Beyond Integration – The Next Big Life Journey

What Lies Beyond Your Major Integration Step? (Hint: A Whole New World of Life-Mastery)

Marianne Mader, intrepid explorer and researcher, makes a career of looking for the next adventure. Photo courtesy Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration.

Marianne Mader, intrepid explorer and researcher, makes a career of looking for the next adventure. Photo courtesy Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration.

I called up my friend Emma the other day. We hadn’t spoken in ages – I’m still scraping names and contact info off my old (and now retired) computer and pasting them into the new – so it had been a while.

I’m so exhausted, Emma said within the first thirty seconds of our conversation.

Now, Emma is a woman who has done a huge amount of inner work. She’s not shy about taking life by the horns. So it came as a surprise to hear her “blurt.”

Because “blurt” is what we do when we lower our guard and let what is going on – what is really going on – slip out.

Have You Ever Felt This Way?

Have you ever felt as though you’ve gotten it together – you know that you’ve done a whole lot of inner work, and you have had results – and yet you feel that something is missing?

Or maybe you’ve felt that after all your work – and possibly even your teaching of others – that there was some real, fundamental life-lesson that you just weren’t getting?

Do you feel that you’re looking for the next right step in your life?

No big surprise, really.

And this does NOT mean that you’ve done anything wrong.

On the contrary.

What this more likely means is that you have indeed accomplished the first stage of what you set out to do – but now you’re on the verge of a new life-challenge. And this feels just as uncomfortable, just as awkward, just as something-is-missing-and-I-don’t-know-what-it-is as things may have felt years ago, when you first embarked on inner work.

You, my dear friend, are on the threshold of your second major adult life journey.

But before we dive into this one, let’s review what you’ve accomplished already.

Archetype Mastery and Integration – Your First Life-Journey

http://www.hellenicaworld.The Greek goddess Niki personifies Winged Victory.

The Greek goddess Niki personifies Winged Victory.

Many of us have already accomplished the biggest challenge of our first adult life-journey. This journey is all about discovering, mastering, and integrating each of our six core power archetypes.

(Catch-Up Note: There are eight core archetypes overall, they correspond well with the Jungian Psychological Types, based on distinctions between Thinking/Feeling, Sensing/Intuitive, and Judging/Perceiving, but not including Introversion/Extroversion. Of the eight core types, six are core power archetypes; the remaining two are rest-and-recharge archetypes. For more details, see the links at the end of this blog post.)

How Do We Gauge Our Inner Mastery Progress?

One way in which we know that we’ve achieved some mastery and integration here is that we seamlessly call upon our Emperor (Protector and Provider) and our Empress (caring and nurturing) archetypes. Anyone who has been both a parent and a career person learns to manage this integration. In Unveiling, I cite Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State, as someone who has expertly accomplished this integration.

There are other integrations that we achieve, usually by the time that we’re in our late forties or early fifties. Just as with the Emperor (Psychological Type STJ) and Empress (NFP), these each involve polar-opposite archetype pairs:

  • Magician and Hathor (pleasure goddess),
  • High Priestess and Green Man, and
  • Hierophant and Hestia.

A quick overview of each (with more to come in the future, new bloglinks will be inserted as they come):

The Magician and Hathor – Polar Opposite Archetype Integration

Have you noticed how often a highly creative person will have a muse? Acclaimed fashion designer Giovanni Versace had a very strong Magician archetype. Giovanni’s sister, Donatella Versace, was Giovanni’s muse. She was his Hathor, or pleasure-goddess embodiment. Back then, she was a free-wheeling party-lover. On his death, she had to become the Magician herself. She designed and produced a new fashion collection within three months after Giovanni’s death.

Our Magician archetype is very focused; very intense. By pairing with our inner Hathor, we lighten up a bit.

Your High Priestess Pairs with Your Inner Green Man

Have you ever noticed that, when you need to clear your head and think through something, you go for a walk? That’s your High Priestess calling on your inner Green Man.

Our High Priestess archetype has something in common with our Magician; both of these are abstract thinkers. Our Magician is more likely to create ideas and bring things into reality; our High Priestess is more likely to follow the connections. Our High Priestess takes us into our mull-things-over mode.

Our High Priestess, like our Magician, needs something to pull her outside of herself. In her case, it’s the Green Man. He gets her walking, he gets her out into nature – the physical actions of moving about help free her mind to follow where thought-connections lead her.

Your Hierophant Needs Your Inner Hestia

Have you noticed that people-intensive activities, such as counseling, coaching, and teaching sometimes bring you to a place where you need to recharge your psychic batteries?

If your day-to-day work involves being a Hierophant, and you are helping people work through their lives, then your private life needs to be low-key and quietly supportive.

Benjamin Disraeli, a brilliant man, served twice as England’s Prime Minister during the late 1880’s. Disraeli focused much of his attention on forming a “knight and fair lady” relationship with Queen Victoria. When asked how he did so well with her, he told his Cabinet, ‘first of all remember she is a woman.’

Disraeli put his intellectual and emotional energies into his political pursuits and into cultivating his relationship with the Queen. Being by nature both intellectual and somewhat melancholy, he needed simplicity and fun in his home life. He also needed someone who was completely devoted to him, and who would replenish, rather than drain, his emotional reserves. Disraeli was a combination Magician (political visionary) and Hierophant (guru/teacher).

Disraeli’s wife, Mary Anne (later made the Viscountess Beaconsfield of Beaconsfield) was light-hearted and completely devoted to him. Disraeli used to enjoy coming home to her, because she made his home life happy. On one occasion, she accompanied him to the House of Commons. According to a report, Disraeli accidently closed the carriage door on her finger. She made no sound, not wishing to disturb his concentration before he entered to make a speech. Mary Anne Wyndham Lewis Disraeli served Disraeli as Empress, High Priestess, Hathor, and Hestia!

We can see from these examples that we either often integrate archetypes within ourselves, or find a close partner whose archetypal roles complement our own.

So how does this take us to the next stage?

Second-Stage Integration: Going Beyond Polar Opposites

The Chariot, Major Arcana Card VII, tells us that we've completed our first major adult life-journey with our first archetypal integration.

The Chariot, Major Arcana Card VII, tells us that we’ve completed our first major adult life-journey with our first archetypal integration.

The notion of first-stage integration is that we use our force of will to bring our polar opposite archetypes into working together. Sometimes we find an external person who fulfills certain archetypal roles for us. Most of the time, though, we do this for ourselves.

The question is, though: What happens when this is not enough?

A Story from One of My Heroines – Mama Gena

One of my favorite people is author and life-teacher Regena Thomaschauer, aka Mama Gena. Can I say that I absolutely love her blog? And her books? She has (metaphorically, through her books and blogging) held my hand through many a corporate crisis and low moment.

So I was a bit surprised to hear her voice something similar to Emma’s blurt a few weeks ago.

Direct from Mama Gena’s Blog of October 22, 2013, we have this:

So… my inner masculine was fired up and stoked in order to protect and ensure the growth of all this feminine I was responsible for…

But… as all of you know, when a woman lives inside all that strong, virile, productive masculine energy, it can drain the life force out of her. Especially when there are no strong masculine arms to lean into or stand for her.

I know so many women who have given up the soul of their feminine in order to do exactly what I did–raise a child or children on their own… So many women have to sacrifice the softest, sweetest, most delectable, delicious, sensual aspects of who they are in order to climb the corporate ladder, or get noticed for a raise or promotion, or receive the recognition they deserve.

… I had to teach myself through serious trial and big-time error exactly how to create balance within, while managing so much without.

When my masculine was on overdrive, there was no soft spot for her to land… The feminine needs to be fed, like a fire. Or she will extinguish.

Right on, Mama Gena! Absolutely right!

We do need to feed our inner feminine, as our cultures – and the practicalities of our lives – demand that we be so much in our inner masculine.

Of all the people in the world to bring this up, though, the last person that I expected was Mama Gena. She who is the Princess of Pleasure, the Diva of Desire – the one whom I turn to when I need a reminder (or a swift kick in the a**) to reconnect with my own inner feminine – particularly with my Hathor; my goddess of sensual pleasure.

Mama does a really excellent job of this. (Go read Mama Gena’s full blog; she has some great ideas.)

But still – she was struggling.

Why?

Because she’s already done the first stage of integration; she has her Emperor (Protector and Provider) mode working for her daughter Maggie, hand-in-hand with her inner Empress (loving and nurturing).

She works diligently to bring her Hathor (pleasure goddess) into every day of her life. (Applause! I just LOVE the example that she sets for us.)

So what is really going on?

After Integration, What Next?

In the Major Arcana, Card VII – the Chariot (a masculinized version of the Winged Goddess) – represents the big integration step. The Chariot illustrates how we use our force of will to bring together our polar opposite archetypes. Each one wants to go in a different direction. Through sheer determination and will, our inner Charioteer causes them to work together; to pull us all in a single and cohesive direction.

Notice, though.

The Charioteer has to do a whole lot of work.

Strength, Major Arcana Card VIII, signifies our entry into our second adult life-journey with a new and deeper form of integration.

Strength, Major Arcana Card VIII, signifies our entry into our second adult life-journey with a new and deeper form of integration. (Image from the Rider-Waite deck.)

My friend Emma, Mama Gena, and I – and very possibly you as well – are all dealing with second-stage integration.

We’ve learned how to balance being an Emperor (career) with our Empress (care-giving). Really, we have.

It seems as though it still is a lot, and yes, it still is – just because of life’s practicalities.

But really, we’re all at a whole new level.

This managing through force-of-will thing has gotten just a bit old.

We’re ready for a kinder, gentler way of living. Especially, we’re ready to be kinder and gentler to ourselves.

That’s why, when we look at the next image – Major Arcana Card VIII, or Strength – we take courage.

The beautiful, glowing, and softly-flowing Strength Maiden is getting her way with the great, big lion. But she’s not straining. She’s not efforting. She’s not feeling exhausted at the end of the day (or worse yet, exhausted when she wakes up in the morning).

Clearly, she’s getting what she wants in life.

Just as clearly, she’s not having to work nearly as hard as the Charioteer.

Strength introduces us to our second level of life-journey. It seems, at the outset, that we’ll be in a really good place if all that we do is to go from being the strong-willed Charioteer to the gentle (yet effective) Strength Maiden.

Yet, there is more to our next journey than even this.

At the end of this particular journey, we come to a place called Temperance, Major Arcana Card XIV. (This does not mean that we have to give up our favorite cocktails or margaritas. We still get to have our glass of wine with our meals, or a little hot toddy before we go to bed.) Temperance has to do with getting and circulating life-energy. It means that we’re mastering the kind of vital energy that is the fuel for certain martial arts movies.

Temperance is when Yoda says, Use the Force, Luke!

So if this second life-journey has us starting off with a really good place (the Strength Maiden’s gentle yet powerful effectiveness), and ending up in an even better place (using “the Force”), it has to be pretty good, right?

More on this in the next blogpost.

Until then – May the Force be with you! (Oh, I so couldn’t resist that!)

yours in love and laughter – Alay’nya

Easy Self-Assessment Quiz – Match Books to Archetypes

Easy Self-Assessment Quiz – Match Books to Archetypes 

How Well Do You Know Your Archetypes?
How Well Do You Know Yourself?

“A (wo)man is known by the books (s)he reads …”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why Bother?

First, it’s fun. You’ve been reading for a while – now you get to figure out how much you’ve really learned.

Second, this gives you insight into yourself. If you find a certain match-up easy, it means that you already know that archetype well – and that means that you’ve likely done some mastery work and own that archetype yourself. (It’s always fun to get positive feedback, right?)

The Saleen S7 Twin Turbo. Missing a core archetype is like driving a powerful V8 car when one of its cylinders is misfiring.

The Saleen S7 Twin Turbo. Missing a core archetype is like driving a powerful V8 car when one of its cylinders is misfiring.

Finally, this gives you some sense of the way forward. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I’m absolutely not saying that you give each archetype equal attention in your life. But if one area is completely missing, or is not being supported, then that’s like driving the eight-horse stagecoach with only six or seven horses.

Missing a core archetype is like running a V-8 power car with a couple of cylinders misfiring.

Missing a core archetype is missing an important aspect of life.

So where are you?

If you match all of these easily, give yourself a high-five! You’re well into personal mastery and archetype integration.

Missing one or two, or more?

When you get my email (see the Sign-Up form at the bottom of this blog), you’ll also start getting some ideas on how to take steps to make yourself more powerful – more integrated – more able to easily ride the waves of life’s challenges.

And that’s what it’s about, isn’t it?

Have fun with this! – Alay’nya


How to Take the Quiz

There are nine books in the colorful table below. (That’s the one filled with book pictures; you can check them out on Amazon just by clicking the link.) These books are labeled A – I.

There are eight core archetypes (see the list below the table). In addition, there’s the whole notion of archetype integration – a real sign of personal mastery.

This gives us a total of nine different “answers.”

Your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to match the books to the archetypes.

Simply copy down the archetypes (listed below the table), and match up the book letter to the archetype number.


How to Get the Answers

I’ll email you the answers right away – simply fill in the form below the table. (This is the orange-red and grey form; the one that says “Sign Up” in the orange box below the name and email fields.)

It’s that easy. Sign up, check your email for a confirmation email from AWeber (that’s so we know you’re a real person, not a spam-machine), and the very first email that I’ll send to you will have the answers.

And a special bonus or two as well.

Curious?

Got your interest tweaked?

Have you been “paying attention in class” and want to find out?

Try this now.

It’s more than fun – it will tell you a LOT about yourself!

I’ll connect with you soon – via email – as soon as you Sign Up with me!


 

 

A

How to Think Like a CEO

   

B

The Artist’s Way … Higher Creativity

   

C

Living a Beautiful Life

 
 

D

Eating Local: The Cookbook

   

E

Unveiling: The Inner Journey

   

F

Bombshell Manual of Style

 
 

G

A New Day: 365 Meditations

   

H

Organizing … Inside Out

   

I

Game Plan for Life: Power of Mentoring

 

 


How well do you know yourself?

If you understand your archetypes, you’ll easily figure out the match-ups for the quiz above.

Write down your choices for each of the following (select from A – I).

Eight Core Archetypes

  1. Magician
  2. High Priestess
  3. Emperor
  4. Isis/Empress
  5. Hierophant
  6. Hathor (Love Goddess)
  7. Green Man
  8. Hestia (Hearth & Home)
  9. Winged Goddess (Integration)

Get the answers – emailed to you immediately!

Sign up using the form to the right.

(And have fun!)

Have You Mastered Your Archetypes?






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Six Top Blog Posts for The Unveiling Journey

Six-Year Anniversary for The Unveiling Journey Blog Series: Six Top Blog Posts Over Past Six Years

Over these six years, I’ve written about 100 blog posts.

The archetype overview blogs are by far the most popular in the nearly 100 blogposts, written over six years, for The Unveiling Journey – a companion blog to the book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published in July, 2011.

The most popular concept that people are tracking is that of our core power archetypes.

Crucial Themes for Previous The Unveiling Journey Blog Posts

Many of the Unveiling Journey blogs over the past two years (since Unveiling was published) have focused on refining and giving more context for the six core power archetypes, together with identifying and building out the two “support role” archetypes – the two rest-and-recharge ones.

Not surprisingly, the most popular blogs have been those that overviewed the eight core archetypes – either as all eight, or focusing on the six core power ones. The masculine/feminine archetypal distinctions have also been popular.

For all of these crucial blog posts, the essential diagram is the Core Archetype Octant Chart given below. It shows each of the core archetypes (six core power ones, and two rest-and-recharge ones), mapped to the Jungian Psychological Type matrix. (This subsumes the Introversion/Extroversion distinction, and focuses on the three other modalities: Sensing/INtuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving.)

Core archetypes octant chart - each archetype (each octant) corresponds to one of Jung's Psychological Types (discounting the introversion/extroversion distinction).

Core archetypes octant chart – each archetype (each octant) corresponds to one of Jung’s Psychological Types (discounting the introversion/extroversion distinction). Copyright Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D., 2013. All rights reserved.

The Six Most Popular Blogs – During Six Years of The Unveiling Journey

Here, in increasing order of popularity, are the six most popular blog posts since this blog site was established:

  • #6: Becoming a Master of the Universe: Three Essential Life-Stages – three stages, and seven steps each, describe our adult life journey – real mastery work; and the first of these (the Worldly Sequence) encompasses our six core power archetypes, followed by integration,
  • #5: Moore and Gillette, “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” – 2 1/3 Out of Four Ain’t Bad! – Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette advance the notion of four core archetypes describing the male psyche. (Similar approach to how Antonia Wolff advanced the notion of four core feminine archetypes in her highly-regarded Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche.) Find out why Moore and Gillette rank 2 and 1/3 as a “correct score” out of four possible points (whereas Antonia Wolff’s insights get 3 1/3 out of 4),
  • #4: Masculine vs. Feminine – Core Archetypes – particularly useful if you’re trying to understand a “masculine” archetype within a simplified “feminine” archetypal group (what does your Amazon really mean?), and vice versa, ,
  • #3: The “Unveiling Archetypes” and the Jungian Dimensions – details the relationship between the eight core archetypes and the Jungian Psychological Types,
  • #2: Mapping the Eight Core Power Archetypes to the Jungian System – introduces the notion that there can be a relationship between the eight core archetypes and the Jungian Psychological Types (this is an intro blog; you can skip it and go directly to #3, which is meatier),
  • #1 (The All-Time Winner for Blog Popularity): Your Six “Power Archetypes” – What Happens When One Doesn’t Function? – introduces the notion that we need to cultivate all of our core power archetypes – not just sit in our primary one. The idea that we would be “typecast” was an indirect result of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, which was invented to match incoming servicemen (and women) to military specialties during WWII. Carl Jung, in his theories for the Psychological Types, advocated that we develop all of our Type-roles over time. This realization is coming back more into mainstream recognition.

If You Had to Pick Just One

The most useful blog out of these six is not the one that’s been the most popular. Instead, it’s the most recent one: Masculine vs. Feminine – Core Archetypes. Three reasons that I suggest this as your starting place:

  1. Most useful and relevant content – in the eighteen months between posting the first blogs on core archetypes and their integration (these would be the three most popular blogs), I’ve had plenty of time to refine, distill, and make more concrete the essential ideas,
  2. Clearest overview of the eight core archetypes – including their match-ups to the Jungian Psychological Type dimensions, and
  3. Best encapsulation of the “feminine archetype” and “masculine archetype” bundles – gives a concise summary of how women use their Amazon archetype as a short-hand notation (or “bundling”) for their four masculine archetypes, and how men use their Lover archetype as a “bundling” for their feminine ones – the pros and cons of this “bundling” for each gender.

Over the past two years, I’ve been “filling in the blanks” for each of the core archetypes. (A detailed Guide will appear in a forthcoming blog.)

In the next few weeks, I’ll divulge the Editorial Calendar for the coming year – important topics, major themes, and essential insights (useful for helping you navigate your own Journeys). In addition, starting in 2014, we’ll introduce several Guest Bloggers – people who have important messages to share about their own JourneysHeroic, Integration, or Great.


Alay'nya - author of "Unveiling: The Inner Journey"

Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as discover and empower each of your core archetypes during your own inner journey!

Alay’nya
(Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)

Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

The Unveiling Journey blog details the theory – archetypes, life journeys, integration.

To experience your own Journey in a structured, safe, and gentle (yet effective) setting, visit Alay’nya’s website, and consider either a workshop with Alay’nya or one-on-one coaching.


Resources

Connect with Alay’nya and the Unveiling Community


Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has twenty five-star Amazon reviews.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.

Unveiling currently has twenty 5-star Amazon reviews, and has been recommended by luminaries:

  • Dr. Christiane Northrup – “This book is delightful”
  • Midwest Book Review, in Bethany’s Books – reviews by Susan Bethany – “highly recommended”
  • Nizana al Rassan, writing for (the now out of circulation) iShimmy.com – “a fascinating read with so much wisdom and solid advice.”

 

 


Julie Marie Rahm, aka America’s Mindset Mechanic on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What does Julie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic and author of Handle Everything: Eight Tools You Need to Live Well and Prosper have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

Julie writes:

Unveiling is the definitive guidebook for women who want to experience lives of joy and fulfillment, and who just want to exhale into each day. Alay’nya reveals powerful, personal stories of her own life journey to fascinating womanhood, sensuality, and self-acceptance in ways that struck me like a velvet hammer. Her fresh approach to living illuminated my own bind spots. It is impossible to read Unveiling without awakening to new and possibly shocking self-awareness. For women ready to make real and lasting changes toward enlightenment and bliss, Unveiling is a must-read..”

Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.


 

Paper

Kindle

 


Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic

Check out Julie Marie Rahm!

Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic and author of Handle Everything: Eight Tools You Need to Live Well and Prosper and also Military Kids Speak (great for parents, teachers, and coaches of military kids) uses a great technique that can help you clear energy blockages, ranging from those from this life through the influence of your ancestral karma. Connect with Julie at info (at) americasmindsetmechanic (dot) com to learn more about how she can help you.

Books by Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic

Kindle

Kindle


Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.). All rights reserved.

Related Posts: Archetypal Roles and Everyday Life

When You’ve Betrayed Yourself – And How to Recover

All Betrayal Is Really What We Do to Ourselves – and Yes, We CAN Recover!

Do you give yourself what you're really worth?

Do you give yourself what you’re really worth?

Right now, there’s a nationwide (and worldwide) concern about money.

The past three weeks have been thought-provoking for anyone in the United States. We’ve teetered dangerously close to the border of default. The Federal Government was shut down for nearly three weeks.

This means that even though the government (civil service) employees will get paid for their furloughed time, a great deal of churn has been thrown into the realm of government contractors, as well as the suppliers and service people who keep both the government and the contractors going.

In this particular area (North Virginia), it makes a big difference.

Throughout the whole country, though, there have been many people who’ve been asking themselves: How could I have put myself so much at risk?

This goes beyond government contractors and their support system. It includes the many people who are on Social Security, and who wonder about their economic future. It includes the many who lost the huge bulk of their retirement savings during the financial collapse of 2008, and who still have not recovered. It includes many of us who have leveraged ourselves into a tight position – those of us who have a steady job, with nice benefits – but little flexibility, and who feel trapped in the system.

Betrayal Is What We Do to Ourselves – and Then We Take Charge of Our Lives

I had a mentor once who famously said, We always know. We may not want to admit it to ourselves, but we always know.

When we set ourselves up for a tough spot, we also discern the tools and gifts that we need to move on.

When we set ourselves up for a tough spot, we also discern the tools and gifts that we need to move on.

It’s possibly no accident that of my last three face-to-face meetings, each has been with someone who has or is in the midst of stepping out of a corporate job – even a very nice and secure corporate job – and is striking out as an entrepreneur.

They’ve identified that the “betrayal” here was not so much entrusting the system (their job and the entire corporate culture) to take care of them financially, as it was in believing that they could “make it work” (for much longer than necessary) within that environment.

Intimate Relations and Job/Corporate Relations Riff on the Same Internal Dynamic

Our intimate relations often have the same dynamics as our job and social relations.

Our intimate relations often have the same dynamics as our job and social relations.

Over the last week, I’ve had in-depth conversations with four different women. Two of them – ones who are also just rebuilding their business lives – spent time recounting unhappy relationships or marriages. They’re carefully keeping themselves out of relationships right now, while they rebuild their lives.

The two others? Absolutely fabulous, totally enviable marriages. (One is newly married. She’s older than me, but is vibrant, glowing, and truly a blushing bride.) Of these, one has moved out from a secure position in which she’s been highly respected and wielded much influence. The other is getting ready to move on; retiring from a job that’s become stifling, and doing what makes her heart sing.

I see this a lot. There is often a common theme in our lives – one that we express again and again, in our selection of (and staying with) jobs, closest friends, and intimate partners. In other words, those people and institutions with whom we let down our walls – we open to some level of trust and vulnerability.

Sometimes we make great choices.

Sometimes, we make awful ones.

What Happens When We Dethrone Our Own Internal Emperor

Our Emperor archetype is our inner Protector and Provider. Of all the masculine roles, he is the one most charged with keeping us safe and secure.

Many of us, when we find that opening ourselves up has led us into disastrous situations (either financially or emotionally, or even both), do a sort of shock-reaction: we flip an internal switch and go into Emperor mode.

Sometimes, we go into Emperor mode early in life. This happens when we feel that our feminine aspects are too dangerous a place. This can be due to family or societal dynamics, or even one truly awful early-life experience. (Sometimes, a succession of them.) We flee our feminine selves, and put on a Warrior’s armor and an Emperor’s mindset.

I write about this extensively in:

What really happens when we do this, though, is that we engage a sort of pseudo-Emperor. We don’t have a real, fully-fledged Emperor running our show – we have an archetype who has the power to direct our attention, and make our judgment calls – but is not really there for us as either a Protector or as a Provider.

The result?

We work.

We work really, really hard.

We work really, really hard for years and years.

But – when we finally pull our heads up (or a corporate or national crisis forces us to step back and assess) – we realize: we haven’t protected or provided for ourselves at all. We’ve poured ourselves into a certain kind of task – but left ourselves with a kind of vulnerability.

In short, we’ve created our own Achilles’ heel. We have a vulnerability because we haven’t really dialed in to our Emperor archetype; we’ve never really let him take charge in an intelligent and useful way.

We’ve gone into Emperor-type activities, but we’ve not really let him Protect and Provide.

The crunch comes, and we’re devastated.

How to deal?

Will Our Real Emperor Please Stand Forth?

Our real Emperor persona is highly mature, and takes his responsibilities very seriously.

Let’s look at where he comes in during our archetypal evolution.

First, we invoke and cultivate our Magician; our creative visionary. We have great ideas for what we want in life, and we move forward with them.

Then, we realize that we need to pull back a bit; we need contemplation to balance our creative surges. We cultivate our inner High Priestess.

By the time that we’ve gotten our Magician and High Priestess going strong, we realize that we’ve been so focused on our creative vision that we’ve neglected our emotional selves. We begin to pay more attention to our inner Empress. (I call this our Isis archetype, after the Egyptian goddess of nurturance and love.)

It is only at this point – in the “archetypal evolution” scheme of things – that we invoke our Emperor. We do so because – by now – every one of our active archetypes needs him. Our Magician needs help creating a business plan and a structure that will support the creative vision. The High Priestess needs someone who is “out there” – taking care of the worldly things – so that she is safe when she calls a retreat. And the Empress?

Oh my, the Empress. She’s the one who takes on the emotional responsibilities for caretaking and nurturing, and the practical day-to-day ones as well. This can be with children. It can be with animals, particularly if someone devotes himself or herself to animal rescue or environmental care. This can be in community service or in any other way of emotional investing.

In terms of archetypal patterns, both our High Priestess and our Empress get very diffuse. They tend – by their very natures – to be ever-expanding in their awareness and attention.

For the High Priestess, this is a sort of intellectual or simply perceptive awareness. In our High Priestess modes, one thought leads to another, and to another. (When coupled with Magician moments, this leads to fabulous brainstorming.)

For the Empress, this kind of expansiveness is emotional. She winds up committing to caring for more than she can practically handle.

Between Isis and High Priestess, things can get too diffuse; too over-extended. The Magician, with his intense focus on creativity, may have let the rest of life pile up in huge, chaotic disarray.

The Emperor’s role? First, to bring in some structure and order.

He’s the one who will say: Let’s get all these names of people we’ve met (while doing all of our great networking and connecting) into a database. He’ll say: Let’s stop producing new stuff for a while, and organize our files, and back-up all our computer data. He’ll say: Let’s put together a spreadsheet of expenses, and figure out what we’ve got.

When we invoke our Emperor in a benevolent mode, he comes in as a rescuer. He brings not only structure and order, but strength and stability. He may bring some routine in to our lives – whether as regularly scheduled times for certain tasks, or as business processes that ultimately let us delegate tasks to others.

When we do a higher level of life-integration, we call on our Emperor in a more powerful and comprehensive way. We may have previously given away our power. We may have pretended to ourselves that our corporate job was secure, or that the financial system would stay stable, and our futures would be safe if we simply trusted these institutions to work in our favor.

We may have married someone, or taken in a boyfriend, or even given over a great deal of power to a more masculine business partner – and then realized that they were not there for us. They were not protecting and providing; if anything, we were providing for them!

We Recover by Invoking a Strong, Healthy, and Benevolent Emperor Inside Ourselves

As we recover, we realize that we don’t need to give away our power (and our trust, and our financial resources, and our work) to someone or something else.

We realize that we really can take care of ourselves, and we can do so in a very loving, calm, compassionate – yet very structured and disciplined manner.

This is a fairly big step in personal growth.

This goes beyond our first work in archetype integration, in which we make opposing sides work together.

In this more advanced work, we are subduing the “inner beast” (our raging fears, insecurities, and desires to simply run away – let someone else be in charge). Instead, as we gentle these fears to the ground, we invoke each of our inner archetypes as needed, and give them the full power and authority to get the job done.

If one of our tasks is to provide for our own financial well-being, then we assess what we need, calmly and deliberately. We undertake the next steps, in a way that brings our goals to fruition most solidly and steadily. We don’t look for shortcuts, and we don’t try to cut corners. We simply do what we need to do.

Dealing with Betrayal at the Deepest Level

What to Do When the Very Worst Happens

I have a young colleague whom I’ve been quasi-mentoring over the past several years. She’s brilliant, obsessively hard-working, and (of course) doing way too much, all the time. However, she’s mastered each and every challenge up until now.

Woman crying. Photo by Elmo Malik.

Woman crying. Photo by Elmo Malik.

She’ll master this one as well, but boy – is it a whopper!

This one counts as a betrayal, at the deepest level possible.

A Betrayal that Cuts to the Very Core

There’s betrayal at a superficial level – the sort that, in retrospect, becomes almost laughable. At least, you can make a good story about it.

The Ones Where You Can Deal

  • A casual business associate screws you over on a deal. We’re talking about an associate here – someone with whom you may have set up a deal, but not a whole-life partnership. Yeah, it’s rough. But the person has shown their true colors, you know to avoid that one in the future, and you can recover and move on. More or less easily.
  • A trusted friend or family member divulges a confidence. Again, awkward, embarrassing, a lot of mess to be cleaned up. You may be well and truly pissed; there might be some real discomfort for a while – but once again, you’ll recover and move on. Again, more or less easily.
  • A professional colleague, with whom you’ve too candidly shared your latest breakthroughs, publishes your work ahead of you. You succumbed to this person’s way-too-flattering interest, divulged over drinks much more than was wise, and now you’ve been good and truly scooped – on something that took you years of work.

All of these are instances where your ego-self gets into an uproar, and dealing with the fallout will take days, maybe even weeks or months. But all in all, you’re still you; the other person has simply shown themselves for what they are, and – other than being more careful in the future – your life is not too horribly impacted.

So. This is not the kind of betrayal that we’re discussing in this blog. These are way too easy.

The Ones that Shake Your Core

Rather, we’re after the really hard, horrific stuff:

  • The doctor or lawyer gives you the bad news. Then, you discover that your best friend and your husband/wife/significant other have been carrying on an affair — for quite some time. Now, you’re dealing with a mega-crisis, and your closest emotional support (yes, both of them) are off a trip to Tahiti. This is bad. Really, really bad.
  • A business partner defrauds your customers, cleans out the bank account, and flees the country. You’re left to deal with furious clients (who themselves feel betrayed), a swath of legal actions, and no money. Again, this one is really, really bad.
  • Your trusted mentor/advisor/business coach – or conversely, your most dedicated, long-term student (your disciple) – steals your work. Or they make sexual advances. Or they find some way to totally denigrate what you have done – and then reposition it as their own (brilliant) work. You’re left in a degree program or a work relationship from which it would be difficult (almost impossible) to move – you might be caught half-ways through your degree, or needing your advisor’s referral to get the next job – and who will people believe? A student/junior associate, or the esteemed teacher/business leader?

Get the drift? These are the betrayals that cut to the very core.

You gave trust. You let go of your own barriers. You welcomed input, feedback, honest criticism. And instead, you got used – in the most horrible way that you could imagine.

What’s worse – you’re caught in a situation from which there is no easy escape.

This is the kind of event that we’re discussing today.

My young associate emailed me about one of these hugely life-shaking experiences. She’s in the midst, as I write.

I’ve also dealt with at least one of these … maybe two? All three? (OK. Deep breath. Let’s just move on.)

First Steps

Cats bound for slaughter - rescued just in time.

Cats bound for slaughter – rescued just in time. You think you got it bad. I know you do. Breathe. Just breathe. We’ll get through this. And read the accompanying story. It’ll give you some perspective.

The very first thing that you need to do is to breathe. Just breathe.

You’re in shock.

Your first instinct is to deny this. It isn’t real. It can’t be happening. Not to me. This is all a bad dream … it will just go away …

And no. It doesn’t.

Breathe, dear one. Just breathe.

We’re going to get through this, okay?

Take a long walk. Breathe some more. Get back into being in your body; being who you are, being yourself again.

You’ll survive this thing. Okay? I promise you.

Once again, breathe.

Next Step: Strategy

I told you (in the header above) that we were going to do some strategy.

But wait. You’re not ready yet. Your ego-mind is still recoiling from attack.

You’re not ready to think strategically just yet. You’re still taking this way too personally.

Your first step – once you’ve dealt with the initial shock-wave – is to recognize that this is not really about you.

Your first lesson here is: Don’t take this personally.

I know, I know. It seems as though it’s completely about you. And at one level it is.

But you’re going to deal. You’re going to deal at several levels all at once. And to do this, you need to disassociate yourself from the sticky-goo that has you all bound up in the others; in their actions and your reactions.

So the first thing is: They are projections of your own mind. They are shadow-play. They are the demons that have lurked underneath your subconscious all this time. But they are not really about you, and you have to step aside from your own, immediate emotional response to all of this.

Go read Don Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. I’m sure you have a copy around the house someplace. If not, order it from Amazon, and read it tomorrow. Or get the Kindle download, and read it now.

Or check out this précis about Don Ruiz’s Four Agreements.

The point is – get ahold of Don Ruiz’s second lesson: Don’t take it personally. It’s really not about you.

Once you’ve done that – or even made some baby steps in that direction – you will have cleared your mind enough to be able to think straight. Until then, you’re caught up in sticky-goo, and you’re all about your own reactions. Which will have overtones, overlayers, and a whole lot of stuff that will keep you from being effective.

Because if you don’t separate yourself from your reactions, then you think you’re dealing with the situation, but you’re really dealing with the worst, least-processed, most-awful demons in your own mind – and then you’re projecting that stuff onto the situation, and you’ll make everything a whole lot worse.

So get your perspective right, first thing.

This is not about you.

Don’t take it personally, okay?

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Paper

Kindle

Strategy: Taking Charge of Your Life

If you’re serious about strategy, study the world’s greatest strategists.

I’ve had to learn to think and act strategically, and to do so, I’m studying Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.

To learn more – go to Mourning Dove Press – which is all about strategy.

Start with the first blog, and work your way forward.


Getting a Grip on Things

I’m not going to tell you that things could be a whole lot worse. We’re dealing with a situation that – as far as you’re considered – already is the worst.

What I really want you to do is to not diminish this, or try to buck yourself up, or pretend that things are not as awful as they really are.

Because they are.

Got it?

We’re trying to do two things here – just to get started. One is to get back into yourself; to be present. The other is to be present without denying the awfulness of the situation.

Once again, breathe. Get your mind to accepting that this has happened; is happening; it’s what is going on.

You’re going to deal. You’re going to survive.

You’re going to get on top of this thing.

But first, we’re going to get some perspective.

Why Things Might Be Even More Difficult than You’re Thinking that They Are

There are several life-stages where you get a really huge, horrific challenge.

Most of us are familiar with the classic Hero’s Journey or Heroine’s Journey. The Joseph Campbell stuff. The monomyth. (For a fun YouTube vid on the monomyth’s main characters, check out this little Glove and Boots video on The Hero’s Journey.)

This is the one that gets resolved by fighting a duel-unto-death (if you’re a Hero), or by saying – and knowing – that You have no power over me (if you’re a Heroine).

Either way, you’re fighting a huge battle. The real challenge is that the villain is some aspect of yourself. (In Luke Skywalker’s case, Darth Vader turns out to be his father.)

So what’s worse than a duel-to-the-death with Darth Vader, you might ask?

Dealing with Darth Vader’s initial betrayal. (This is when he was your finest student and protégé.) Being killed by Darth Vader is, definitively, a whole lot worse than killing Darth Vader.

Because there is a monomyth beyond the monomyth.

This is when it’s not about the Hero anymore; it’s about the Hero’s mentor; his Hierophant.

Who – or What – Is a Hierophant?

If you’ve been following along, then already familiar with the notion of a Hierophant. If you haven’t, then – as a quick summary – a Hierophant is a guru/guide/mentor of the highest order.

A Hierophant is Obi-wan Kenobi, or Yoda. He’s Mr. Miyagi. He’s Professor Dumbledore.

(To learn more about how a Hierophant works in your life, go to the end of this blog, and follow the links.)

Your Mentor/Teacher/Guru/Guide Is on His Own Inner Journey

Because most of us identify with our own Heroic Journey – and because we’re all collectively a bit young on our journeys – we tend to get caught up in our Luke Skywalker roles.

We miss – entirely – the point that our Hierophants are on journeys of their own.

As young Heroes or Heroines, we emerge victorious from our journeys. We conquer our enemy. (Or at least, we proclaim that they have no power – and shift the nature of things altogether.)

The Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey Is About Victory; the Hierophant’s Journey Is About Sacrificial Death

Take a deep breath before we get into this one.

Just because as an archetype, the Hierophant (Gandalf the Grey, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Professor Dumbledore) dies to save his charges and complete his mission, does not mean that you are going to die.

These stories are allegorical.

That said, there is an ego-death involved.

We’ll go into the full sequence in a later blogpost. For now, it suffices to say that:

We’ve put so much attention on our emerging young Hero/Heroine that we – as a culture – have not yet traced the commonalities of our Hierophants (the Hero’s mentor and guide).

When we do so, we notice that – in many plotlines – they die in order to go to the next level.

You Are Being Transformed into Something Greater than Yourself

If you are going through this kind of mega-crisis, then something very huge is going on in your life.

You are more than a Hero/Heroine, and you are even more than a Hierophant. You are becoming something greater than that. You are becoming Gandalf the White instead of being Gandalf the Grey.

If you are going through a betrayal of the deepest level, you are going through one of the deepest life-challenges that you will ever encounter.

You are doing the highest level of soul-work.

You will survive the situation, because your life is real-in-this-plane; not allegorical.

However, you are undergoing an ego-death.

Understanding that you are going from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White is one of the very few things that will help you grasp and make sense of this situation.

Otherwise, it would seem to be a comedy of the absurd. There might not be any reason to go on.

But there is a reason. The reason is that you are being transformed. You are being purified. All of the “grey” in you is being purified in the Balrog’s fire.

You emerge – not as a strong ego-self (Hero or Heroine) – but as something even more. You are more, even, than a Hierophant. You have become something that is not often named in our culture; we really don’t have a handle on this yet.

Obi-Wan Kenobi did it.

Professor Dumbledore did it. Gandalf did it.

So did Jesus the Christ.

Meditate on this, dear one.

It may bring insight and understanding in your darkest hour.

Remember, also, that prayer is effective, and that you can draw on resources greater than yourself. Do so, and do so now.

And may the love and power of God be with you.

Alianna/Alay’nya


Related Posts: Who – and What – is a Hierophant?


Copyright 2013. All rights reserved. Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)

Inner Stillness Leads to Your Palace of Pleasure

The Pathway to Your Pleasure-Goddess Hathor Lies in Finding Your Inner Quiet Core

Are you ready to break the chains?

Are you ready to break the chains?

Are you feeling that your life is run – much too much – by your commitments and your “to-do” list?

Are you seeking to bring more pleasure into your life?

Are you actually desiring to reframe your entire life so that pleasure is at your center and your core?

In short, are you ready to start making you your own top priority? Not your job. Not your husband or significant other. Not your family (could be parents, could be the kids).

Not even fitting into your own earlier expectations for yourself.

These are ones that you may have carved out for yourself much earlier, and now find to be way too much of a straightjacket.

In short, are you ready to bust loose? To find freedom? To discover and embrace who you really are?

Welcome to the club, dearest one.

Pioneers in Pleasure

One of the strongest advocates for women finding their own pathway to pleasure these days is Regena Thomaschauer, aka Mama Gena. An early interview with her, for Glamour magazine, cited some of Mama’s suggested reading. Among these were a book by Dr. Stella Resnick, The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings and How to Let Go and Be Happy.

Naturally, I did what you would do: I jumped into the book using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. And I found the most fascinating little vignette:

At that point, I felt I couldn’t just go back to my hectic life in San Francisco. It was time to confront my pain and loneliness and discover what was keeping me so unhappy. A month after my mother’s death, I moved to Mount Tremper, New York, a town int he Catskill Mountainst near Woodstock. The few people I know ther had summerhomes, and in winter they came jp only for an occasional weekend. I found a small house surrounded by woods, without a TV, and signed a lease for a year.

I spent that year in the country more alone than ever before – bht this time it was a chosen solitude. For guidance, I read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden…

At first, my days were terribly lonely. I cried a lot and felt sorry for myself. I read, wrote in my journal, and took long walks in the woods… In winter, I chopped kindling to feed the fires in the two potbellied stoves and fireplace that kept me from freezing.

What I began to discover during those endless days was how little I knew about how to be happy on a daily basis. I knew how to drive myself to succeed. I knew how to criticize myself … But I didn’t know how to take on a day and enjoy it…

Finally … I had a flash of insight… It isn’t enough to know what you are doing wrong, you have to know how to do it right…

I had no role models of happiness… I knew how to have a good time and to distract myself … with external pleasures… I could relish being admired by others and indulge myself in a material success … But I didn’t know how to get off my own case and relax, to enjoy the inner pleasures of a quiet mind and ease within my body.

So that becamse my grand revelation, what I had intuitively placed myself in exile to learn. I had not come to figure out what was wrong with me… I had come to experiment with how to do things differently. More than that, I had come to discover what was truly right with me.

One of the first actions I took was to turn all the clocks toward the wall and to tape over the clock on the stove. Even though I was completely alone, I still found myself fixated on time – what time to wake up, when to eat a meal, how much time was left in the day, and how late I was staying up. I realized I was uncomfortable with open-ended time.

It was hard at first, but I came to appreciate the freedom in the open space… When I released myself from the tyranny of time, I became more attuned to my own natural rhythms … If there was a choice … I saw how easy it was for me to be hard on myself. More and more I began to choose kindness. [pp. 7 – 10, The Pleasure Zone, by Dr. Stella Resnick]

Here we have it – one of the most essential keys to finding our true sense of inner pleasure.

It’s not necessarily the physical things – the special objects that we crave, or being pampered at a spa, or going out and having fun. These are all good, and way too often, we are pleasure-deprived.

So please – bear with me on this.

By all means, we should go for that which makes us feel good, and sometimes, that is pure, sheer fun, or physical sensation.

But there is this deeper level within ourselves, and our true sense of pleasure is embedded in this more internal core.

What Keeps Us from Our Pleasure Zone?

Dr. Resnick writes about how, at first, she had to deal with massive waves of negative self-talk. She had to penetrate these before she could find her inner self.

So very often, as soon as we start to unwrap the very tight constraints that we put on ourselves, the first thing that happens is that all of our internal self-talk gets very, very loud.

It’s hard to turn this off. Zen masters and yogis spend years in meditation, just trying to bring the internal noise level down. So should we expect it to be easy? Of course not!

But we can get through it.

Dr. Resnick got through it much like putting herself into a “mindfulness boot-camp” for a year. No distractions. No TV, no Twitter. Just herself and a lot of hard work; chopping enough wood to feed the stoves through the long winter nights.

Brutal, but effective.

Most of us won’t take a year off. (In next week’s post, though, I’ll take us through another story of a woman who did.)

What we can do is start to notice how we fill our lives with distractions in order to put a lid on the noise of our self-talk.

That’s it.

The most important thing that keeps us from having more pleasure in our lives is that our self-talk is so negative, we’d rather be under huge pressures and horrible deadlines; we’d rather listen to any banality on TV, or trace through jungles of Facebook links, that be quiet inside.

The Turning Point

The most telling point in Dr. Resnick’s story was when she turned all the clocks to the wall and taped over the clock on the stove.

Do you know what she did with this one, final, extreme act?

She called in her High Priestess archetype, in a major and extreme way.

This was an act of extreme courage.

It may not have seemed like this to her at the time. It may have seemed like the only thing that she could do – to start knowing herself aside from the superimposed mind-chatter. It may have seemed like an act of desperation – something that only the soul in its extreme state would do.

But it worked.

From this point on, she began to know herself.

This tells us something that we all need to learn.

In order to access our inner Hathor, our inner pleasure-goddess, we first need to bring an extreme interrupt-signal to our mind-chatter. This includes self-judgments and expectations, as well as the constant vying of our other archetypes (most often our inner Emperor and Magician) who insist that survival depends on action.

Who Is Our High Priestess, and How Does She Help Us?

In order to understand our inner High Priestess, it helps us to review our masculine archetypes. After all (writing to you in late September), we’ve just been through two quarters dominated by masculine “energies” – Spring (the metaphysical Season of Air), and Summer (the metaphysical Season of Fire). So, for the past six months, our studies (and sometimes our lives) have been dominated by masculine archetypes.

By definition, all of the masculine archetypes are – using the Jungian framework – very goal-oriented. Some are more so than others. Our Green Man, for instance, may set hiking to the top of the next hill as a goal. Our Magician and our Emperor, however, are extremely and dominantly goal-oriented.

Our society reinforces the value of our Magician and Emperor archetypes. Thus, not only do we have them – as “inner voices” – telling us that they and their needs are important; they should be in charge – but all the messages that we get about success and survival reinforce that we should be in Magician or Emperor modes as much as possible. (Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is just one such recent example.)

But if we’re focused on Leaning In, then we’re not giving ourselves permission to step back, are we?

When we Lean In, we’re putting our Amazon archetype (our bundle of the four masculine archetypes) in the forefront.

And yes, whenever we get an Amazon in the room, she tends to take over, right?

It’s much more difficult – it takes almost an extreme situation – to get our Amazon to release control, and to let our High Priestess have a moment.

Because our Amazon is a bundle of all our masculine archetypes (and we women use this sometimes just for simplicity, not for accuracy), she is – like the masculine archetypes themselves – very goal-driven.

All the masculine archetypes are Judging. They like to come to closure. They like to cross things off the list. “On schedule, on budget,” is their creed.

In contrast, our feminine archetypes are Perceiving, rather than Judging. They are by nature open-ended. One thought or connection leads to another, which leads to another.

Authors Bill and Pam Farrell expresses this by saying, Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. (See the Farrell’s Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti YouTube vid, and for an absolutely hilarious vid on this subject, click on What Attracts Men the Most About Women.

The masculine archetypes tend to focus in.

The feminine archetypes tend to expand out.

When we invoke a feminine archetype – in any form – our minds go into Perceiving mode. Our thoughts spread outward like ripples on an a lake.

If we’re in Empress mode (and we will be, in just five more weeks), we think about people and animals and their needs. Thoughts about one person lead to thoughts about another. Our lives fill up with caretaking and nurturing.

When we’re in Hestia mode (a less feeling, and more thinking, mode), our thoughts are about maintaining our homes. One task or chore leads to the next. “A woman’s work is never done.” It’s not so much that we’re task or closure-driven, it’s that one small task leads to the next, which leads to the next one.

When we’re in pleasure-seeking Hathor mode (as is our desire right now; we’re getting there), one pleasure opens the door for the next.

When we’re in High Priestess mode – if we’re successful in shutting down our internal noise – we have a more diffuse awareness that extends out from ourselves. We don’t try to chase down thoughts. Instead, we begin to notice what emerges from within.

And this becomes our real source of pleasure. We begin to notice that which truly speaks to us.

As expressed in the Latin American folksong Guantanamera,

The little streams of the mountains
Please me more than the sea

Men as well as women need to invoke their High Priestess, and they do. (Read a lovely interview with William O’Shaughnessy, who reflects on that line from Guantanamera.)

Taking This Home

So – the abstract concepts of Hathor and High Priestess – what do they mean to us in our day-to-day lives?

Starting now, and for the coming six months, we’re exploring our feminine archetypes. Right now, we’re entering into our Hathor mode – we’re opening ourselves to pleasure, in all its forms.

Soon, just in time for Thanksgiving and the Christmas/Hanukah/Solstice holidays, we’ll be focusing on nurturing those who are close to us – and even extending love and kindness to strangers. This will be our Empress time.

With holiday festivities over, we go into the deeper, quieter, and most introspective time of the year – our High Priestess time. And just as we feel like moving about again, we’ll engage our inner Hestia – goddess of hearth and home – as we start spring cleaning.

We don’t have to wait until January to invoke our High Priestess, though. Not when we need her tranquil presence to help us discern that which we truly desire, versus that which we feel we should desire.

Thus, as we seek the pathway to pleasure in our lives, we can begin with High Priestess-type actions.

We can go for a walk. (Julie Cameron describes this as an Artist’s Walk in her book, The Vein of Gold.)

We can journal. (Julia refers to this as writing down our Morning Pages in The Artist’s Way.)

We can pull out magazine-images of things that inspire us – or even strike our fancy – and put them into a box, or even get fancy and put them into sheet protectors in a three-ring binder, or make a collage.

The weather is going to be beautiful, darlings!

The summer’s heat has been cooling off. The colors are vibrant. The farmer’s markets are showing the best of late-summer harvests; flowers and luscious fruits and veggies.

Why not make a sensual adventure this weekend of going to a farmer’s market, tasting wonderful samples, and bringing home something for a special meal?

Enjoy it either outside (if it’s a sunny, warm day), or set a table for yourself (and perhaps some special others) near a window where you can see the best that early autumn has to offer.


Much love to you, darling, as we learn to bring more pleasure into our lives!


Alay'nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

Alay’nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

To your own health, wealth, success, and overall well-being –

Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

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Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.

Unveiling currently has twenty 5-star Amazon reviews, and has been recommended by luminaries:

  • Dr. Christiane Northrup – “This book is delightful”
  • Midwest Book Review, in Bethany’s Books – reviews by Susan Bethany – “highly recommended”
  • Nizana al Rassan, writing for (the now out of circulation) iShimmy.com – “a fascinating read with so much wisdom and solid advice.”

 

 


Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.

Unveiling currently has twenty 5-star Amazon reviews, and has been recommended by luminaries:

  • Dr. Christiane Northrup – “This book is delightful”
  • Midwest Book Review, in Bethany’s Books – reviews by Susan Bethany – “highly recommended”
  • Nizana al Rassan, writing for (the now out of circulation) iShimmy.com – “a fascinating read with so much wisdom and solid advice.”

 

 



P.S. What can you read that will help you understand yourself more?

Dr. Stella Resnick

The Pleasure Zone by Dr. Stella Resnick

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Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Learn how you can bring more pleasure into your life starting in Part V of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 

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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.). All rights reserved.


Related Posts: Hathor – Leading Up to This Point

Related Posts: The High Priestess – and how she relates to Hathor

Related Posts from the Alay’nya Studio Blog: Expressing Your Inner Hathor through movement and dance

The Magical Turning Point – And What It Means for You

Hathor – Goddess of Love, Pleasure, Beauty, Sensuality, and Romance – Emerges This Week!

A water garden soothes our spirit and our senses.

A water garden soothes our spirit and our senses.

Have you been longing to bring more lushness into your life?

Do you desire sensuality, opulence, lusciousness to ooze from your every pore?

Have you been working so hard that your inner self has felt sterile and neglected?

It’s Not You; It’s Your Masculine Power Archetypes

Let’s play – just for a moment – with the notion that there may be something to this archetypal stuff after all.

Four metaphysical elements describe the four seasons of the year.

Four metaphysical elements describe the four seasons of the year.

For the past six months, we’ve been under the dominion of two masculine elemens: Air and Fire.

With the Vernal Equinox, six months ago in March, the element of Air took over in our lives, and ushered in the two most powerful (and power-focused) masculine archetypes: our visionary and creative Magician, and our sustaining and stabilizing Emperor.

These two archetypes can sometimes work in tandem, although they have different agendas. Often, successful businesses are built around a creative Magician/Emperor partnership.

When summer came, the influence of these two archetypes eased, and two new – although still very masculine – archetypes emerged: our inner Green Man and our Hierophant. Our Green Man, coming right after Summer Solstice, embodies our desire to join with nature. It makes sense that he is dominant just then – during the time that we are most likely to schedule vacations.

Professor Dumbledore welcomes students back to the academic year at Hogwarts.

Professor Dumbledore welcomes students back to the academic year at Hogwarts.

Our Hierophant is our “back-to-school” archetype. He’s our Yoda; our Obi-wan Kenobi. He’s our Mr. Miyagi, telling us to “Wax on, wax off.” He’s our internal Professor Dumbledore, welcoming us back for the school year.

Our Hierophant officially emerged at Lammas (August 1st), and will reign through the remainder of this week (through September 21st).

Our Hierophant has one of the most important jobs within our inner psyche.

Yes, he embodies our inner mentor, guru, and guide. He’s the one who helps us take on the necessary self-discipline to master our inner selves. And of course, any time that we mentor someone else, we’re invoking our inner Hierophant.

But there’s one more thing that our Hierophant does.

He both protects and shelters our inner Hathor (who is as delicate and fragile as a newly-budded rose), and he gives her structure and boundaries. He both helps create the play-time for her (and holds the bounds fast against our other archetypes who want to gobble up her time), and yet keeps her from raging into temper tantrums and turning over all the apple carts in sight.

Our Inner Hathor: Wild, Willful, and Wonderful

Hathor (left) welcomes the Egyptian queen Nefertari (right) to the afterlife.

Hathor (left) welcomes the Egyptian queen Nefertari (right) to the afterlife. Image taken from an excellent ‘virtual tour’ of Nefertari’s tomb, led by ‘tour guide’ Professor Peter Schmidt of Swarthmore College.

Our inner Hathor is a lovely creature. And she, herself, is all about love.

But she is a bit on the wild and carefree side.

Just like a precocious teenager, who wants what she wants when she wants it – no matter how good (or how bad) it is for her – our Hathor is willful and bold. She wants her own way.

And way too often, we feel that we have to slight her and shut her down, simply because of survival concerns.

I’m not sure which of these is worse: Our survival-angst (all too often based on all-too-real concerns), or the power-mongering amongst our other (typically Magician/Emperor) core power archetypes that simply want to take our Hathor time – simply because they want it. Because it’s a resource, and they each want every resource that they can get.

This leads to: Power struggles.

The Biggest Power Struggles are Inside Ourselves

Power wars more dominant inside ourselves than they are on any Board of Directors, for any company in the world.

The reason?

Each internal archetype is like a person, all in itself. Each wants what he or she thinks or feels is best. Each wants to set the agenda.

The end result? We have huge internal struggles going on about the basics of our life. Do we spend the weekend on a project that will advance our creative passion or our career (Magician or Emperor), or are we going off camping? (That would be our Green Man, wanting to make a break for freedom.)

The Real Challenge

The real challenge that we face – especially as women – is that our core feminine archetypes are valued less by society than are our masculine ones.

Straightforward, isn’t it?

Masculine roles – involving creative outputs, legendary accomplishments, and forming business empires – are given attention, money, and reward by society.

In contrast, as a culture, we give less attention to the feminine roles of nurturance (Empress), introspection (High Priestess), creating a calm, peaceful and orderly environment (Hestia), and – of course – passion and play (Hathor).

To a very large extent, we’ve each internalized social values.

Add to that, it is often our masculine expression that pays the bills. That is, our masculine roles – more often than not – give us survival. (There are exceptions; some of us make our living through nurturing others; some of us live a life devoted to contemplation and prayer, and some of us are professional housekeepers or are in professional support roles. But these livelihoods – while real – make far less money than do the more masculine-oriented roles.)

The Most Pivotal Time of the Year

We’re now at the time when our Hathor is coming out to play.

For us to successfully create Hathor-time requires (surprise!) the discipline, clarity, and focus of our masculine archetypes – most especially our Hierophant.

We’re going to call on him to create boundaries; boundaries that will protect and cherish and value our inner Hathor.

Think of our Hierophant as a wise old gardener. He sees and loves a truly special rose.

This rose can’t be moved; she is deeply rooted in where she is. She is exquisite, but delicate and fragile.

Our Hierophant protects our Hathor archetype by creating boundaries that give her safe enclosure - her own Secret Garden.

Our Hierophant protects our inner Hathor by creating boundaries that give her safe enclosure – her own . Photo by Eileen Porterfield.

How will he protect her?

He builds a wall around her. He builds her her very own secret garden.

He creates structures to protect her from harsh winds.

He ensures that she’s fed and watered and tended on a regular basis.

For us to cultivate our own inner Hathor, we also have to be our own Hierophant-Gardener. We have to take on creating time, space, and attention for her. We have to give her permission to come out. We have to give her encouragement to flourish and play.

This is one of the most important tasks in our growth as full and complete human beings.

Much love to you, darling, as we enter this season of pleasure together!


Alay'nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

Alay’nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

To your own health, wealth, success, and overall well-being –

Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
Connect with Alay’nya on Facebook
Follow Unveiling: The Inner Journey on Facebook


Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.

Unveiling currently has twenty 5-star Amazon reviews, and has been recommended by luminaries:

  • Dr. Christiane Northrup – “This book is delightful”
  • Midwest Book Review, in Bethany’s Books – reviews by Susan Bethany – “highly recommended”
  • Nizana al Rassan, writing for (the now out of circulation) iShimmy.com – “a fascinating read with so much wisdom and solid advice.”

P.S. What can you read that will help you understand yourself more?

Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic

Check out Julie Marie Rahm!

Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic and author of Handle Everything: Eight Tools You Need to Live Well and Prosper and also Military Kids Speak (great for parents, teachers, and coaches of military kids) uses a great technique that can help you clear energy blockages, ranging from those from this life through the influence of your ancestral karma. Connect with Julie at info (at) americasmindsetmechanic (dot) com to learn more about how she can help you.

Books by Julie Marie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic

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Julie Marie Rahm, aka America’s Mindset Mechanic on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What does Julie Rahm, America’s Mindset Mechanic and author of Handle Everything: Eight Tools You Need to Live Well and Prosper have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

Julie writes:

[In Unveiling: The Inner Journey,] Alay’nya takes readers on an adventure of the body, mind, and spirit from the inside out, strengthening each independently from the other and aligning all three in support of each other. And then, the adventure continues as readers learn how to create the physical environment that supports and reflects the body, mind and spirit, from personal style to the home and office. Each chapter finishes with Personal Pathworking exercises. When readers choose to stop and do the exercises, opportunities for instant positive changes result.

Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 

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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.). All rights reserved.


Related Posts: Hathor – Leading Up to This Point

Related Posts: HierophantHathor’s Protector

Your Inner Green Man – Gentle Giant or Raging Tyrant?

Your Inner Green Man Has Many Faces: From Gentle Giant to Raging Tyrant

The Green Man - one of our powerful hidden archetypes - emerge from behind the leaves.

The Green Man – one of our powerful hidden archetypes – emerge from behind the leaves. Photo by Simon Garbutt.

Who is your inner Green Man, really?

Is he more than a yearning for nature; as in a desire for vacationing outdoors? Is he more than a craving for late-summer fruits and vegetables?

Is your Green Man more than your growing awareness of how important it is to “go green” in your home and workplace?

Have you even heard him emerge as the voice inside you that says – in the midst of some high-falutin’ corporate presentation – This is all so silly!

We know that our inner Green Man is one of our oldest cultural archetypes; his imagery shows up in many old English churches – along with images of other pre-Christian symbols. He comes to us from across our ancient European cultures, and shows up as the god Pan in Greek mythology. In short, the Green Man has been with us for a very long time.

But how does our Green Man show up in our recent mythology – that is, in the way that we tell ourselves our deep stories?

This is important, because for each of us, our Green Man is a part of who we are. He is one of our eight core archetypes, identified by Carl Jung (as a condensed version of the sixteen core archetypes that form his Psychological Types). The more that we understand each of our eight core archetypes, the more that we understand (and can intelligently manage) ourselves.

Let’s have a look – into realms from fairy tales to commercials to the heroic myths created in our movies.

The Green Man Is … the Jolly Green Giant!

The Jolly Green Giant - a magnificent current embodiment of the Green Man archetype.

The Jolly Green Giant – a magnificent current embodiment of the Green Man archetype.

Who says “Ho, ho, ho” and is NOT Santa Claus?

One of the first Green Man images that comes to mind – for those of us of a certain age – is no less than the Jolly Green Giant – personified and made eponymous by the Green Giant food company. To this day, canned peas and the Jolly Green Giant are forever linked in my memory.

This Jolly Green Giant incarnation is a positive aspect of the Green Man; one who is genial and outgoing, and who fosters lush growth in fields and gardens.

However, our Green Man also has a dark side.

The Green Man Has a Dark Side

The Giant from the fairytale 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and the even more recent movie Jack the Giant Slayer.

The Giant from the fairytale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and the even more recent movie Jack the Giant Slayer.

In the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, young hero Jack climbs up a giant beanstalk to encounter – and ultimately defeat – a vengeful giant; the one who says “Fee fi fo fum!” This is a mean giant; a Green Man who has gone over to the “dark side.”

Those of you who are interested in deeper interpretations might visit Lectures at Califia on Folklore by Marjorie C. Luesebrink, with a good Jungian overview.

I’ve found Neil Leyden’s piece on The Seven Basic Story Plots very interesting, citing Christopher Booker in his book The Seven Basic Plots. Also, Jeff Cook wrote an excellent essay on Jack’s Quest for Maturity about the Jack and the Beanstalk story. All of these interpret the Giant as a vengeful father-figure, whom Jack must defeat in order to gain maturity.

It’s true; the Green Man’s “dark side” can represent a raging father figure; a tyrant whom we must overcome in our quest for maturity and self-reliance. However, when we deal with the Green Man’s more positive aspect, we can integrate him instead of defeating him.

One of the important things that is starting to emerge here is that our Green Man represents our wild side. He is the only archetype (among our eight core archetypes) to be this associated with wildness and with nature.

Our Green Man Uses Feelings and Actions – Not Words – to Communicate

Our Green Man is not particularly verbal. From the Jungian perspective, he can be Extroverted (Jolly Green Giant) or Introverted (the quiet Green Man of the Woods). Whether introverted or extroverted, we know that he is Sensing, rather than Intuitive. He relies on what his senses – and his immediate experience – tell him. His truth comes from what he sees, what he hears, and what he touches and senses under his feet as he walks through the woods.

It’s not that our Green Man can’t form intuitive connections. Rather, his reality is grounded in his direct and pragmatic experience.

Eight core archetypes octant chart showing archetype correlations with Jungian Psychological Types.

Eight core archetypes octant chart showing archetype correlations with Jungian Psychological Types.

In the octant graph above, our Green Man shows up in the lower left. He is a masculine (Jungian Psychological Types Judging) archetype (all the ones on the lower half are masculine). He is a Feeling archetype. (All the archetypes on the left-hand-side are Feeling; those on the right are Thinking.) He is also a Sensing archetype; you’ll see that in the octant graph, Sensing archetypes alternate with Intuiting.

Our Green Man is Feeling, rather than Thinking. He doesn’t need abstract thoughts. He gets his reality from his feelings; from observing and interacting with people, animals, plants, and his surrounding world – not with thoughts about this world.

Finally, our Green Man is a masculine archetype, and so is more Judging than Perceiving. That means, despite being oriented towards the expansive feeling of the great outdoors, he is likely to want to do something rather than simply be aware of potentials and possibilities. He’s action-oriented, and inclined to do things that bring about concrete, tangible results – even if the “result” is only to see the view from the top of the next hill!

Hagrid in the Harry Potter Series – the World’s Most Famous Green Man

Rubeus Hagrid, from the Harry Potter book series, is the world's most famous Green Man.

Rubeus Hagrid, from the Harry Potter book series, is the world’s most famous Green Man.

Perhaps the best – and most well-known – Green Man character portrayal in the entire world is Rubeus Hagrid from the various Harry Potter books.

Hagrid certainly gives us a great insight into the Green Man’s character and day-to-day life!

In Hagrid, we see some exemplary Green Man characteristics:

  • This Green Man lives apart from others, and his home is more situated in nature – even though Hagrid, as the Gamekeeper, is an integral part of the Hogwarts School and wizardly community, he lives apart from the others in a separate (and more rustic) home – he prefers the woods to stone walls, and is comfortable venturing into the Dark Forest,
  • He leads with his heart – not with his mind – true to being a Feeling-type, Hagrid follows his heart – first, last, and always,
  • As a prototypical Green Man, Hagrid love animals – the stranger the better – who else but Hagrid would introduce Buckbeak (the Hippogriff), as well as Fang (the Boarhound), Fluffy (a giant three-headed dog), Norberta (a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon), and many others,
  • As with all Green Men, Hagrid is a giant – he is exuberant and “larger than life,” and
  • Hagrid is fiercely and unquestioningly loyal to those whom he loves.

With this kind of character, don’t we all need a Hagrid in our lives?

Hodor is a Green Man

In the Game of Thrones, Hodor is a loyal and devoted Green Man figure.

In the Game of Thrones, Hodor is a loyal and devoted Green Man figure.

The character Hodor, whom we meet in the first book, A Game of Thrones, in George Martin’s epic series Song of Ice and Fire, is a beautiful Green Man in current mythology.

Since we’ve just done a mini-Jungian analysis of the Green Man archetype, we can understand Hodor – and thus our own inner Green Man – more completely.

Hodor is not particularly verbal. In fact, he can say only one word – his own name.

This makes sense from the Jungian analysis; he is Sensing – not Intuiting. He is Feeling, not Thinking. His reality is his surrounding world, not thoughts about his world.

Just as with Hagrid in the Harry Potter book series, in Hodor we continue to see our Green Man’s extreme loyalty to those whom he loves. Hodor is unquestioningly loyal and devoted. In particular, he protects the physically disabled Bran, and carries him about from place to place.

In this, we have a perfect Jungian pairing: Bran is highly Intuitive. In fact, Bran’s calling is to enter the shapeshifter’s world ; he begins his own series of shamanic journeys. This is the “far side” of being Intuitive. Practically speaking, since he is crippled, Bran needs to be paired with someone who lives in the physical world in order to get around. That becomes Hodor’s job.

Bran is Intuitive and Thinking. Hodor is Sensing and Feeling. Hodor is totally devoted to Bran. Working together, they make a great team.

This gives us a clue about how we do our own integration. We do need to access our own Green Man; we can’t constantly neglect and ignore him.

Practically, this means that – even if we are immersed in a creative project or in building our empire – we must occasionally break for a walk in the woods. We need to spend time refreshing ourselves with nature. We need to pay attention to the way in which we are living on the planet. This is what will “carry us” through our creative and empire-building challenges.

In terms of our daily life: if we give even modest attention to our inner Green Man, he is there for us when we need him. And when times are hard, he’ll see us through. We can count on him to protect and serve.

His exuberance will lighten spirit. His willingness to pick up our heavy load will lighten our passage.

The Ents in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – Our Green Man Aids Us in Battle

Treebeard, an Ent featured in Tolkien's book the War of the Ring, is a Green Man figure.

Treebeard, an Ent featured in Tolkien’s book the War of the Ring, is a Green Man figure.

Who could be more of a Green Man than the Ent Treebeard?

Ents, from Tolkein’s books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings saga, are prototypical Green Men. Once again, we can learn a lot about the Green Man aspect of ourselves by looking at the Ents, as well as the Huorn (Ents who have become more “treelike”).

As we become more attuned with nature, we feel more of a kinship with the Huorn, as described by Inga Simpson.

As Inga writes:

The Huorn are ancient, primeval, old growth; they remember a time when trees ruled Middlearth, before the awakening of elves and the rise of men. The Huorn are still angry at the impact of men and elves and dwarves and orcs on their world, harbouring resentments across the ages. Elves, it seems to me, should be welcome among trees; their only fault was a kinship to men. But I am not a tree.

When the Ents and the Huorn come to the aid of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings saga, The Two Towers (Book Three), we see their terrible power unleashed against the Orcs.

This is a powerful lesson for us.

In a later post, I’ll do a more complete analysis of our core archetypes in The Lord of the Rings. For now, it suffices to say that this is a story of integration as well as a major Heroic Journey, on the part of both Frodo and Aragorn.

It is Aragorn who calls together all aspects of who he is as he confronts forces that seem much greater than himself and his allies. When Aragorn draws on the power of the Ents, he unleashes a fierce and primal force; devastating the evil Orcs.

There are times in our own lives when we need to thow everything that we have, and everything that we can draw upon, into some noble cause. It is at this time that we draw fully on our own primal reserves. We pull from that aspect of ourselves that which can be fierce in battle. This is a time for unleashing our full power; not for the restraint of civilized niceties.

We do not recognize this force-within-ourselves during our day-to-day lives. It lies in our deep reserve. This power has a “voice” that takes much time and patience to discern. However, if we have previously made connection (as Aragorn did with Treebeard), then we can tap this huge reserve when needed.


Alay'nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

Alay’nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

To your own health, wealth, success, and overall well-being –

Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
Connect with Alay’nya on Facebook
Follow Unveiling: The Inner Journey on Facebook


A Portable Identity, by Debra Bryson and Charise Hoge – for Those of Us Doing both an External and Inner Journey!

Charise Hoge, dancer, counselor, and co-author of A Portable Identity.

Charise Hoge, dancer, counselor, and co-author of A Portable Identity.

Unveiing is about the Inner Journey; Charise Hoge, MSW, has written an excellent book about what happens when we take a literal journey to a far-off land – and how it can trigger huge personal growth.

A Portable Identity, available from Amazon in both trade paper and Kindle forms, is for anyone who will be moving abroad, or who will even be undertaking a big life transition. Whether the life-change is a divorce, leaving a corporate job to start life as an entrepreneur, leaving a life of military service to start a new civilian job, or even the children leaving home, this is an important and useful book, with helpful guided exercises throughout.

Both Cherise and co-author Debra Bryson share deeply of their personal stories, as they evolved during their years abroad. From the initial point of departure, with their thoughts of how they would each “handle” their new lives abroad, to the challenges, stumbles, and eventual victories, their stories are not only their own; they are every woman’s.

As we read A Portable Identity, it doesn’t matter whether or not we have ever physically lived abroad – we all undertake similarly disruptive life-journeys that ultimately shape us into deeper and wiser beings. A Portable Identity, by Debra Bryson and Charise Hoge, is a valuable companion to the inner growth that happens when we make a shift in our external world.

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Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.

Unveiling currently has twenty 5-star Amazon reviews, and has been recommended by luminaries:

  • Dr. Christiane Northrup – “This book is delightful”
  • Midwest Book Review, in Bethany’s Books – reviews by Susan Bethany – “highly recommended”
  • Nizana al Rassan, writing for (the now out of circulation) iShimmy.com – “a fascinating read with so much wisdom and solid advice.”

Cherise Hoge, Co-Author of A Portable Identity, on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What does Charise Hoge, co-author of A Portable Identity as well being a counselor and dancer, have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

From Charise Hoge’s Amazon review of Unveiling:

Alay’nya achieves something vitally important with her intimate writing style — she invites you to look within yourself and take responsibility for how your life is going. For me, the book was experiential – as I read “shift state”, I shifted state, I tapped into how this feels internally. When I read about “softening” and “allow[ing] the veil to drop,” I connected with this precious vulnerability. When I read about going into the underworld of my psyche to attend to any woundedness there, I felt encouraged, willing. There are also tips and exercises at the close of each chapter to be proactive with your discoveries, but the book as a whole is transformative. It has an energetic charge that only a writer proficient in movement arts can convey! Take the invitation to go on the inner journey, this book will carry you safely there.

Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 

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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.). All rights reserved.


Related Posts: Green Man – Leading Up to This Point

When Your Inner “Green Man” Breaks from Cover

Spotting Your Wild Inner Green Man – How to Tell When He’s about to Bust Loose

Your inner Green Man - how do you know that he's breaking from cover?

Your inner Green Man
how do you know that he’s breaking from cover?

An inner Green Man lurks inside each of us.

Usually, he (or she – think Women Who Run with the Wolves) is firmly contained; pushed below our mind’s conscious surface by survival and pragmatics-dominant thinking; our daily focus is often on jobs and responsibilities.

However, we can only live like this for so long. Every so often, our inner Green Man gets ready to break loose.

How do you spot – and even nurture and protect and cherish – your wild and elusive inner Green Man?

Detecting Your Inner Green Man – A Quick Questionnaire

See if you’re having uncontrollable cravings for any of the following:

  1. An eco-adventure, white water rafting, or even a weekend camping trip – anything to break up your daily pattern,
  2. Planning or planting your garden, going on a garden tour, or visiting one of the great gardens – a strong need to connect with nature and to grow green things; this would include planting a container garden for an apartment balcony, or even bringing in a plant for your desk,
  3. Visiting your local farmer’s market – even choosing to shop in a food store that has the best layout of fresh fruits and veggies; feeling nurtured and inspired just being around fresh produce and flowers,
  4. A sudden interest in making salads, experimenting with sprouts, raw foods or juicing, or finding locally-foraged foods – becoming more aware of how much your body and spirit are nurtured with the freshest of live food sources, or
  5. Finding the absurd in corporate protocols or social mores – and being irresistibly drawn to knocking over a few apple-carts.

Your Inner Green Man – Essential to Your Happiness and Well-Being

Our Green Man archetype is usually hidden within our known, safe structures - such as our churches and other formal belief systems.

Our Green Man archetype is usually hidden within our known, safe structures – such as our churches and other formal belief systems.

Our inner Green Man – like our inner Hestia – is one of our two rest-and-recharge archetypes. Neither our Green Man nor our Hestia is a core power archetype – I reserve that designation for the six archetypes that are included in the first great life journey identified in the Kabbalah and visually depicted as Cards I – VI in the Tarot’s Major Arcana.

However, just as our Hestia brings a sense of calmness, structure, and order to our lives, our Green Man serves an equally important role – he brings a vibrant, exciting, and necessary exuberance, wildness, and chaos.

When our lives get too static, boring, or predictable – or when we’re living under a self-imposed regime that is truly untenable – our Green Man comes to our rescue!

His innocent enthusiasm, exuberance, and zest for all that is living and growing freely help us break out from self-imposed expectations, boundaries, and commitments. When we truly need to “think outside the box,” our Green Man is our strongest ally.

Our Green Man Is Our Inner Wild Child

Our Green Man may have us zipping through a tree canopy.

Our Green Man may have us zipping through a tree canopy.

Our Green Man takes us out of our known, safe, familiar structures and environments. He takes us on the wild-and-crazy ride through nature.

Our Green Man may lead us to something dramatic and adventurous – something that gets our adrenaline pounding, such as white water rafting or zipping through the tree canopy.

If we are of a calmer nature, our Green Man may take us on a garden tour, or spark our own interest in gardening.

Our Green Man Can Emerge Any Time

Whenever we bring more of nature into our lives, our Green Man is speaking to us and through us.

We’re used to seeing our Green Man emerge when we plan our summer vacation – especially if that vacation involves being outdoors.

Our Green Man inspires us to use nature as we place seasonal decorations around our homes.

Our Green Man inspires us to use nature as we place seasonal decorations around our homes, such as a mantlepiece filled with evergreen boughs.

However, our Green Man comes in every time we do something that has us touching nature.

He can show up when we arrange a cornucopia of harvest vegetables for our Thanksgiving centerpiece.

He emerges when we select the Christmas tree, or decorate our mantles with a luxuriant arrangement of holly and evergreens.

 

Our fascination with growing foliage plants, flowers, and vegetables is part of our inner Green Man.

Our fascination with growing foliage plants, flowers, and vegetables is part of our inner Green Man.

Our Green Man silently creeps in as we voraciously consume the seed catalogs that arrive in dark winter, or as we plan our spring gardens.

If we can’t take a full vacation, our Green Man leads us to the farmer’s market to pick out the best of the seasonal produce. He may have us signing up with a community-supported agriculture program.

Nurturing Our Green Man Is a Way to Take Care of Inner Self

Our Green Man is often hidden, and we need to be carefully attentive to discern him.

Our Green Man is often hidden in our lives, just as a Green Man image in an old English church would often be hidden behind a sward of greenery. (The instance to the left is of a Green Man in the Rosslyn Chapel.)

Our society tends to push our Green Man further into the background. We all too often live in situations where “time off” (for either sickness or health) is meted out in hours, and is carefully accrued and spent. Although we have many conveniences in our lives, we also have huge time-depleting factors, ranging from commute traffic to the allure of social media.

Most of all, we are rewarded (or at least made to feel semi-secure) when we play by the rules. We often feel that our very survival is threatened if we step out of bounds; when we dare to think (much less speak) for ourselves.

Is it any wonder that a part of us feels hugely squelched and repressed? This is the part that we need, in order to feel vital and alive.

Thus, when our Green Man emerges, he is making his way upwards through a hugely repressive layer of conditioning.

He emerges at such a cost to our feeling of safety-and-survival that – when he does come forth – we need to give him attention.

Caring for, giving permission to, and nurturing our inner Green Man will be the subject of the next posting on this blog.


Alay'nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

Alay’nya, author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

To your own health, wealth, success, and overall well-being –

Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!

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Unveiling, by Alay'nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

Unveiling, by Alay’nya, currently has an overall five-star Amazon rating.

This blog series develops themes originally published in Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published by Mourning Dove Press.


Unveiling: The Inner Journey Is “Highly Recommended” – Midwest Book Review

We are the stars of our own lives, and it’s time we started acting as such. Unveiling: The Inner Journey is an empowering memoir from Alianna J. Maren as she advises readers, in particular, women, to take control of their lives, guide to something worth unveiling to the world and allow ourselves to be pleased with our place in the world. Unveiling is a strong addition to general inspiration collections tailored to women, highly recommended. From Bethany’s Bookshelf, Midwest Book Review

Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

 

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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.). All rights reserved.


Related Posts: Green Man – Leading Up to This Point

Related Posts: Green Man – What to Read after This One

Related Posts: Hestia (Our Other Rest-and-Recharge Archetype)

Related Posts: Archetype Overview – The Eight Major Archetypes (including the Six Core Power Archetypes)

Who Is Your “Green Man” (And Why Is He Taking Control of Your Life Just Now?)

Does Your Inner Green Man Want You to Bust the He** Out of Here?

Have you had a vacation yet this summer?

Or have you had one, but still need another?

Here it is, just a few days before Labor Day weekend. Most of us are making our very last, end-of-summer time-in-the-sun plans. (You may already be “outta-here.”)

I’m just like you. I’m about to bust loose inside, but here I am – at the computer – because it’s been way too long since we’ve talked.

No.

I’m not at the computer.

Waves coming in off Sandy Beach, south-eastern tip of Oahu.

Waves coming in off Sandy Beach, south-eastern tip of Oahu. Photo: Ryan Craig.

In my mind, you and I are walking on Sandy Beach, on the eastern (windward) side of Oahu’s southern tip. It’s early morning (just as it is here, in Northern Virginia, where I just finished my real early-morning walk just a couple of hours ago).

But in this imaginary scenario, it’s just you and me. The surfers aren’t up yet. Because this is a “local” beach, the tourists haven’t found there way here yet, either.

You and me, shoes left back at the car. Gritty sand squishing between our toes, as we walk along the firm sand at the water’s edge; waves rolling in to our side, tide just coming in.

A gorgeous, calm early morning, with just the two of us, some sea gulls, and a light, brisk little wind.

Of course we’re talking; voices raised just a little so we can hear each other over the surf, the wind, and the calling of the gulls.

And of course, we’re talking about our archetypes.

After we’ve cleared the air of all the “little stuff” that goes on in our lives, we’re getting just a bit deeper – as in: how much time we’ve put in at work lately, and is it really worth while? How long it has been since our last vacation, and how good it feels – now, just a few days into this time together, our heads are really starting to get a bit clear.

We look out across the waves, the sun just over the horizon, and we get a sense of perspective.

There’s nothing like getting away from home for a few days, even if only in our minds.

Getting Outta Here Has a Long Tradition

Celebrating the Feast of Booths by living outside for a week.

Celebrating the Feast of Booths by living outside for a week – picture of a Sukkah (booth).

Even thousands of years ago, when the Jewish people were settled but largely agrarian, they were commanded to celebrate Sukkot – the Feast of Booths – every year.

Yes, the particular Jewish Feast of Booths was ordained to remind them of the time after Exodus, when they had not yet entered Canaan, but were wandering in the desert. All their needs were provided for them by God; their shoes and clothes did not wear out, and they received manna every morning.

To commemorate this time, they were instructed to live for seven days in “booths” that they covered with organic material – typically branches and leaves.

In short, they camped out. Typically on their own front porches, but – they camped out. They didn’t work (especially for the first two days). They were on vacation.

What Does the Feast of Booths Mean to Us? (Especially if We’re Non-Jewish)

Rabbi Harold White, formerly Director for the Jewish Chaplaincy at Georgetown University, and Co-Founder of the Program for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University.

Rabbi Harold White, formerly Director for the Jewish Chaplaincy at Georgetown University, and Co-Founder of the Program for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University.

Rabbi Harold White, who was Director for the Jewish Chaplaincy at Georgetown University before he co-founded the Program for Jewish Civilization there, is one of my favorite people. A few years ago, we met to discuss the Unveiling archetypes and the Kabbalah, and he noted how the Jewish faith included many rituals – a good number of which were specific for women. Others, of course, were for the entire populace.

Rabbi White went on to describe the role of rituals in our lives as help[ing] us to overcome our fear of transition.’ (Unveiling, p. 254)

So what’s the transition that we’re addressing when camp out for a week?

Because my own inner Green Man is so strong right now (and because you and I, at least mentally, are still “at the beach”), let me not answer that question directly just yet.

Instead, take a look at the diagram in the blog just prior to this one; Practical Archetypes. This diagram shows the eight different archetypes, arranged as octants in a pie-chart-type circle. You’ll see the Green Man at the bottom, slightly to the left.

Think about the Green Man archetype – even if you haven’t heard much about him. (Prior to writing Unveiling, I hadn’t heard of him very much either. And in fact, this is the very first time that I’m writing about him.)

Think about some of the female archetypal correlates for the Green Man – the Greek goddess Artemis, who later became the Roman goddess Diana – the original woman who ran with the wolves.

What does this sense of wildness and freedom say to you?

And what does he (or she) mean to you – sandwiched in between three other masculine archetypes, all of which are very nose-down and disciplined? The Green Man is right after the Magician, who will consume all resources in the sake of his creative vision, and the Emperor, who also takes up every resource and tool he can find, so that he can expand his empire. And the Green Man comes just before the Hierophant – our Obi-Wan Kenobi archetype. (Actually, think of Obi-Wan combined with Yoda, with Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid, and with Professor Dumbledore. All kindly, and not a one of whom will take any nonsense whatsoever.)

Does it begin to seem as though the Green Man lets us do what we must for psychic survival – that is, to blow off a little steam?

Share your Green Man experiences in the comments section below.

To your own inner power – as you cultivate each of your inner archetypes.

Much love –

Alay’nya