Practical Archetypes

Practical Archetypes – Identifying Your Archetypal Roles Over Time

Yesterday was a great, big, huge turning point.

For the first time in weeks – months – maybe even years (ok, that latter is a little exaggeration), I spent most of the day on the phone, setting up the next big event, which is actually going to be a “video project.”

Connecting with people again felt good – very good.

And because I’ve spent the last three years self-training on archetypes, and figuring out more about how and where they not just show up, but interact with each other (this is real important!), I was able to do a little after-the-day analysis of what was going on.

What I found was emergence of a skill set that I’d had before, but it was coming out much more refined, evolved, and – simply put – just very useful. Useful to me; useful to others.

This is the kind of high-level skill set that will help me take my business to a new level. More than that, it’s helping me to take other people’s businesses to new levels. (That’s why I was on the phone so long.)

More than that, this new emerging skill-set – very much tied in with archetypal integration – is practical, and can be both taught and coached. This means that you, reading this blog right now, will pick up some useful pointers on how to apply the very same skills to your life.

The results?

Better abilities to help others solve their problems.

This means: Stronger allies. Stronger relationships. Positioning yourself as a “guru to the gurus.”

And all of this can lead to stronger positioning for yourself, in whatever field you may be.

But before I dive in, let me share a bit of background.

This has been a tough year. And during the course of this year, I’ve observed myself use various archetypes as I’ve dealt with different challenges. Each archetype brought with it – not just a skill-set – but a survival strategy.

Here’s how it all started.

Losses and Transitions Trigger Hestia

My daddy died this last November.

I had no idea how hard the grief would hit me, but it was physical as well as emotional.

My energy was low, and my mind was disheveled.

It was months before I could do simple cognitive tasks again – such as balance a checkbook, handle emails (except in the most cursory manner), or blog.

In the first three months after my daddy’s death, I did actually write a few blogs – perhaps one per month – but that was all that I could do.

Hestia - our 'hearth and home' archetype.

Hestia – our ‘hearth and home’ archetype.

What I did do was to tap into my Hestia archetype.

For months, I cleaned and painted.

Not the “vacuum through” kind of cleaning, but the sort of deep-cleaning that is almost trance-state; the kind that goes into deep, forgotten corners, and just lets cleaning that one little spot become (temporarily) my world.

“Wax on, wax off,” as Mr. Miyagi had said, in the Karate Kid.

During that time, I learned (once again) the power of Hestia, in helping us deal with transitions. A move. A death or divorce. Recovery from any kind of grief or loss or major life-upheaval.

Hestia calms the soul, smooths the nerves, and brings a sense of order back to both our physical realms and our minds.

Our Hestia archetype is not one of our “core power archetypes.” She doesn’t hold a seat on our internal “Board of Directors.”

Rather, Hestia is the archetype on which we call when the company that we’ve founded has been dissolved, and there is no longer any Board. When our lives have been hit by hurricane-force winds, and all that we can do is start the reconstruction process.

Hestia is the Gateway for Sustained High Priestess

The High Priestess, depicted by Mari.

The High Priestess, depicted by Mari.

Hestia – through keeping focused on continuous physical actions – helps us center enough so that her ally and friend, the High Priestess, can show up.

Our inner High Priestess archetype is introspective. A brief (and too limited) description of her would be that she is our “inner wisdom” archetype.

But that’s too simplistic.

To get a better understanding, let’s have a look at the Jungian-based archetypal diagram.

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 top half of this chart are all of our feminine archetypes, and in the lower half, the masculine.

The feminine archetypes all are what Jung described as being “Perceiving,” and the masculine are all “Judging.” As a reminder, this is not to say that men are more “judging” of others than are women. Rather, this refers to a desire to “come to closure.” The “Judging” archetypal modes are all those that like to get tasks done; they all like to “cross things off the list.”

The “Perceiving” archetypes are all open-ended; they’re much more about process than results.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, as John Grey would say. Or, as authors Bill and Pam Farrell would put it, Men Are Like Waffles–Women Are Like Spaghetti.

Simplistic, yes. But the value is in the simplicity.

So, we take a look at the chart above.

Our Hestia and High Priestess are sisters. They differ ONLY in that the High Priestess is Intuitive, and Hestia is Sensing. (These are terms coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung when he formed his Psychological Types theory; the terms were later adopted when Myers and Briggs put together the Myers-Briggs (Psychological) Type Inventory, or the MBTI).

I’ve placed these archetypes in the seasonal quarters to help us study them in an orderly manner.

It’s no coincidence, though, that the High Priestess appears right after Winter Solstice; a time when we are naturally introverted – when our tendency is to sit by the fire and look into the flames; to let our minds disassociate from daily concerns and simply be open to whatever comes.

In mid-winter, about early February (marked by Candlemas), we begin to stir ourselves – both physically and psychologically. We invoke our Hestia mode, and start to clean house. We go through our paperwork, and do our taxes. We organize things and get rid of clutter. Our momentum for this increases as we get closer to spring; the proverbial “spring cleaning.”

Hestia’s focus is on the physical processes of “mending,” – part of the “mend, tend, befriend” behavior pattern that Dr. Shelley Taylor identified for women in The Tending Instinct: Women, Men, and the Biology of Relationships. Hestia is also “tending” – more of physical things (the proverbial “hearthfire”) than of children – but “keeping the home fires burning” is important to nurturing people.

The important thing here is that, while we need to access our High Priestess mode to get wisdom, we are often too action-oriented. But by accessing our Hestia mode (“wax on, wax off”), we get calm enough for long enough so that our High Priestess’s inner wisdom can emerge. Or, if our lives have taken a total trashing, the inner healing and “mending” of our psyches can begin.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs, of the TV Series NCIS, builds boats by hand to clear his mind when under stress.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs, of the TV Series NCIS, builds boats by hand to clear his mind when under stress.

Men need their Hestia as much as do women.

Remember Jethro Gibbs, from the long-running TV series NCIS?

When under stress, he works on his boat. Building it by hand, step-by-step, no power tools.

His boat-building is how he accesses his inner Hestia. Then he gets insights; his High Priestess guides him on what to do next.

But, no matter how long the winter – or how devastating the life challenge – we eventually move on.

In my case, I became slowly more able to deal with everyday life, and with my “usual work.” I didn’t need to immerse myself into deep-cleaning a closet in order to get through the day.

Spring was starting, the squirrels were chasing each other, and when I went out for my morning walk, I saw robins busily pecking for earthworms in a neighbor’s mulched garden beds.

High Priestess Leads to Hestia; Hestia Leads to Magician – Evolving Archetypes in Our Lives

With spring, my energy began building once again. I switched from housework to long walks, and resumed my regular yoga/core training schedule.

With all the contemplation that the High Priestess and Hestia had brought, I was ready to take on the world once again – and ready to rebuild my business.

But things were different this time; I’d learned some potent lessons during my grief and the High Priestess / Hestia stage of winter.

{To Be Continued}

Practical "Unveiling"

Unveiling has been reaching an audience worldwide. Now, Unveiling fans can apply the “art of unveiling” to their lives – and to their dance. Alay’nya has taught women the art of Oriental dance through the Alay’nya Studio, which offers belly dance classes in North Virginia. Her book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey has been adopted by women worldwide as a women’s body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway guidebook. For those with an entrepreneurial bent, or those who are aspiring authors, Alay’nya (in her “daytime” persona as Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.) has founded Mourning Dove Press, offering strategic guidance – and the possibility of publication under the MDP imprint – to those who want to sell more than the “expected” 200 copies of their works. Lessons learned while taking Unveiling to a world-wide audience are interpreted for others, using the time-honored principles taught by Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

Becoming a "Magician" Is Not Hogwarts-Easy!

Becoming a Magician – Not As Easy as Going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!

Ah, if life were only so easy!

If all that we had to do – in order to become a functioning, real, practicing Magician – were to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (from the Harry Potter novels), we’d have a relatively straightforward task. Perhaps not always easy. (Think of the various nasty elements that Harry, Hermione, and Ron face each year.) However, our course of study would be laid out for us. All we’d have to do would be to attend the required classes, practice hard, and – hooray! – we’d emerge at the end, wand in hand, as a fully-fledged Magician.


Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

And maybe, we’d think, a bit of luck might be involved. Or at least the right genetics.

But what if each of us had Magician-potential?

What if for each of us, becoming a Magician was a core part of our life’s work?

Those of you who have been following along will be familiar with the basic theme of this archetypal study: Our adult “life journey” follows a path laid out in the Kabbalah – really based on the Tree of Life. There is a simple, straightforward, and easy mapping of the various “stages” of our “life journey” into the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

(Sidenote: It may very well be that the Tarot system, including both Major and Minor Arcana, was invented to capture this Kabbalistic “life journey.” The first Tarot decks came into being during the height of the Inquisition, when the Jewish people were being persecuted; being driven from their homes, forced to convert to Christianity, and often tortured and killed. This went on for hundreds of years. The possibility of all Jewish esoteric knowledge being lost would have given the Kabbalistic thought-leaders huge motivation to capture their essential teachings for future generations in a sort of “Purloined Letter” manner – hiding them in plain sight, so to speak. More on that in a later blogpost.)

Our adult “life journey” really has three stages. While I address all three within the pages of Unveiling: The Inner Journey, most of the posts in this series have focused on building a deeper understanding of the first stage; that which author Rachel Pollack (in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom) calls The Worldly Sequence.

Prior to starting our adult “life journey,” we are each in the role of the Fool. This doesn’t mean that we are “foolish,” per se. It just means that we are innocent; unknowing. We’re like Bilbo Baggins, before he leaves the warm, safe, known realm of the Shire. Before he goes There and Back Again.

As a quick review, this first adult “life journey” takes us through six distinct steps, with a seventh providing a wrap-up or integration. In order, these are:

  • Magician: Visionary and creative,
  • High Priestess: Contemplative and intuitive,
  • Empress: Nurturing and caring, all too often losing oneself as the focus becomes on meeting the needs of others,
  • Emperor: Building and sustaining, from managing projects at work to running the home,
  • Hierophant: Guru and guide; developing our Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda aspects,
  • Love-Goddess: Renamed Hathor in Unveiling (after the Egyptian goddess of love, romance, and pleasure in all its forms), and
  • Winged Victory: Sometimes called the Chariot, we “pull together” the opposing forces of each of these powerful archetypes, harnessing them as needed to our strong sense of will.

Again, if all that we had to do was to cultivate each of these archetypes, in a nice and neat linear order, life would be easy.

But it’s not.



Simply getting from our starting place as the innocent Fool into being a powerful and effective Magician is in itself a huge challenge. Most people don’t make it this far.

There’s a reason for this.

Going from Fool to Magician is not simply taking a step on a garden path. It’s not just enrolling for the first year of college. It is a profound, huge shift in the way-we-are in the world.

Furthermore, this Fool-to-Magician transformation is really several giant steps, all rolled into one.

We can credit Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., author of The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, with discerning and elucidating the fullness, richness, and overall complexity of this huge life-transition.

The next few posts will develop this Fool-to-Magician journey in more detail. In fact, the next several posts will concentrate on the Magician archetype itself: what it is, how we get there. How to spot and discern “magicianship” – in ourselves and others. (It helps us to acknowledge our own successes, especially when we can see them as part of the bigger picture.) After suitable attention to the Magician, I’ll return to the Emperor archetype. These two – Magician and Emperor – are a powerful duo. Leaders throughout government, military, industry, and non-profit sectors are largely composed of Emperor/Magician personalities; sometimes both archetypes rolled into one; often with partners or teams having strong Emperor and Magician representations.

However, as Dr. Pearson discovered, the Fool-to-Magician transition is not easy. It is a set of journeys within itself, and may be far more arduous and challenging than we would ever believe.

Thus, our first step – in developing ourselves as Magicians – is to study this Fool-to-Magician transition more completely. To “gird up our loins,” so to speak, for a potentially long and difficult journey.

We note that in Pearson’s diagram (shown above), there is a long distance between the Wanderer and the Magician. Going from one to the other doesn’t happen overnight.

However, we recall a line from a poem in The Hobbit: “Not all those who wander are lost.”

Even though we may have a long stage of “wandering,” in order to discover and fulfill our Magician potential, this is part of doing the magical work itself.

The essence of magic is transformation: Creating something, essentially, from nothing; from the raw, primordial substrate of consciousness. Over the next several posts, I’ll provide many examples: creating a cohesive work team where there had been only divisiveness and back-biting. Creating a major symphonic performance with a scanty budget and tired (but still enthusiastic) volunteer musicians. Envisioning and creating a new product, service, and/or marketing plan.

Most of the time, though, our biggest “magical” actions are done in transforming ourselves. We become more of a Magician as we are willing to relinquish the fierce grip of being a Martyr and/or a Warrior. We take an even bigger step as we are willing to step into the unknown, especially the unknown space of our inner selves, when we are willing to relinquish the safety and security of known roles. In this, we are going from Fool to Wanderer. And only then, can we take the most powerful step and go from Wanderer to Magician.

Dethroning the "Emperor"

Dethroning Our Inner Emperor – And Freeing Ourselves from Archetypal Dominance

The function of Emperors is to create empires.

That’s simple, isn’t it?

Their role in life – both as “external emperors” (in the “real world” of current events and history) and as “internal emperors” (our Emperor archetype) – is to create, build, and sustain empires. Their intent is to grow their empires, by whatever means possible. And to ensure that their empires “reign supreme” over all others.


Ghenghis Khan, creator and ruler of the Mongol empire, 1155-1227 AD

Think of some of the greatest Emperors that the world has known. Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan easily come to mind. Each of these built armies, waged war, and created empires that were – at that time – among the largest that the world has ever seen.

Successful emperors (those who build the largest and most solid empires) typically have not only an intense, committed, and long-term focus on empire-building, but also pursue their aims (as in the case of Genghis Khan) with “a combination of outstanding military tactics and merciless brutality.”

The relevance of all of this to ourselves, we might ask?

We might have various Emperor-personas in our lives. A boss or co-worker who is unapologetically ambitious. Someone in a non-profit who uses every opportunity to get the spotlight on him or herself. Even a much-loved – albeit feared – family matriarch. All of these are Emperors in their own right.

We treat these people with due deference and respect – and typically, give them as wide a berth as possible. Most of the time, we find it easier to avoid these people, to simply “not deal” – because we know that they are more focused, cunning, and downright more driven than we will ever be.

But truly, it’s not these “external emperors” that we need to worry about.

Our real concern should properly be with the Emperor that lurks inside each of us. In fact, the one that runs almost all aspects of our lives.

This is the Emperor that ruthless and merciless – to ourselves!

This is the Emperor that drives us to work until our health breaks; to ignore our own inner desperate pleadings for time for rest, for pleasure, for connection, for even a walk outside on a lovely spring day. This is the Emperor who chooses a life path of success, power, recognition, control – all, ultimately, based on ego.

We may think that we’ve managed to elude the controlling grasp of our inner Emperor – and some of us have. However, a lack of worldly success does not always mean that our inner Emperor is dormant or absent. Rather, it can just as easily mean that we have enough internal conflict so that our Emperor can push us to great extents – but is constantly being hampered by internal “palace revolts.”

So how do we discern our Emperor? And then, how do we “overthrow” him?

Even more, is “overthrowing” our Emperor what we really want? Or is there a way to “manage” our own internal Emperor, so that we are getting the “best out of the deal”?

Common sense, and a dose of practical wisdom, suggests that complete “dethronement” may not be entirely what we want.

We wouldn’t have such a powerful inner archetype as our Emperor if it (“he”) were not extremely useful.

What we’re desiring, though, is not just a sense of balance, but really something more.

Our Emperor comes from ego. And ultimately, our ego is fear-driven.

Our real goal is to live beyond our egos; to live according to a higher vision and sense of purpose. We design to align ourselves more with God’s will in our lives. This means changing our internal “power structure” somewhat.


Walt Kelly first used the quote “We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us” on a poster for Earth Day in 1970.

There’s that well-known saying; “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Well, that “us” would be our own internal Emperor – the most powerful, determined, focused, and controlling of our six core power archetypes.

So how do we discern him? And how do we “dethrone” him? (That means – not remove completely, but get him into a useful and somewhat “subordinate” place?) That will be the subject of the next few blogs.

Yours with love –

Alay’nya

Is Your "Emperor" Ruling Your Life?

Is Your Inner Emperor Ruling Your Life? (And If So, What Can You Do?)

A gentle tyrant.

Perhaps, sometimes, even not-so-gentle.


Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor (1557-1619), painted by Hans von Aachen (1625).

We each have an inner Emperor.

Our Emperor mode, or archetype, is our “Project Manager” self. When we deal with cognitive, rational, “get-things-done” types of tasks – tasks often involving budgets, deadlines, and deliverables – we call on our inner Emperor.

Our inner Emperor is one of our six core power archetypes, and is often dominant. He (along with is compatriot, the Magician) tends to be a “resource hog.”

We can’t blame him; not really. Any good Project Manager, CEO, or President-of-Anything will charm, co-opt, or just plain commandeer any and every resource that he (or she) can find to get the job done. That’s why they’re paid the “big bucks.” They get things done – and to hell with whose toes get stepped on in the process.

Our Emperor is all about – whatever he’s “all about.” This could be getting a law degree or a promotion at work. It could simply be getting a five-year-old’s birthday party to come off successfully. Regardless, our inner Emperor is highly task-focused. And because “his” role is to get things done, at all costs, when he’s in charge, no other archetypal mode gets much attention.

Our inner High Priestess wants to go for a walk, or even to get out of town for the weekend to simply chill? Sorry, but we’re staying late at the office until the report is done.

Our inner Hathor wants some spa time? Later.

Our inner Empress wants to connect with girlfriends, or stay at home and cuddle? Again, later. Her needs get deferred in the face of the Emperor’s overwhelming (perhaps even obsessive) task-focused nature.

Now don’t get me wrong. We need our Emperor mode. This aspect of our psyche is essential to our well-being.

The challenge is that – for too many of us – we’ve allowed our inner Emperor to really become an inner Tyrant – gobbling up all of our time, all of our resources, and all of our energies. And then we find ourselves exhausted, frustrated, and just downright depressed and angry.

So how do we deal?

That will be the subject of the next several postings.

References

Soloman, Presidential Address to the Eastern Psychological Association, NYC, April, 1963.

Hestia – Our "Rest and Recharge" Archetype – Part 2

Why We Need Some “Hestia Time”

It Was More Than “Just Winter”

Shortly after Thanksgiving, my father died. This, of course, was the “tipping point.” But it was one event on top of several.

Within a single week, one housemate – someone with a severe medical condition – went into the hospital. Another, newly moving in, announced that she had quit her new job, would be unable to pay her security deposit, and would likely not have the next month’s rent. Then, a tooth condition flared up, and it looked as though I’d need an emergency root canal.

Within another week, a housemate (yes, the same one who couldn’t pay security or rent) lit a fire in the fireplace. The flue was open, but it was cold – and she started up a fire of magnificent proportions. Naturally, the smoke went into the room, instead of up the cold chimney flue. We had smoke throughout, as never before. I was faced with the somewhat daunting task of repainting the entire living room.

This combination – of grief over my father’s passing, of simply too much stress from external events, and the onset of winter – kicked me firmly into a combination of High Priestess and Hestia modes.

High Priestess and Hestia – Two Natural Complements

High Priestess, by Mari-Na

Our High Priestess, as we know, is our contemplative and intuitive mode. This is where we take a spiritual retreat, or even just take a long walk. We need our High Priestess to find the “calm spot” within ourselves.

Our High Priestess is a necessary complement to our visionary, creative Magician mode. Without some reflective time, we find it difficult to tap into our inspirations and creativity. This is why our High Priestess is the second major archetype we encounter in our first adult life journey. Within the Major Arcana of the Tarot, she is Card II, and immediately follows the Magician (Card I).

Since our High Priestess plays such an important role in our lives, we often miss the important corollary of our Hestia mode.

Hestia – Our “Hearth and Home” Goddess


Hestia image created by Katlyn Breene, permission requested.

She [Hestia] is the Goddess of the hearth flame and temple flame, and at every public or private ritual, the first offering was always made to her. Upon marrying, a new bride would carry fire from her mother’s home to the new, symbolizing the Goddess’s presence blessing her new family. Hestia is the symbol of the sanctity of home, of home as temple and refuge, and of the fire of life contained within each place that honors her. (Text from Lunaea.)

“Mend, Tend, Befriend”: How Women Deal with Stress

Shelley E. Taylor, Ph.D., has led breakthrough research uncovering how women’s typical stress-responses are different from men’s. In her book, The Tending Instinct, she found that “tending and befriending” behaviors – those that involve bonding – are part of women’s natural responses to stress. However, it was also Taylor who coined the phrase “mend, tend, and befriend.” The “mending” part, and also our “tending,” may refer to our physical environment as well as our emotional landscape.

Emotional bonding behaviors – whether caring for a child, a husband, a friend, or a pet – or even having lunch with girlfriends or phone call with a long-distance sibling or friend – help to produce oxytocin. Oxytocin is a “feel-good” neurohormone, and is important in many aspects of our lives. However, to “feel good,” we also need other hormones. Dopamine helps us to feel the zest and juiciness of life, and serotonin is soothing and calming.

Archetypes and Neurohormones: A Strange and Useful Relation

Although it is very simplistic, we can make an “overarching” correlation between certain of our archetypes and the brain “states” that we wish to induce with each of these archetypal modes.

  • Empress – our “tend and befriend” mode – strongly correlated with oxytocin-inducing behaviors,
  • High Priestess – intuitive and contemplative – and least well-understood in terms of neurohormonal correlates, but most likely linked to anything that is serotonin producing (and hence the strong association with the Hestia archetype)
  • Hestia – the “mend” part of our “mend, tend, and befriend” stress-coping strategies – less emotionally-connected than Empress, and much more focused on the “calming” (serotonin-producing) activities of cleaning house, mending items, and generally keeping order, and
  • Hathor (the Love Goddess) – focusing on sensual pleasure, love and romantic passion – a “dopamine-focused” (feeling exuberant and ecstatic) archetype.

Hestia and House-Cleaning: Breaking Through the Winter Doldrums

Alana Morales, writing for the online Mommie’s Magazine, shares that house-cleaning helps relieve stress. She’s not alone in this, as even the Mayo Clinic offers activity (such as house-cleaning), as a means of stress reduction.

Laura, a writer for Radiant Recovery, describes how she found that house-cleaning helped her to reduce stress . A friend and colleague pointed out the relation between cleaning, stress reduction, and seratonin.

She wrote:

That when OCD gets really bad you can not stop the need to clean that one spot on the table or keep washing your hands or organizing the silverware drawer or whatever.

And, here is the kicker, she said how do you feel after you clean or neaten the things up that bother you? I thought for a moment and said, I feel much , much better. A sense of relief…and calm.

She said that is because you just got some serotonin. The act of cleaning, or repetitively doing something calms you down which produces a small amount of serotonin.

Women, Stress, and Serotonin

For women, stress, depression, and serotonin levels are often linked.

We can, to some extent, improve our serotonin levels with certain kinds of foods, with exercise (which produces endorphins), and with sufficient sleep and even light-boxes (during winter).

Upcoming: Hestia Strategies

In the next blogpost, I’ll share how we can consciously invoke the Hestia archetype into our lives, calling upon the “sacredness” of house-cleaning – of deliberately using our “mend and tend” instincts – to help us deal with stress. This can even help us deal with more difficult situations – such as sharp emotional life-changes, including major losses and transitions.

Related Blogs

Hestia – Our “Rest and Recharge” Archetype – Part 2

Masculine vs. Feminine – Core Archetypes

Your Masculine and Feminine Core Archetypes: How Are They Different?

yin-yang-recursive

Have you wondered yet how much you really need the archetypes of the “other gender” in your life?

That is, if you’re a man, have you wondered how much you “really need” the four core feminine archetypes?

And if you’re a woman, have you wondered how much you “really need” the masculine qualities in your life?

If so, you’re not alone.

Yin and Yang not only embody classic masculine and feminine qualities, but each carries the “seed” of one within the other

 

The Core Masculine and Feminine Archetypes: A Quick Review

There are four each of the core masculine and feminine archetypes. Three of each are the “power archetypes” – those which we must understand and incorporate during our first adult life mastery journey. And one of each is a “reserve” or “battery power backup” archetype – designed to give us a bit of extra “juice,” or to give us a little “breathing room.”

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).

Four Core Masculine Archetypes

All the masculine archetypes are on the bottom half of the core archetypes octant chart above.

Notice also: the Thinking archetypes are on the right-hand-side (for both masculine and feminine archetypes), and the Feeling archetypes are on the left-hand-side (again, for both masculine and feminine).

  • Magician: (NTJ, or Intuitive-Thinking-Judging) Being a visionary, creating reality according to your “big dream,”
  • Emperor: (STJ, or Sensing-Thinking-Judging) Bringing your desired reality into fruition; building and stabilizing your “empire,”
  • Hierophant: (NFJ, or Intuitive-Feeling-Judging) Becoming a guru/guide, and
  • Green Man (a reserve battery archetype): (SFJ, or Sensing-Feeling-Judging) Escape to the “great outdoors,” breaking out of the molds that civilization puts on us.

Four Core Feminine Archetypes

All the feminine archetypes are on the top half of the core archetypes octant chart above.

  • Hathor (The “Love Goddess”): (SFP, or Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving) Reveling in sensual beauty and pleasure,
  • Empress: (NFP, or Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving) Connecting, loving, nurturing,
  • High Priestess: (NTJ, or Intuitive-Thinking-Perceiving) Being contemplative and intuitive, and
  • Hestia (a reserve battery archetype): (STP, or Sensing-Thinking-Perceiving) “Mending and tending.”

We Often “Bundle” the “Other Gender” Archetypes in Our Minds

Some of the very good thinkers in archetypal psychology have suggested “bundling” of the “other gender” archetypes. Here are two examples:

Women Tend to “Bundle” Their Masculine Archetypes into Their Amazon Persona

The first person to do a good “psychology of the feminine” was Antonia Wolff, protégé (and later the lover) of Carl Jung. While Jung wrote many books, Ms. Wolff wrote only one – and it was more of a “pamphlet” than a book. However, Antonia Wolff’s book was the inspiration and “launch pad” for Dr. Toni Grant’s later book, Being a Woman – a book that influenced millions of lives. Wolff’s pamphlet, the Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche, has been translated from the original German and is available to read online.

Wolff succinctly outlined the elements of feminine psychology into four different modes or dimensions:

  • The Hetaira (Companion) – corresponding to Hathor (The “Love Goddess”): In Wolff’s formulation, this Hetaira (Courtesan) archetype is defined in terms of and in relationship to men,
  • The Mother – corresponding to the Empress (Isis): Wolff describes this as “motherly cherishing and nursing, helping, charitable, teaching,”
  • The Medial Woman – corresponding to High Priestess: “The medial woman is immersed in the psychic atmosphere of her environment and the spirit of her period, but above all in the collective (impersonal) unconscious,” and
  • The Amazon – corresponding to the “bundled” masculine archetypes of Magician and Emperor: [whose] “interest is directed towards objective achievements which she wants to accomplish herself.”
Thracian Amazon woman with sword.

Thracian Amazon woman with sword.

When women simplify their inner masculine archetypes into the single Amazon, they lose valuable distinctions.

We see that Wolff’s Structural Forms include two masculine archetypes, bundled together into the Amazon.

She omits the Hierophant, which is a teaching/mentoring/coaching role. For Wolff, the Hierophant is subsumed into the nurturing aspect of the Mother archetype.

She also omits the Green Man from her “masculine archetypal bundle,” together with the Hestia archetype – which is a feminine one. None of these omissions are surprising when we look at them in more detail, which we’ll do in a later blogpost.

(Historical note: Did the Amazons Really Exist?.)

The impact for woman of a “bundled” collection of masculine archetypes?

If we were to think of our inner Amazon as just one archetype, we’d miss the significant distinction between being a creative visionary genius (Magician) and being the implementer of structure and order (Emperor) .

Yves Saint Laurent (right) and Pierre Berger (left).

Yves Saint Laurent (right) and Pierre Berger (left).

Think about this. During his most creative years, Yves St. Laurent had as his close associate Pierre Bergé. St. Laurent was the creative genius, Bergé was CEO and marketing.

Bergé and St. Laurent – the Emperor and the Magician.

When we are clear as to whether we are in “creative” (Magician) or in “sustaining” (Emperor) modes, we can better understand not only our roles and responsibilities, but also our strengths and weaknesses.

For about twenty years, I’ve been the lead creative scientist in two different companies. When I’ve been in “creative” mode, I bump into walls. It’s been vitally important for me to have others in the CEO (and COO and CFO) roles.

Similarly, creative geniuses in the performing arts – say, choreographers and conductors – need the support of an Executive Director to carry out the business responsibilities, and an effective Board of Directors to shape the organization.

Visionaries need Sustainers; Magicians need Emperors. Being clear about this distinction helps us understand how to shift gears and allocate not only our time and priorities, but our long-term attention within our professional lives.

 

Men Tend to “Bundle” Their Feminine Archetypes into Their Lover Persona

love2

When men simplify their inner feminine archetypes into the single Lover, they also lose valuable distinctions.

Just as women often “bundle” their masculine archetypes into one convenient catch-all Amazon, men similarly tend to “bundle” all of their feminine archetypes into one convenient Lover mode. In my recent blogpost, Moore and Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover – 2 1/3 Out of Four Ain’t Bad!, I analyzed the work of Moore and Gillette, whose book bundles the core feminine archetypes into the Lover.

 

“Bundling” is a Convenient Shorthand, But Doesn’t Solve the “Big Picture”

leaning-tower-of-pisa-facts

When we “bundle,” we tend to simplify too much.

An “unbalanced understanding” leads to being lopsided – like the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

For real life mastery, we need to know, understand, and cultivate each of our six core power archetypes (both masculine and feminine), and know how to use our reserve or “battery-power back-up” archetypes as well.

Each Core Archetype Comes in Both Masculine and Feminine Forms

Each archetype has its own masculine and feminine complements.

For example, the High Priestess also appears as the Sage, or Wise Man.

The Green Man appears in feminine mode as Artemis or Diana, the original “woman who ran with the wolves.”

Even those archetypes that would seem to be most gender-specific have their complementary realizations within the opposite gender. For example, the building and sustaining aspect of the Emperor is found in the Roman goddess Minerva, who sprang (fully formed) from the head of her father Zeus.

Think also that the passionate and free Hathor archetype finds her masculine complement in Dionysus, who was fond of both sex and wine. (Think of a “Dionysian feast”!)

The Best Strategy

The best strategy is to master each archetype, in order, one by one.

Casablanca.

Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca.

Ultimately, we need to combine – within ourselves – the strengths and values of each of our core archetypes.

Let’s keep in mind that we have an “end-game.” We’re shooting for a final stage (for this particular “journey”) of integration – being able to access and use each archetype at will.

If we desire to be creative, we need to have both our Magician and our High Priestess archetypes. the High Priestess gives us the opportunity to “fill our well.” (See Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

If we desire to lead effectively within any organization, we need the ability to “treat people warmly” and “treat issues coldly.” We need both our Empress and Emperor. (See Micheal F. Andrew’s How to Think Like a CEO.

For whatever tasks and challenges lie ahead, we need to access all of our potential. This is the fist stage in the path to personal mastery.


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

Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as you unveil yourself to yourself in 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!

This Unveiling blog is the theory – archetypes, life journeys, integration. For the practicum, go to the Alay’nya Studio blog – body awareness, movement and dance, Fountain of Youth (energy circulation exercises), and more!

Resources

Connect with Alay’nya and the Unveiling Community


P.S. Learning about an authentic women’s pathway was important in my own breakthroughs.

Valerie Frankel has written several books on this subject; I’ve discovered them since writing my own book.

Check out Valerie’s works:

  • Did you grow up with Buffy? Is a sister, niece, or favorite student a Buffy fanatic? Help her learn how Buffy defines the Heroines’ Journey – and so much more! Read and give Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One.
  • Ever wished that there was a book like Campbell’s “The Man with a Thousand Faces” – written for you? Your own heroine’s archetypal journey! What do myths, legends, fairy tales, and folklore from around the world have to say about you and your own journey? Valerie Frankel’s From Girl to Goddess is applicable at all stages of our lives.
  • Game of Thrones devotee? Valerie has other great books out. Check out Valerie’s Game of Thrones e-book on Amazon!

Kindle

Kindle


Valerie Frankel, Author of From Girl to Goddess, on Unveiling: The Inner Journey

What does Valerie Frankel, author of books such as From Girl to Goddess and Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One, have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?

Ms. Frankel notes:

“She approaches her topic with devotion but also practicality and a deep intuition of human relationships, explaining though personal experience as well as intense research how the archetypes work and how a woman can channel the lover, mother, amazon and mystic to be all she is meant to become. Teachings of Jung, Murdock, Starhawk, and more appear, from ancient myth to modern culture.

“This is not the hero’s journey but one specific to the woman, or rather, many women on many different stages of journeying.

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: Dynamics of Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Core Archetypes Year-Long Study Guide – The "Big Picture"

Your Master Plan for Understanding and Integrating Each of the Core Power Archetypes

Suppose that you’ve been studying – and using – the power of archetypes in your life for a while now. What will make this year the year in which you achieve personal mastery? What will make this year your breakthrough year, and launch you to a new level of personal success and victory?

You may already understand that as we grow, we go through archetypal “growth stages.” Perhaps no one explains this better than Carol Pearson, in The Hero Within. She walks us through how we go from the not-so-empowered Innocent to the fully-empowered Magician.

You may also know, from reading Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts, that we simultaneously access and use several different archetypes. In fact, she has us select “current” and “desired” archetypes from a roster of a few dozen possibilities.

With all these great teachings, there is still something missing when we seek to fully capture the power of archetypes in our lives – the power to be in the right frame of mind for different tasks, relationships, and intentions. This “something missing” was actually laid out for us in the first seven cards of the Tarot’s Major Arcana.

A Master Plan That Goes Back Thousands of Years

The background story tells us that this knowledge actually has a much older provenance than we may have thought. The earliest known Tarot decks are several hundred years old. However, the Major Arcana are based directly on the twenty-two “pathways” connecting “spheres” (Sephiroth) in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The Kabbalistic written tradition goes back for hundreds of years; the oral tradition to perhaps a couple of thousand of years. And since the Tree of Life is the earliest known base for esoteric teachings in our culture, the origins may even be earlier. The Tree of Life is mentioned in the earliest known human writings.

In short, it is very likely that a certain “esoteric teaching” – based on mastering six core power archetypes – goes back at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years.

Three factors stand out when we undertake this “journey”:

  • The six core power archetypes (together with two reserve battery archetypes) match directly to three of the four “dimensions” used by Carl Jung in creating his Psychological Types,
  • There is a certain order for study and master, and
  • There is an “endgame” – that is, we don’t want to just master these archetypes in isolation; we desire the ability to pull on each one (or several) as needed. That is true mastery, and it is our goal as well.

 

What is Our Master Plan?

As with all big intentions, it helps us to have a “game plan.”

 

Our “game plan” is that over the course of a year, we will spend each semi-quarter on each archetype. Integration, we trust, will be something that we take up as we go along. (We may choose to repeat this study for a few years, each time gaining greater levels of insight and refinement,)

A second – yet very important – aspect of our “game plan” is that we’re tying in our intellectual and practical archetype study with our “lab work” – our daily practice of energy exercises and dance movements. We tie all of these together with the appropriate “season”, using the traditional Western esoteric approach of assigning and “element” to each “season.”

  • Winter: Season of Earth (pentacles, the physical body, a “feminine” season),
  • Spring:Season of Air (swords, the mind, a “masculine” season),
  • Summer: Season of Fire (rods, the spirit, a “masculine” season), and
  • Autumn: Season of Water (cups, the emotional realm, a “feminine” season).

 

Master Plan Overview

Each “element” has a set of qualities associated with it, and a particular focus of attention. Our archetypal study curriculum focuses on intellectual study combined with reflection and exercises that highlight each of the specific “archetypes” for the given semi-quarter. When we combine this with pathworking, we add in elements of spiritual discipline, emotional release work, energy cultivation exercises, and (of course) dance movements and techniques and choreography.

The archetypes that we will consider, are (in order):

Winter Quarter – Season of Earth (Pentacles, a “Feminine” Season)

  • High Priestess: Dec. 21 – Jan 31 Being contemplative and intuitive, a time for gazing into the fire, creating a “vision board” for the coming year, and being open to “dream-time”, and
  • Hestia (a reserve battery archetype): Feb 1 – Mar 20 Spring-cleaning – for our homes and our psyches; the classic “wax on, wax off” approach to opening our minds for insight and guidance.

 

Spring Quarter – Season of Air (Swords, a “Masculine” Season)

  • Magician: Mar. 21 – April 30 Being a visionary, creating reality according to your “big dream”, and
  • Emperor: May 1 – June 20 Bringing your desired reality into fruition; business plans, project management, process flows, stabilizing your “empire.”

 

Summer Quarter – Season of Fire (Rods, a “Masculine” Season)

  • Green Man (a reserve battery archetype): June 21 – July 31 Escape to the “great outdoors,” breaking out of the molds that civilization puts on us, and
  • Hierophant: Aug 1 – Sept. 20 Becoming a guru/guide for those younger than us – either in years or in skills and understanding.

 

Autumn Quarter – Season of Water (Cups, a “Feminine” Season)

  • Hathor (The “Love Goddess”): Sept. 21 – Oct 30 Reveling in sensual beauty and pleasure, and
  • Empress: Oct. 31 – Dec. 20 Connecting, loving, nurturing – sending out Christmas cards and gifts, holiday entertaining, time with family, friends, and loved ones.

 

Putting the Master Plan Into Action

For this coming year, each semi-quarter will be devoted to the appropriate archetype. I’ll offer resources and guidance, and as you feel led, you can follow up at will. Resources will include:

  • Guest Bloggers: Special invited guests for each different core archetype – Giving you insights from the “best of the best,” together with real-life stories from others who’ve achieved amazing results in different areas of their lives,
  • Suggested Readings: Links to books and online resources – Get greater depth, and
  • Exercises and Checklists (Strictly optional): What to do to get the most out of each archetypal focus.

From time to time, I’ll write about the integration process – how we can combine two or more archetypes to create “mastery” for ourselves in different life situations. I’ll also point the way to what happens after this level of mastery. (Yes, mastery comes in levels – and the whole work with archetypes is simply the first level. However, it’s the level where we need a good foundation before advancing to anything else.)

So here’s to you, with very best wishes for an absolutely awesome coming year!

Using Archetypes and Gaining Personal Freedom

Using Archetypes and the Power of Forgiveness to “Break Free” Forever!

Well, darlings, it’s time to come clean.

I haven’t written to you for over two months – not counting the little “warm-up” exercise that I did in two weeks ago.

There’s been a reason for this.

My daddy died recently, and I’ve been hugely grieving his loss. And as I shared with some colleagues and friends earlier this week, I was grieving not only the loss of what we did have as a relationship, and also – what we didn’t have.

I’ve been doing a huge amount of processing lately. And just recently have been able to do more “cognitive” tasks – such as handling emails, balancing the checkbook and paying bills, and – of course – writing.

Now, don’t get me wrong on the family-thing. Daddy was a magnificent “protector and provider.” He was a deeply honorable man.

But emotionally – there were things that I craved, and simply didn’t get. No matter how hard I tried, or what I did.

The turn-around has come only recently, as I’ve started really working with forgiveness – as described in both A Course in Miracles and in the Lord’s Prayer. (“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those …”)

So here’s the important thing to share. This is coming not as some abstract “word on high,” but because it’s been what I’ve been doing and working with in my own life, over the past several weeks – and it’s been making a huge difference.

Forgiveness shifts things.

According to A Course in Miracles, when we forgive, we actually alter the impact of time in our lives, and in our “reality.” Forgiveness extends back in time, and forward, and (as I’m sensing right now) into the lives of people who are connected with us and are around us.

Not that this makes it any easier, but I’ve found that forgiveness has been the one thing to release a huge logjam of “stuck stuff.”

Forgiveness is one of three core “principles” with which I’ve been working over the past few weeks, rebuilding my life from the inside-out. (And what better way to start the new year? The new B’ak’tun even?)

The most valuable books that I’m reading right now reinforce these three principles:

  • Own Your Power & A Course in Miracles – the importance of forgiving,
  • The Power (by Rhonda Byrne) – the importance of gratitude and “giving love,” and
  • Money and the Law of Attraction (Abraham-Hicks), and all other A-H materials, the importance of always “reaching for a better-feeling thought” – of how important it is to carefully culture and nurture good-feeling thoughts, and deliberately choosing our thoughts, as they set up vibrational points-of-attraction.

 

A Course in Miracles and Own Your Power

A Course in Miracles is a true heavyweight. It’s the basic “graduate-school level text” for spiritual growth. And it’s not real easy. I’ve been working through this book for over a year. (It’s designed as a one-year study program, with substantial “exercises” for each day). If I were to grade myself on this, I’d be somewhere between a C- (at my very best) and a D-. (That’s for those days where I’m cussing under my breath, being really sarcastic, and generally blowing the whole thing off.)

 

 

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The only reason that I stay with the Course?

Well really, there’s two.

The first is that there are only three people in my life right now to whom I will turn when things go really down. Only three people whom I know, and to whom I can call, who have the right “tone” when they address an issue. That is to say, they have real spiritual depth. Each of these persons has done A Course in Miracles. A couple have done it several times. One teaches it, another is getting ready to teach it. It’s not that another really substantive spiritual path wouldn’t do as well, but in my personal circle right now, those who’ve worked the Course are those who have worked their lives.

The other factor?

Well, A Course in Miracles itself states: “Everyone will answer in the end…” In fact, the Course makes it clear that once we start on this particular journey, we will finish it. We may stall about, but ultimately, we can’t drop out of this particular “Course.” It’s like being enrolled in a school curriculum required class. If we screw up, we just get to take the same class over again. And again. There’s no real “quitting.” Which is the only reason, some days, that I don’t quit.

That doesn’t make it any easier. And since this isn’t easy, I don’t go about recommending this book to all my family and friends, because it’s just a little bit of a big challenge.

What I do recommend, however, is a book that is not yet on the market – although it soon will be.

My dear intuitive friend Alice (S. Alice, or “Alicja,” Jones) is getting her second book, Own Your Power, published soon. Own Your Power is kind of A Course in Miracles-light. A “see Spot run” approach to spiritual teachings. More accessible. Be certain, I’ll let you know as soon as it’s released. I’ve been looking at a pre-release copy, and it has had a HUGE impact in my life already!

And so – while I’ve been reading bits and pieces of the pre-release Own Your Power, I’ve noticed some big shifts in how I’ve dealt with situations and people that were beyond irritating. Truly, this book has helped me get through some very awkward and difficult times in these past two weeks; times when I’d really have blown it unless I used Own Your Power to get re-centered. I’ll keep you in the loop for when it’s coming out.

Now I’ve told you that three principles – and three sets of books – were having a major impact and being very useful for me right now. The first was (see above) the power of forgiveness, and the relevant books were A Course in Miracles and the forthcoming (and much easier) Own Your Power, by S. Alice (“Alicja”) Jones, out soon.

The other two principles were gratitude (see The Power, which is the sequel to The Secret, by Rhonda Byrnes), and the importance of carefully aligning and shaping our thoughts – focusing our thoughts – so as to carefully establish our “vibrational point of attraction.” (See any of the Abraham-Hicks material, although I’m currently working with Money and the Law of Attraction.)

This blog contains enough to read (and enough for me to write) in one sitting, so I’ll defer the next two principles to a subsequent blog.

And then, I’ll take the “big step” and link up these principles (all three of them) to how we can work with our archetypes. Because I’ve found that our archetypes – the primary ways or modalities in which we shape our psychological core – are not something simply handed down to us at birth.

We’re not just “born with” an archetypal predisposition, as we might have thought if we’d been following a simple Myers-Briggs approach. (Please recall, as mentioned in Unveiling: the Myers-Briggs approach was adopted during World War II as a means to effectively match service people to the jobs for which they’d be most suited. The deeper, Jungian-based material on which the MBTI questionnaire was based does suggest that we access all archetypal modalities, and mature in our use of them over time.)

Now here, in brief, is what we’ll cover soon in terms of archetypes and their relation to spiritual principles, such as forgiveness.

Sometimes, we have a natural predisposition towards one archetypal mode, but have the ability to use another mode.

This is particularly true for women; I expect that we women are more psychologically flexible then men.

Sometimes, we have life events – of a variety of sorts, ranging from family influences to huge cultural surrounds – that cause us to reject an archetypal mode that would be our natural and normal “home state.” And in self-defense, we pick up another mode that we think gives us better “survival value.” (I know. Complex. More on this soon.)

When that happens, we get stuck. It’s hard for us then to make full use of all the archetypal modes available to us. It’s like having to drive a car in one gear only. Really, really tough at times.

Forgivenesss (see the reference to the spiritual stuff?) helps us break down the defenses and fears that we build up about accessing our other, rightful and enjoyable and effective and sometimes downright necessary archetypal modes. It breaks the logjam. It tears down the (often imaginary but still impactful) internal “barbed wire fence” that keeps us locked into a very small “range of motion.”

Now, as a quick overview of where this will lead us.

When we release something at the spiritual level, we release it energetically as well. When we reframe our emotional setpoints (using gratitude) and train our minds to select better-feeling thoughts (changing our “vibrational point-of-attraction”), we make it possible to have huge shifts in our physical bodies. We can release tension. We can breathe better. We can move out old, tight little nodules of pain.

But when we’ve had energetic/emotional “stuck stuff” lodged in our bodies for a long time, this physical release doesn’t come about automatically.

That’s why we need a pathway.

Specifically, we need a body/mind/psyche/energy pathway that helps move the release work that we do at the spiritual, energetic, and emotional levels into our body, and vice versa.

There are two art forms that I’ve found, in my more than thirty years of studying body-mind arts, that help us with this purpose. These are T’ai Ch’i Chuan and Oriental dance.

Yoga is good. Yoga is downright necessary, as it helps us stretch out and release tension throughout. And let’s keep in mind that yoga was designed to be a pathway. The physical yoga movements are the complement to the other spiritual disciplines of meditation, etc. So yoga can work very well.

However, for women who desire to include emotional expressiveness as part of their total life-integration and healing, Oriental dance works much more, because once we get a certain amount of technique down, the dance is all about emotional expression. Not fancy choreography. Not virtuoso technique. But rather, Oriental dance gives us the opportunity to tap into how we feel as we listen to music, and listen to our souls listening to the music.

I’ve had all my “big breakthroughs” in my body associated with dance. However, yoga, and healing therapies – Reiki, massage, Rolfing, a number of things – they have all been very powerful in helping to do “logjam releases” at the physical level.

For men, and for women who simply don’t have an affinity with Oriental dance, I continue to recommend T’ai Ch’i. It allows the same physical release and integration work to take place. And I’ve taken a number of Principles from T’ai Ch’i and applied them to Oriental dance, so that at the core, these two arts come from the same place. (At least in how I express them, and teach them to my students.)

In the next few posts, I’ll round out the spiritual principles of gratitude and deliberately shaping our “vibrational point-of-attraction.” I’ll start the new year with a survey of the major archetypes; how we can use them, and how we can move from one to another. Also, we’ll look at how we can draw archetypal complements into our lives; this allows us to primarily invoke one state, and yet get the benefit of others.

In the related blogposts for the Alay’nya Studio, I’ll develop specifics of how we can use Oriental dance as our body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway. I’ll include specific techniques and general exercises. I’ll provide links to music, DVDs, and other resources, and I’ll share how we are structuring our quarterly curriculum.

By combining spiritual release work with the energy-cultivation and physical practice, any of us can create a much more powerful – and happy and fulfilling – way of living. Here’s to a joyous 2013 and beyond!

What’s Coming in 2013 and Beyond – And How to Deal

What’s Coming in 2013 and Beyond – And How to Deal with It

Winter Solstice of 2012 has come and gone; we are now part of a new “B’ak’tun” (or Mayan long cycle). And of course, our lives are physically the same as before. But is there something different? And if so, how can we deal with it?

To all appearances, one day is still pretty much like the next. And yet, there are huge changes – immense changes – going on all around us. And what is perhaps most indicative of the times is that all these changes are converging. We’re dealing with not just one or two big things, but a great number of very big things, all of which are crashing into each other – more or less all at once.
 

Antarctic ice mass crashing

Climate changes are evocative of other sweeping forces impacting our lives

Last night, I read a column by Sara Nunnally, who described our current situation an economic winter. The contributing factors included an ongoing crisis in confidence, a credit crunch, falling interest rates (to be followed by a rise, then a much lower fall), and others. The overall impact pointed to long-term economic challenges.

So we start putting this together. Our big picture?

The earth seen from Apollo 17

We have a rate of change in our lives that is absolutely unprecedented in human experience.

It’s not just one thing, or another. It’s not just the collision of a growing world-wide population with a decrease in “cheap energy.”

It’s not just an maturing demographic, with more workers reaching retirement and wanting Social Security and Medicare, with fewer workers earning dollars to support the government expenditures. It’s not just the financial collapse of 2008-09, with others on the horizon.

It’s all of these factors, plus more.

It’s the simple fact that our technical growth – the rate of change in our communications, in our data storage, and many other factors is now racing towards an unimaginable future. Literally. We’re heading into scenarios where our minds – our imaginations of what the future will be – will not be able to keep up with what the future is actually becoming.

(To be continued …)