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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Related Posts: Green Man – Leading Up to This Point

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

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 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 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, 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

Related Posts: Green Man – Leading Up to This Point

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

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

• Your Inner Green Man – Gentle Giant or Raging Tyrant?

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

• Hestia: Our Rest-and-Recharge Archetype – Part 2
• Practical Archetypes – Identifying Your Archetypal Roles Over Time (Strong focus on Hestia archetype)
• Hestia – Your Rest-and-Recharge Archetype

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

• Core Archetypes Year-Long Study Guide – The “Big Picture
• Cultivating Our Core Power Archetypes – First Stage in Becoming a “Master of the Universe”
• Finding Peace and Happiness Through the Power of Your Archetypes