ as “the Ultimate Boon” (in The Hero with A Thousand Faces([Bollingen, MJF Books, 1949], pg 190) :
“The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest wish increases, until it subsumes the cosmos.”
I would say that self-transcendence is a universal goal of any healthy, life affirming spiritual being (human, animal, and really ALL life forms). We seek GROWTH, greater wisdom, maturity, and higher degrees of integration as we face our ‘dragons’ or challenges. Life brings this opportunity, time after time, to expand our consciousness through more and more purified forms.
Of course, this self-growth can become stunted or aberrated; that is when we may seek a depth analysis to ‘sort out’ the difficulties and resolve them. Archetypal psychology can be highly effective in helping us come to know ourselves better and to identify and resolve inner conflicts. I will be presenting some simple techniques anyone can use in this pursuit in my upcoming book, Your Life Path, including an Archetype Dialogue Practice. (See my sample PRACTICE technique, below!)
Can YOU relate to the principle of a ‘sacred marriage’ of opposites or of how unifying otherwise disparate elements of your own personality characteristics has helped you sometimes to transcend inner conflicts or to resolve difficult choices? Think of the Devil-on-one-shoulder-and-Angel-on-the-other metaphor; have you ever become aware of such a duality in your consciousness? Which ‘side’ did you most listen to or act upon?
What would happen if you were to hear both nudges and put them in conversation with one another and with your higher Self? You can actually do this, quite naturally:
PRACTICE: A Dynamic Archetype Dialogue Technique
Think of a situation about which you feel a “divide” in your feelings or thoughts about that choice or situation. With active imagination, visualize each ‘side’ of your opposing internal perspectives as persons (personify them within your imagination). Then let them speak with one another, and you as Self can either observe or take part in the conversation. Then (or as it is happening), journal about or write out this dialogue directly. Aim for your opposing Parts-of-Self to arrive at some degree of mutual understanding and agreement to find a compromise that may help you to move forward and make a better decision than you might have had you acted on only one or another side of this polarity.
This month let’s focus on the stage of the Hero’s Cycle known as the Sacred Marriage. To Joseph Campbell, drawing from Jung, this is that stage by which the masculine and feminine energies of the Hero are merged, allowing the Hero to go forth as a more integrated Whole Self as s/he continues to pursue their Quest.
To Jung more directly, this is a union of the Animus and Anima and brings about a major transformation of character. If it represents the actual goal of the individual, it can even be seen as an alchemical achievement of the highest magnitude: Mysterium Conjunctionus! Masculine + feminine (both energies coexisting within both men and women), or Soul + Spirit, or even Earth + Heaven/ Human + Divine: this is the apex of integrated unity, gold out of lead.
While the Sacred Marriage is often depicted via an actual Marriage of two characters, ultimately it is an internal achievement, as the individual attains a balance within of their animus and anima traits. Because of this, it can occur within anyone as a solo accomplishment or it could manifest as a relationship union.
Integration or even fusion as the Sacred Marriage represents is a significant spiritual development for it allows the Self to emerge as fully formed, as an expression of Soul.
images are from pixabay.com
A CONTEMPLATION AND JOURNALING PROMPT:
Can you relate to the topic of the Sacred Marriage?
Do you feel you have achieved this INTERNALLY, whether or not you are partnered with your spouse or a significant other?
If so, what does this open up for you in terms of pursuing your greater goals? If not, how shall you achieve this; again, internally?
Are you engaged in some process that takes a long time yet brings a personal goal to fruition? School can be like that, or now for me, writing for mainstream publication. I find this activity proceeds necessarily sometimes in fits and starts. During the fits or slow slog periods of editing yet one more time, I find it helpful to check in with my internal selves: those archetypal persona character modes that each have their own perspectives on our shared as well as their distinctive goals with regard to the project at hand. For it may be one or more of these Archetype Allies that has slowed the progress as a way to call attention to an opportunity for improvement before I can move forward more productively again.
Mindfulness is a popular term these days for this sort of checking in with your Self–or, more accurately for my purposes, your selves! I like using an Archetype Dialogue Practice to help integrate conflicting internal viewpoints. I use an active imagination technique, such as Jung recommended, to “sink” into a subconscious level of awareness where I can make contact with my internally diverse viewpoints or parts of Self.
You can think of these archetypal personas as being associated with the various roles (or, masks) you occupy in life, as all of us develop somewhat distinctive points of view from the perspectives of each of our role types (e.g. Parent, Teacher, Lover, Nourisher, Idealist, etcetera). You can have a conversation inwardly and/or journal a dialogue while you are imagining connecting with these internal parts of Self. Just allow the interaction or conversation to proceed naturally. This is actually a level of subconscious interaction we take part in unconsciously much of the time, as we weigh a decision or an action.
Below is an excerpt from a journaling form of Archetype Dialogue I engaged with just a few days ago about the slow process of editing for publication:
ELDER LEADER You need to finish the edit and begin taping for the webinar. Time is waning on our sabbatical.
NOURISHER. Let her be, Marshall. She knows what she needs to be doing.
LW: Well I could use all of your input, actually. The editing feels too mechanical now. Taking stuff out is not so much fun as putting ideas into the book. It pains me to have to be removing the lined journaling pages, stripping down to only providing the instructions for library readers to do the techniques externally.
ELDER LEADER. Yes we understand but that is what you need to do, so library readers will not be tempted to write in the books. That’s the editor’s decision. Why are you balking so much?
ARTIST I know what you really want to be doing…and it is what I want to help you with… to redesign the Toolkit as a separate aid that readers will be able to download or receive directly as a workbook companion to the book. The cover art your cousin has provided will fit beautifully with the Toolkit.
LW: Yes but then I also need to get rolling with the webinar production. And a larger than usual docket of classes looms just around the corner in August. Argh!
TEACHER. One step at a time, dear. That is the best way forward. What is the ONE THING, as you tell people to consider with their own life mapping, that YOU need to be doing, Now?
MYSTIC. Yes, dear Soul, what is your ONE THING, NOW?
LW: Well, I want to have a clearer overview of the Whole–of where all this is heading, really. So much work for so many years, and yes we have a publication date, but the whole process feels like it is starting to get away from me, you know? Master, can you help me to re-center, to regain a stronger focus at this interval as I need to deliver these products in full strength and beauty, to best serve the Whole?
MYSTIC Go within to find your answer, dear. What is your ONE THING, Now?
As I continued with this internal musing (a fine expression, by the way!), I did arrive at answers. My new process is to produce both the edit my publisher needs and, concurrently, I will generate the Toolkit from the extracted material. So I do not have to lose any of the vitality I want for the book to contain. As well, this contemplation led me to write a full draft script of the opening webinar sessions, so I feel back on track now!
I invite you to develop your own Archetype Dialogue Practice. I will be sharing a full process for this approach with my upcoming book (March 2018), Your Life Path.
What are some of your own archetypal “parts of Self”? Allow them to present themselves to you. Just offer them a safe, open space for communicating with you. Keep in mind that these are not external “voices” or entities, at all. (If they feel as such ever, then it could be helpful for you to discontinue the exchange! ) These are simply your own INTERNAL points of view that much too often we tend to ignore. So, lend an ear!
Why is it that after a hero has crossed the initial threshold of adventure, there is always a descent to undergo before the adventure can be pursued to the point of true fulfillment? An adventure story worth its salt, so to speak,—fictional or yours—is first and foremost a Rite of Passage.
Anthropologists recognize that a complete Rites of Passage/ Hero Cycle adventure occurs over three ritual or Hero Cycle stages. The adventure proceeds from:
(Stage 1) Separation–whereby the hero(es) remove themselves from their normal state of affairs in order to pursue a personally meaningful and collectively beneficial Quest–; to
(Stage 2) the Transition Zone–wherein they meet themselves and encounter obstacles in the form of trials and tribulations–; to
(Stage 3, when or if the Quest is successfully fulfilled), their Return and Reincorporation–whereby the more mature and better individuated Self benefits others as well as themselves from their positive transformation of values and the maturity they have brought back from their ritual passage.
The Transition Zone (Stage Two of a complete Rites of Passage/ Hero Cycle odyssey) is where a Descent—sometimes metaphorically depicted as being swallowed up or in the Belly of the Whale—must occur in order for the Quester(s) to develop and strengthen their depth of character quite literally, as in what Jung would call a more integrated and thereby a better balanced unconscious-with-conscious Self.
In the Transition Zone of a Rites of Passage cycle, the Quester encounters liminality: the experience of feeling as if they are “betwixt and between” normal spheres of reality or society. As both Victor Turner and Anthony Wallace have described rites of passage, this sense of liminality—whether for an individual or sometimes for an entire society when a revitalization movement occurs—places the person (or social group) in an experience of marginality. They are no longer in the status or role they had before embarking on their adventure, yet they have not yet accomplished or fulfilled their quest whereby they could claim a new, greater role or their successful social-psychological adjustment. I love Anthony Wallace’s description of this (when successfully achieved) process as a Mazeway Resynthesis: a psychological/cognitive reorganization of values and behavior according to an adjustive, fulfilling new Vision of (individual and/or cultural) reality as a whole!
images are from pixabay.com
Here are just a few examples of popular literary/ fictional stories that include prominent LIMINAL ZONE sub-plots or scenes:
Harry Potter: especially in his feelings of isolation from even his closest allies and in his nightmarish dreams of Voldemort from episodes 4-7;
Lord of the Rings: in Frodo’s passage, with Samway and the devious trickster Gollum as companions in liminality, to Mordor to destroy the One Ring in Return of the King;
The Wizard of Oz: e.g. in the Forbidden Forest, the Poppy Fields, and the Wicked Witch’s castle; and
The Bucket List: in the main characters’ unsuccessful outer quest to climb Mt. Everest, during which they come to realize the true value of love and family.
What about you in your own unique LIFE STORY? Can you identify with a time in your life when you have experienced (or have yet to) LIMINALITY? I invite you to journal about this experience or prospect. What did or have you to GAIN?
For this month of May let’s explore here the stage of the Hero’s Adventure which requires Descent and Re-emergence. Once an adventurer set upon their glorious Quest crosses the (first) threshold to enter into the domain of their field of action to achieve fulfillment, they are often initially “swallowed up” or they descend into a “forbidden (verboten) zone” of a sort that accords with their needs. Descent signifies allowing oneself to explore the fertile realms of archetypal unconscious potential. Descent is a necessary process to undertake before you can claim any true progress in attaining your most worthy purpose or goal.
Many an epic narrative illuminates the rich though challenging encounter with ‘denizens of the Deep’, such as is represented by the biblical story of Jonah and the Whale. This is a descent into the “dynamism of the Unconscious” according to archetypal psychologists including Carl Jung, James Hillman and Joseph Campbell.
Your unconscious psychological Innerscapes that you may feel are “below” or ‘beneath’ your surface level of conscious awareness are vital like rich loam, oozing with multiple, too often “buried” perceptions, feelings and insights.
Halloween, for example, is a time of year set aside to release and engage with such a ‘dark,’ shadowy level of consciousness that may actually represent your own unconscious, ‘inner’ worlds. Who do you like to dress up as on Halloween? What might that say about your own archetypal ‘shadow’ selves?
This month I invite you to “step down,” to accept and listen more closely to your own subconscious and deeper unconscious–often called “gut”–voices. They are YOU; facets of your own total consciousness that derive in part from the various roles and lived experiences you have accumulated and enacted in your life, including those usually more ‘hidden’ parts of Self that might feel stunted, silenced or in “Shadow”.
Sink Into Deep Waters: A Creative Visualization Activity
As a self-discovery, active imagination technique that you can use to facilitate the psychologically energizing experience of Descent, I invite you to imagine sinking deeply into a body of water. Remember the scene from The Graduate when Ben Braddock (the title character played by Dustin Hoffman) is overwhelmed by his conflicting feelings and relationships, so he dives into a backyard pool and lets himself sink to the bottom? He stays there as long as he can in this depth domain, performing a sort of soul searching.
Try this in a bathtub. You can fill your tub with bath bubbles (if you wish), with time apart from family or others, and sink back (not really putting your head under the water for so long!). Imagine sinking to the bottom of a pool or of a lake or even of an Ocean. You can breathe, though; do make sure you give yourself this ability.
Now explore: what is ‘on your mind’ or heart? What deep questions or decisions are you contemplating, do you need answers about from your own inner parts of Self or inner guidance?
I just did this exercise myself about an hour ago and loved it. When I asked my Self what I needed to better understand I found it is my fear of being alone in my retirement. My dog Sophie was at the bathroom door and I knew she and my cats will be with me, but I do have a fear of leaving all my friends and outer spiritual community behind me in Colorado when I move in just over a year across country.
So I stayed in the tub, continuing to imagine being underwater like Ben in The Graduate. (Actually this turns out for me to be a very apt fictional analog, as I conceptualize retirement as a graduation from Academia as a professor.) I found my inner selves piping up about the various aspects of Self I could connect with in seeking new friends at my new location. I can connect with writers, and readers, and retired teachers; with pet lovers, Scrabble or other game players, hikers, neighbors and of course my family will mostly be closer, plus a highschool friend still there. Even further, the thought arose that through today’s social media, I don’t have to wait until I make this Big Move before connecting to seek out some like minded others. I can find online networks and begin connecting even before I leave. I have a full year left to do so before I leave. This last awareness felt very liberating to me; an idea I had not focussed on very ‘deeply’ before now!
pictures are from pixabay.com
And so, dear fellows, Go For It! I invite you to try this creative visualization technique, either in the tub or in any environment that allows you to engage in an active contemplation session.
Sometime in the late 1970’s, a group of Transcendental Meditation practitioners first stunned the world with their release of video (before the Web even!) demonstrating “yogic flying” or “hopping” while in a deep meditation state of consciousness. They would levitate and shift position on their mats apparently as an exercise of Mind over Body.
Yogic Fliers reveal that we are capable of controlling the body directly through thought or Mind. What else can we take away from their example?
Story 2: Conscious vs. “Unconscious” States of Consciousness
For a graduate school assignment in linguistic semantics one week, our professor asked us to compose better semantic accounts than standard dictionary references for a related set of terms. I chose CONSCIOUS and UNCONSCIOUS and compiled a wide range of definitions in order to sort these out and arrive at a holistic semantic analysis. What I discovered was that any state of consciousness that is not “conscious” or a “waking state” perception or experience people tend to lump together under the very large umbrella of “unconscious” in American English parlance.
Included under the far-reaching semantic domain of “unconscious”: unconscious, subconscious, dream state, daydreams, ‘other side’, Mind, (unconscious) thought, brain synapses, Self, soul, precognition, memory, lack of awareness. What I noticed about this wide range of concepts is that, simply put, Americans comprehend on the whole very little about anything they cannot directly See, Hear, Taste, Smell or Touch. All the rest, which in my view is the whole-enchilada iceberg under that tiny tip of “conscious” sense awareness, is lumped together as “unconscious.”
As one who has engaged in daily, active contemplation and dreamwork for at least 44 years, I have discovered that the “Inner” is much more vast and is much more open to exploration and freedom of experience than the “Outer” realm of matter and conscious awareness. There are many (perhaps infinite) levels of consciousness beyond the outer physical senses and body, and you are free to explore this diverse multiplicity of states and levels of consciousness through various modes of meditation, contemplation, active imagination, dreamwork, prayer, paranormal investigation and/or mindfulness techniques.
That which is BEYOND the physical body states is neither defined by the mind nor contained or controlled by the Brain.
Implications for Contemplative Hopping—Internal Threshold Crossing
Using Jung’s approach of active imagination, a mode of contemplative envisioning and inner action, I encourage you to try your beyond-the-physical wings! You do have them, at least figuratively speaking. Dreams of flying (with or without wings as they are usually not needed!) are a very common early mode of inner travel or shifting of attention inwardly. Explore an inner landscape, for instance, of an outer place you will soon be visiting “out here.” Or actively contemplate the results or consequences of some anticipated move or action by yourself or others.
When I was to make a big move from Buffalo (East) to Arizona (‘Out West”) some 38 years ago, every night I asked to be shown something about the life I was about to embark upon plus I asked questions to trouble shoot this grand adventure. I was shown four people I would later meet (independently of one another) along with some glimpse of their role in my upcoming life. I was also shown that the experience would not be without its hardships but they would be necessary (karmic, let’s say), and when I later experienced what was foretold in these dreams very directly, I had been forewarned so was better prepared to meet the challenges.
images are from pixabay.com
Let’s call your active inner explorations (past, present or future) to be forms of inner Threshold Crossing. I like to say, you don’t have to die or nearly die in order to explore the Heavens as well as really anything/ any state your Heart desires. Sages like the poet Rumi, actually, encourage us to “die daily.” This means you have the spiritual freedom to explore and investigate beyond the limited reaches of brain-mind or body.
Have you had significant, memorable dreams where either you are in a dark or “lower” space such as in a basement or valley or the lower level of some house or structure, or where someone else who is a main character in your dream is in such a “lower” or “deep” space? This may be your DESCENDER Persona archetype (part-of-Self). Pay attention and you may learn something important from this often ‘submerged’ facet or energy within your Psyche.
My DESCENDER dreams often include a young girl, around 10 or 12, who inhabits a lower level of a tri-level house (interestingly my favorite kind of home; I live in one now and sleep in the lower level!). I have learned to tune in to engage in conversation with my Little Linda part-of-Self, as I call Her. She embodies my quiet side that would rather stay in the lower, shaded regions rather than have too much concourse with the public or other people in formal sorts of situations. She may be that facet of my Self that most suffers situational anxiety when it comes to ‘professional’ social gatherings. I embrace this part of myself as a vital and important aspect of my identity. I go to Her in active imagination for ‘Archetype dialogue’ conversation rather than requiring Her to come to the surface, though sometimes She does reveal Herself in our more conscious experience. She loves to walk along a lake or through a path in the woods, and she is a great companion when I am otherwise alone with my dog Sophie and feline Loki and Emily Friends.
Please be assured, I am not encouraging nor will recognizing your Archetypal Personas stimulate any sort of dissociative mental or psychological condition such as schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder. In fact, as William James wrote about at the turn of the 20th Century, we are indeed all of us “multiple” as an archetypal assembly of sub-identities integrated by the superordinate Self, and in fact it is those who have not allowed their diverse archetypal character modes to be well attended to or integrated who may be more susceptible to ‘splits.’ You can easily tell the difference between an archetypal part-of-Self persona and a dissociated “voice”: archetypal elements within your Total Self System ARE YOU and feel naturally to be a point of view that is part of your Self perspective or outlook, though they may represent various sub-selves or distinct outlooks, see? Jung, Hillman, Myss, Houston, Pearson, Campbell and many other archetypal psychologists have well described the archetypal landscape of the archetypal Unconscious.
So, Dream! Allow your various parts-of-Self Personas including your DESCENDER to manifest in your dreams so you can encounter and engage with them. You will learn more about your Self from understanding their viewpoints and feelings.
images are from pixabay.com
I welcome and invite your comments and stories. Have you had a DESCENDER dream?
When I was young, I remember asking my sister this question one day. We were in the kitchen. I was about 10 and she was 6.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
(pause, deep thought, and then) “I know! A Bunnyrabbit!”
What a great image! And do you know, my sister did grow up to be a bunny rabbit, in her way. She is very active and holds a lot of responsibility that helps a lot of people. Plus she has a tremendous group of very active friends, and most of all for the last several years she has been our family’s primary caregiver for our 89 year old mother who suffers from late stage Parkinsons at a nursing home near to my sister’s home. My sister’s home has become, because so near to Mom, the nucleus for our family visits. So, she is always hopping!
How did or might you have answered this question while you were young:
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? (You may print this out and use the space below to journal in.)
Now then, WHY (did/would you have answered this way)?
I have found an interesting pattern from asking this question, and then following it with: “How would you answer that same question today/ What do you want to be now when you ‘grow up’ (and, ‘Is there a difference between how you would have answered as a child and now/ Why?'”).
The way people answer this question reveals something about the dominant ARCHETYPE influences they identify with. Here’s a list of The Twelve primordial persona archetypes identified by the late Dr. Charles Bebeau of the Avalon Archetype Institute (as adapted by Debra Breazzano, MA/LPC) :
ELDER LEADER ARTIST TEACHER
LOVER IDEALIST COMMUNICATOR
WARRIOR GOLDEN CHILD HEALER
NURTURER DESCENDER MYSTIC
For example, I have found that people holding a childhood dream of becoming an Aviator or an Astronaut show when they complete the life mapping process I offer that they have a strong IDEALIST archetype orientation. People who say they wanted to be a Superhero (a common childhood ‘fantasy’) later often show a strong WARRIOR archetypal persona. And those who wanted to become a veterinarian, for instance, tend to embody and gravitate to the HEALER mode, etcetera.
Which of these twelve persona archetype figures do you recognize as primary personas within yourself?
People (Adults) often say the difference in how they would have answered this question as a child, and now, is that now they have “matured” to accept more “realistic” limitations. To the extent that some of these early archetypal influences may be less strong in later life (many are still present but expressing in more subdued form), some of these archetypal impulses could be suppressed or repressed. That is why it is good to renew this question and see how you FEEL about pursuing your ‘childlike’ Dream from here forward.
You can still BE that Superhero; you still ARE that airy-fairy inner Explorer/ IDEALIST. It can help to get in touch with all of your inner “parts of Self” that relate especially to the significant Themes in your life (e.g. Parent / Teacher/ Lover/ Spirituality oriented/ Artist, etcetera). Jung would say it benefits us all to attend to and to INTEGRATE these various sub-selves, to orchestrate them, I would add, in pursuit of our Life Mission and goals.
images are from pixabay.com
This month, October, is associated astrologically with Libra and the LOVER Archetype. This is an opportunity to call your own LOVER forward to partner with you this month. Get to know your LOVER persona. How does S/HE express in your life? Is S/HE in Strength mode (positive outlet) or in Shadow (if so how/ why?) What does S/HE, your Inner LOVER part-of-Self, want of you or for itself? How can you include your Inner LOVER in your outer life more fully? These are some questions you might explore.
For this month of the archetypal Communicator, I offer you a method for working with a challenging relationship conflict in a positive, constructive way.
For a difficult situation involving communication challenges, you can “go Within” to engage with the person(s) involved, or alternately, you can meet with an Inner Guide and have a conversation with him or her about a snaggly situation. This is a form of what Carl Jung would call Active Imagination.
If you are having troubles communicating with someone because of a personality conflict or in relation to a sticky situation, you can set some quiet, private time aside. Go into a light contemplative/ meditative ‘zone’ (eyes closed in a semi-darkened space or in a natural setting) and imagine that the person or persons you’ve been having trouble with are present in a conference room (or create your own internal environment that is appropriate for your visit).
Start a conversation. It can be very simple and does not have to be directly about the challenging situation you are facing. What is important is that this is a positive exchange. Allow the internal conversation with your ‘alter’ to proceed naturally, as if you and this person or persons are meeting Soul-to-Soul with a shared intention to move beyond your snaggles and to arrive at a positive, win-win solution.
As an example to demonstrate the approach, around 15 years ago I faced a difficult situation with a workplace colleague. Coming from polarized theoretical approaches for teaching, the impasse between us reached the point—very uncomfortable for me—that we would avoid contact with each other altogether.
Then one morning I woke from a lucid dream encounter with this person (let’s call him Carl). In this dream encounter, I simply met Carl in passing. I beamed a positive smile, made Soul-to-Soul eye contact, and said, “Hello Carl!”. That was it. But it had the most amazing effect! That very morning at work, I was in the mail room when Carl walked in. Seeing we were ‘stuck’ alone in the mail room together, we made eye contact for the first time in several months.
“Hello Carl!” I beamed, smiling.
“Hi Linda,” Carl replied also with a smile.
That was our entire conversation, just as in the morning’s lucid dream. Somehow, it set into motion an immediate, significant thawing of our relationship. We no longer avoided one another, and in fact shortly after this encounter, Carl applied for and received an out-of-state position that would allow him to advance in his career. (I had put the job notification in his mailbox!) Within 3-4 months, Carl left, with the two of us in a much improved relation, as I even organized, as department Chair, a farewell party for Carl.
free images are from pixabay.com
I invite you to try this technique for yourself. Imaginean internal conversation with someone you seek to have a better relationship with. You are not trying to change this person, but you are simply allowing a Soul-to-Soul encounter that may be difficult to engage in “out Here.”
I welcome your Comments and Stories.
(P.S. I will be on a road trip for the next month, so blog posts may be on a less than regular schedule.)
Carl Jung’s recognition of the value of encountering unconscious archetypical aspects of Self through active imagination leads to his understanding that this is a process leading to the “integration” of archetypal energies within the overall, individual identity of one’s Self. James Hillman further recognized that there is value in experiencing the dynamic vitality of usually submerged unconscious archetypal persona aspects, not necessarily to ‘raise them to conscious’ habitation but to explore the dynamics of their own field of influence within the Depth levels of Self.
Each archetypical mode or energy complex within our overall human consciousness formation has Its own nature and can be a staunch Ally in Its most positive (Strength, to me) mode— or an impediment if repressed or in Shadow. To me, as with Jung, Hillman, and Jean Houston, the forming of an Archetype Council— what I like to call your Ensemble Cast of Mystic Archetype Characters— is an important process that facilitates the integration and mobilization of your dynamic archetypal energies in the most positive way. I think in terms of Archetype Pairings and Archetype Constellations within your Total Self System.
Allying with your Warrior nature can be a good opportunity to forge an Archetypal Constellation in working toward a specific life goal or addressing a situation in your life that seems to call for your Warrior— at least in one aspect— to step forward. By Itself in full force, Warrior can lead the charge, when needed, to bring about a major shift in a situation. But Warrior also combines well with any of the other 11 universal archetypes (and/or their sub-modal, individualized forms), especially when you desire to establish a more tempered, balanced approach to a situation.
Combining archetypal modes or ‘guises’ normally happens unconsciously, but as an “alchemical” practice, the individual can choose consciously to enlist and combine specific archetypal elements in order to facilitate a specific objective. By the way, if this is not done, and as Joseph Campbell has reminded us, in some situations you might feel ‘dissociated’ or ‘split’: one part of you thinking or acting in one manner, another feeling or speaking from a very different ‘location’ within your Self. This is represented by the classic “angel on one shoulder, devil on the other” motif.
One technique I offer to you for forging an archetypal Constellation to explore how best to approach a specific goal or deal with a difficult situation, is what I’ll call the Roundtable Room technique (based on the symbol of King Arthur’s Roundtable):
FRAME a question or a situation;
State your goal in relation to this situation or decision;
On the picture below, circle those persona archetype characters you feel might be helpful to enlist to help you realize your goal or arrive at your decision:
4. Enter into an Active Imagination (imaginative contemplation) session and Descend to the Roundtable Room where these selected Archetype characters have been assembled. Now invite each of these Archetypical personas to offer how they can help your overall Self with the situation or decision. Have an open conversation with these parts of your Self, seeking their input and asking to draw upon each of their Strengths in a team-based, collaborative manner.
5. Emerge from your Active Imagination contemplation and write down all that transpired (you can also journal this conversation as it occurs if that works better for you).
Below are some spaces where you may print this post and record which archetype modes you have invited to help you work with the situation you have focused on with your active imagination.
SITUATION:
Ensemble Cast Allies/Strengths to Draw Upon:
Warrior / (e.g. resolve)
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
So, choose a situation for which your inner Warrior would be one ‘part’ of your Self that it feels appropriate for you to recruit in the Roundtable Room. What does your Warrior want for you and of you in the situation? How can he/she help you to deal with the situation and achieve your goal? What other parts of your Self have something to add to this? What Strengths can these Archetype Allies each contribute to help you implement this plan and manifest your goal?
Better Endings 