Tag Archives: monomyth

Six Top Blog Posts for The Unveiling Journey

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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 Journeys – Heroic, 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.

 

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

Related Posts: Archetypal Roles and Everyday Life

The "Hero’s Quest" and the "Hierophant" – Part 1

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The Warrior’s Road to Wisdom: Going from the “Hero’s Quest” to the “Hierophant”

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, beholding the devastation that once was his uncle’s farm, has no choice. Not only is there no “going back,” there is nothing left to “go back to.” He seeks out his new teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, more out of desperation than desire to go off “adventuring.” Yet, as his training and his travels unfold, he finds himself on a Hero’s Quest; one of the grandest sagas of our time.

Princess Isabelle, in a “The Embryo Goddess and the Morpho,” a short story written by Nicole Cutts, Ph.D. (in Many Paths, Many Feet, edited by Phyllis Wilson), leaves the safety of her Queen Mother’s love and her King Father’s castle, and ventures off to reclaim a portion of her father’s lands and restore the kingdom.

The young Tamino, in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, undergoes the trials of initiation into the priesthood of the Sun God worshippers. In The Karate Kid, young Daniel simply wants to survive the daily humiliations of martial arts-skilled school bullies.

Is there something is common to all these stories, and to many other stories of heroic adventure?

As it turns out, they share a great deal in common – so much so that the great Joseph Campbell identified the underlying story-structure of all of these as the monomyth. As he described it, there is only one great story or grand saga. It has a consistent structure. And it underlies all the great stories of human “becoming.” The monomyth describes the journey of Jason and his Argonauts, as they searched for the Golden Fleece. This monomyth similarly underlies many of our current “grand sagas” – both in myth, movies and books, and in our personal lives.

The reason that certain monomyth retellings achieve huge cultural resonance (Star Wars-like resonance) with us is not just the quality of the movie or the book. Rather, it is that the movie, book, or even someone’s personal history faithfully adheres to the core monomyth storyline.

Monomyths are compelling. They pull us along; they sweep us away. When we go through our own Hero’s Quest or Heroine’s Journey, we undergo a profound personal transformation. We have left the warmth of nurturing love, and the security of a known environment. We even give up our “identity.”

Think of Aragorn, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yes, the monomyth there is being largely carried out by the young hobbits. However, Aragorn as much as the hobbits is on his Hero’s Quest. In classic heroic manner, he travels – not as a prince of the realm, with servants and retinue – but under an assumed name, as the Chieftan of the Rangers of the North. He has relinquished identification with his “true name” and “true heritage” until he has successfully concluded his Heroic Quest; reuniting the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.

We have many Heroine’s Quest stories as well; Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is an early prototype. Sarah in the Labyrinth, and Lyra in The Golden Compass are other young heroines. Each of them steps into their quest to rescue someone whom they know and love. Dorothy wants to rescue her dog Toto, and Sarah seeks to rescue her baby half-brother, Toby. Lyra searches for her friend Roger, and for other children taken by the Gobblers.

Heroic Quests can take on many forms and guises. Consistent to all of them – Hero’s Quests and Heroine’s Quests alike – is the moment when the young Hero/Heroine leaves safety, security, and a well-defined (although limiting) role.

Similarly, we each take on a Heroic Quest – often many times in our lives! When we leave home to go off to college, or join the military, we are beginning a personal Heroic Quest.

When we start a new business, leaving behind the safety, security, well-defined structure, comforting companionship, and certain role of corporate life, we are beginning a new Heroic Quest.

We can undertake Heroic Quests within a corporate structure as well. If we champion a new product or idea; whenever we go into Warrior mode, we are questing.

Questing, although arduous and dangerous, is exciting, More than that, it is self-defining. It is the process by which we individuate; become our own person. We find courage, step out from our parent’s home, or the security of a corporate paycheck, and forge our own pathway. It is through this forging – which may take many years, and require severe and lengthy training (think Luke Skywalker; think Aragorn) – that we become that which we were meant to be. The higher the calling – be it Jedi Knight or Ruler of the united Gondor/Arnor kingdoms – the more difficult, lengthy, and perilous the journey.

Because it is so intense and so self-defining, with such a clear end in sight, we might think that questing leads us to our final goal; that it is the “single defining journey” of our adult lives.

Surpisingly, not so. In fact, even if we undertake successive Heroic Quests, there is still a realm beyond. So suppose that we leave home to go to college, and then get an advanced degree. That’s one Quest. Suppose that we get a corporate job, and spearhead a new initiative within the company. That’s another Quest. Suppose that we then strike out and form our own company; yet another Quest. We can go questing all our lives.

But there really is more. There is indeed a “life beyond the Heroic Journey.” And it is not at all staid and boring! Rather, the journeys of a mature adult, while often more “inner” than “outer,” have just as much challenge as our youthful, self-defining questing – perhaps even more!

A Heroic Quest is obvious. Everyone – including ourselves – knows what we are doing. We are re-uniting the severed kingdoms, getting the “Ring of Power” into Mordor, writing a dissertation, climbing a mountain, or rescuing someone in distress. Our goal and our focus is clear. Further, we shape who we are in the process.

In contrast, the “journeys” that we may undertake as mature adults – something that we may do after we’ve successfully completed a Heroic Quest (or two or three) can be much less overt. Those around us may not even know that we undertaking some sort of “inner journey.” In fact, we ourselves may not even know it – until we come through the other side and say to ourselves, “I really have changed!”

So how do we know the difference? How can we tell if we are on a Heroic Quest, or doing something different? What lies beyond questing? And are there signposts or guides, so that we can know what we’re doing?

That will be the theme of the next blogpost – and perhaps a few more afterwards!

In the meantime, if you have a copy of Robert Moore’s King, Warrior, Magician, Lover – take a look. There’s an error in the basic premise. See if you can discern it. (It will help if you’ve read Chapters 7 and 11 of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.)

More to be revealed in coming posts.

To your health, and the success of your journeys!

Alay’nya

P.S. There’s a clue – and it’s in the title of this post. What’s the role of the Hierophant? How does the Hierophant relate to our Heroic Quest (if at all)? See if you can figure this out before my next posting!