Karen McLane’s "The Crowning of the Woodland Queen" – An Archetypal Story of Transformation

Karen McLane’s The Crowning of the Woodland Queen Tells a Powerful and Compelling Story

This last Saturday, May 26th, Karen McLane’s The Crowning of the Woodland Queen was a significant turning point for humanity.

As humans, we’ve used dance for many millenia – not just to entertain, but to transport. We’ve used dance in ritual and in storytelling. And even though we’ve had many new forms of storytelling emerge – everything from novels to movies – dance still plays an important role.

When we use dance to tell an archetypal story, one that triggers a powerful resonance in ourselves, we can shift how we feel as a culture. In fact, we can shift the entire nature of human experience on this planet. (Think of butterfly wings triggering tidal waves.)

I went to Karen McLane’s new theatrical dance production, The Crowning of the Woodland Queen, hoping (perhaps against hope) that this would be the case. And most marvelously, my deepest desire was fulfilled.

But first, a point of comparison.

A month ago, I went to see Ballet Preljocal performing Snow White at the Kennedy Center. This was a highly-touted, sold-out performance. The dancers were all top-of-the-line professionals. The choreography was excellent and exciting. (The dance where the “seven dwarves” maneuvered freely up and down the “cliff face” in a form of aerial ballet was stunning!) The scenes were expertly set and the music by Mahler was memorable and evocative. (Strains still come through my mind.) Not only that, the costumes were by John Paul Gaultier. That in itself was worth the price of the ticket! And of course, I came home from the show uplifted and excited. After all, I’d seen some great art.

In contrast, Ms. McLane’s production was at the Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center, seating about 300 persons. The dancers ranged from pretty good (and enthusiastic and charming) amateurs to pretty good professionals and semi-professionals, They were drawn from local dance schools (for the younger dancers) as well as from Ms. McLane’s own troup, the Ancient Rhythms Dance company. The choreography was appropriate. In some cases, it was exquisite and lovely, in some cases, Ms. McLane did the best that she could with what she had in terms of dancer’s capabilities. The stage setting and lighting were well done. The music was selected from commercially-known pieces; many of us in the audience recognized favorite pieces. However, the music was not original or unique to the show. The costumes were lovely and quite effective – the use of sequins and sparklies for the (sometimes dark) stage lighting was really just perfect. And while well-done, they were not quite at the same level of costuming by Gaultier. (No offense to Ms. McLane. But few of us mere mortals can compare with his creative genius!) Once again, I came home uplifted, excited, and even inspired. Because not only had I seen some great art (it’s the effect that counts, not the various “moving parts”), but my soul was touched and transformed in a very special way.

I had intended to blog about the Ballet Preljocal performance. After all, what’s not to write about? Fabulous show, great dancing, superb costumes! But a few days later, other things had taken priority.

Yet the day after I saw Ms. McLane’s work, I knew that I would blog about this. In fact, blog more than once and from two different blogsites.

The difference between the two?

It’s in the transformative power of the story.

After Snow White is brought from passive death-like sleep back to life by the kiss of her prince, the evil Queen Stepmother is brought to justice. According to the original Grimm’s Fairy Tale (and as danced out in the show), red-hot iron shoes are strapped to the evil Queen’s feet, and she is forced to dance until she dies. Pretty gruesome ending, isn’t it?

In the Crowning of the Woodland Queen, there is also an evil, scheming, powerful woman: the Queen of the Shadows. She and her minions cast a spell, causing the to-be-crowned young Queen and her retinue to fall asleep. However, the young Queen wakes, and a battle ensues.

Point one: The young Queen rescues herself. She nearly succumbs to the potent sleep-spell, but she emerges and fights her own battle.

Point two: The young Queen takes the power away from the Queen of Shadows, but she does not hurt her. She removes the Shadow Queen’s headdress, but does not punish.

Point three: The young Queen “integrates” the Queen of Shadows into her own retinue. The two dance together. The young Queen blends with the movements of the dark Queen. She “mirrors” her. These are techniques well known in areas such as T’ai Chi Ch’uan and even neurolinguistic programming (NLP). However, to see them in dance has a special meaning. These movements of blending and mirroring tell the story of bringing our dark side into alignment with our true selves. This is the kind of process that author Debbie Ford describes in The Dark Side of the Light Chasers.

So what kind of stories do we want to tell ourselves, and each other? Tales of harsh judgment? Tales where we “kill” our own “Shadow”? (And for all that we can be viciously cruel to ourselves, does this harshness ever work?)

Or do we want to tell ourselves stories of forgiveness, of acceptance, and integration? Of love, even? Of becoming whole?

Our nature as a human species is inextricably tied up with our species-wide “self-talk.” We create our realities with how we create stories about our lives. Archetypal and allegorical stories are the most potent, because they speak directly to our innermost being. Let’s honor and rejoice in the fact that a new level of “self-talk” and “storytelling” is emerging.

Ms. McLane’s work may well be the progenitor of a new wave of storytelling. As it is, this work deserves widespread attention. It should and rightly could become “repertoire” among various dance schools and dance theater ensembles, much as the Nutcracker is a mainstay repertory story. There can and perhaps even should be segments of this show put into YouTube clips, and into DVDs, for use in dance education, theater, and dance therapy. And this is a show that should be refined, honed, and polished like a jewel – shown often and with great affection, as more and more people use the message of The Crowning to understand and heal their own lives.

Dec. 21st, 2012 – And the Next 60 Years

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Beyond December 21, 2012: The Next 60 Years

For the past half-year, this blog has had a strategic direction. We are leading up to – and pointing the way beyond – the much anticipated “2012 Transition.”

And as we move towards that time, anticipation and curiosity mounts. Will we wake up on the morning of December 22nd to find that the world has irrevocably changed? Will we wake up at all? Or will we get into our cars or take our “usual” route to work, stop by our “usual” favorite place for morning coffee, and have a big laugh? The “2012 Transition?” we might say to each other. “It was all a big joke, wasn’t it? Like the Y2K ‘crisis’ – remember that? All ‘much ado about nothing.’ Life goes forward.”

Or will we say something in a similar vein, but have our words mask a fear-bordering anxiety. A sense of unease, as when horses send a blizzard coming down off the plains. We’ll feel an instinctual, primal urge to find a “safe place” in which to hide – but have nowhere to turn. We’ll continue reading the news, listening to our favorite pundits on TV, picking up the Twitter feeds and the Facebook links. And all of the news will converge into our heads to give us just one clear message: A crisis is coming.

In fact, that crisis is already here.

The question is: What sort of crisis? How big? How difficult?

Will we survive? If so, in what form? And what do we need to do now to prepare?

Now’s my time to “come clean” with you. I am proposing answers. But I’m not proposing “easy answers.” It’s not that I’m “middle-of-the-road” in terms of what I believe will happen, but I’m being very careful about what it is that we need to do about not only what is going to happen, but also what is happening right now.

These “not-so-easy answers” are based not on one specific area or another. So I’m not going to propose a “financial survival plan,” nor a “head-to-the-hills” approach. Nor am I going to be totally “New Age.” Yes, we’re having a “singularity.” (See work by early proponent Ray Kurzweil.) Yes, we are at a culminating point in human experience. And yes, there are a whole lot of “strange things” going on – in our lives, in the world around us – that are not part of our “normal” expectations and experiences.

But I’m not going to go all “woo-woo” on you either.

Where we are at – where we are precisely at – in human experience – is a Tower moment.

Take a look at these images. First, our recent past.

Photograph by Spencer Platt, Getty Images

Perhaps no images in the last dozen years more succinctly capture the opening of this millenium than the destruction of the “twin towers” of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Now, a visual image describing a point in human evolution – both individual and species-wide.

The Tower card – Major Arcana XVI – from the Rider-Waite depiction.

The Tower image is deeply embedded in our cultural mythology. Specifically, we have a culture-wide deep-felt resonance with the “destruction of a tower” as signifying the fall of everything from a civilization to a person.

In Unveiling: The Inner Journey, I depicted the Tower role in our lives as when we suffer loss of everything that defines our ego. Most importantly, according to Tower imagery, this loss is not of just one thing. It is when we lose everything all at once. We lose our job, and the same week, the doctor diagnoses us with breast cancer. Or our husband files for divorce so that he can move in with his mistress, and our company is bought out by a mega-conglomerate – with impending re-organizations and layoffs. Or we realize that we need to move our mother into a nursing home – and take over storing and processing her “worldly goods,” while at the same time our son is diagnosed with ADD and needs extra tutoring and attention.

A Tower moment is when it all comes apart, all at once.

We have them in our lives. I’ve had multiple ones (described in Unveiling).

Now, here’s the important point: One that I didn’t make in Unveiling.

Humans have Tower moments, and so do societies. And humanity itself is now in the midst of a Tower moment.

If a Tower moment is defined as the conflux of multiple devastating challenges, all at once, we now have a Tower squarely and firmly on our hands.

Because it’s not just one thing.

It’s the conflux – the simultaneous flowing together and cresting – of our oil/energy crisis together with the population boom. We’re running out of the oil that we use for fertilizers and cheap food transport at the same time that we’re in the midst of an unprecedented population surge, anticipated to go to 9B people in the next several decades.

Oil and Population graph by Paul Chefurka, Population, The Elephant in the Room.

We have a built-up world-wide financial crisis just as we’re having increased financial challenges to deal with climate and ecological disasters. And we are certain that the horrific BP Gulf oil spill is just one of many such challenges that we’ll be facing; as we go after more and more “difficult-to-recover” oil, and rely more and more on other sources – including nuclear – we’ll have more energy-based accidents. Chernobyl and Fukushima were just the beginning. There will be more.

And the biggest point that I’m making here? It’s not just the ecological devastation. It’s that cleaning up after these massive ecological devastations will be necessary. And very, very expensive. And that will be occurring just as we need to rebuild port infrastructures and port cities, as the climate shifts and the oceans rise.

And we’re going to attempt to do this as the greatest money-generating generation of this country moves from generating money to taking money. The Baby Boomers are starting to retire. They’ll want Social Security and Medicare. Their retirement savings were largely wiped out by the 2008 financial debacle, and they’ll be needing help – instead of providing an income base to support large-scale clean-up and climate adaptation efforts.

And I haven’t even mentioned the social retooling that we’ll need as transportation costs rise, and it is more and more costly to commute to work, to take vacations, even to go to the grocery store. (Where everything is going to cost more, anyway.)

And also, I haven’t yet mentioned the near-certainty of massive plagues, unleashed with new, antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains and new viral combinations.

This is a Tower time for humanity.

Most of us keep trying to move forward with “life-as-normal,” hoping that someday soon, we’ll get back to “normal.”

My point is that there is no longer any “normal” that we can go back to.

The era of Norman-Rockwell-images – of comfortable family homes with the white picket fences and stability for everyone – is in the past. It won’t come back in our lifetime, or in the lifetime of our children. In fact, it won’t be available for our children’s children either.

We’re in the midst of a profound shift, and there’s no “normal” that we can go back to anymore.

But there is a “word of hope”; for us as a society – and as a race of human beings. And for each of us, individually, as well.

The “word of hope” is that there is something that lies beyond the Tower.

In this blog, I write about human experience – both individually and society-wide – using analogies and stories. I write using archetypes and metaphors. And fortunately (for all of us), I haven’t had to invent the storyline. (In my “sister” blog, I write from the non-linear complex systems perspective.)

The “storyline” was given to us several thousand years ago, in the form of the Kabbalah. This depicts the realms of consciousness; essentially a path towards God-realization. That’s why the Kabbalah has been studied by mystics for many centuries. (Jesus Himself very likely knew and understood the Kabbalah, together with his role in Kabbalistic terms. Another blogpost, another time.)

The Kabbalah lays it out for us. It presents the “created world” using the analogy of the Tree of Life. (See the picture to the left.)

The “centers” of this Tree are states of consciousness. The “pathways” connecting the Tree correspond to the Tarot’s Major Arcana. And also (not so coincidently) to the pre-Phoenician alphabet, which later became the Phoenician, which laid the groundwork for the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

The Kaballah shows the course of evolution – both of the individual person, and of humanity overall. So people individually go through Tower moments, and survive. (I have, and you have probably done so, also.) Civilizations go through Tower moments. And now, humanity itself is in the midst of a Tower; very likely the greatest Tower time in the history of humanity.

What brings us hope is that there actually is a “step beyond.” It’s called the Star.

The Star card – Major Arcana XVII – from the Rider-Waite depiction.

Calm, lucid, clear. We get wisdom. Our life – what once was – is in shambles around our feet. But we’re still here. And without the need to preserve something that no longer serves its purpose, we are free to receive insight and wisdom. It’s as though we are naked in the world once again. However, we are naked in the midst of the flowing waters of life. We have all that we need, and more.

And beyond the Star, we have the Moon (bringing to awareness all the gifts of our intuition and subconscious awareness), and the Sun (energy, blessings, abundance). From this holy and wonderful moment, we rise in response to the Judgment call. But rather than being harshly judged, this is truly the moment when we joyfully respond to a literal “higher calling.” We “rise up” beyond ourselves. We become that which we were meant to be.

And finally, one step beyond, we are united with God, in a flowing, ecstatic dance.
This, my friends, this dance-with-God, this joyous realization of the divine spark within ourselves, is what our human experience is meant to be.

And if we have to go through a Tower moment to get there, then so be it.

We’ll do this, and we – as humanity – will survive. Not necessarily each one of us individually, but as a species, yes. We’ll survive. But we’ll survive transformed. We’ll survive as those beings that we were created to be.

Now, to specifics.

We can greatly increase our chances of survival if we do certain things.

This is NOT a prepare-for-a-financial-meltdown missive. Nor is it a prepare-for-the-rapture directive. Nor are we going to find our next evolutionary stage by forming some mental symbiosis with a world-wide network of computers, as was suggested by Ray Kurzweil. (But for a very interesting read, linking to the latest data, visit Going Beyond Moore’s Law.)

Rather, what we must do, if we’re going to get through this Tower, is to evolve ourselves. We’re going to have to let go of that which doesn’t work. (That’s a given; that’s the nature of a Tower time.) But also, we have to get ourselves completely together.

Refer, please, to my previous blogpost on the holographic nature of our archetypal experience. The lesson there (which I’ll develop more over time) is that we’re individually – and collectively – going through all of our archetypal stages all at once. Yes, sometimes one thing is much more pronounced than others. (And right now, for humanity, it’s the Tower.)

But because our lives are holographic right now – and very definitely not linear – we can go back and “fill in” what we’ve missed.

So our first big “life challenge” was archetypal integration. That was realizing and gaining mastery of the six core power archetypes about which I’ve been writing for the past half-year. (I introduced these in Unveiling: The Inner Journey. See Chapters 7 and 11; “A Real Woman’s Path (Really Does Exist!)” and “Shifting State,” respectively.) And while we’re at it, we also need to identify and access our two “reserve” or “battery-pack” archetypes – the ones that we use when we need to rest and recharge. This gives us a total of eight “power archetypes”, which we can map onto the Jungian system.

This is a starting point. And if we have to go back and do some remedial work, we can do this. In fact, as focused and mature adults, if we recognize the need to “fill in a gap,” we can probably do so very expeditiously.

We then have an “integration stage.” Actually, we have two integration stages. And the second integration step, which I’ve just gone through, is like a preamble to the Tower, only in a somewhat lower-key way. (And at that, it’s still a real toughie.) This “second integration step” precedes a sort of mini-Tower; one in which we voluntarily leave comfort, safety, and familiarity in search of wisdom.

The end result? If we go through archetypal access and integration (the First Journey), and then the re-integration and the following steps (the Second Journey), we get to a point at which we start accessing some real internal power and capability. This is the Fountain-of-Youth, or ch’i creation, which I describe in Unveiling. (See Chapter 29: “Pragmatic Esoterics,” as well as chapters leading up to that.)

Once we complete our two Journeys, we have not only “all of ourselves, altogether” (the result of integration and re-integration), but also some real vital raw energy – ch’i – with which to work.

Now unfortunately, there’s one really more scary and horrific step – even before we get to the Tower. This is where we encounter the real nasty, dark, ugly stuff inside. (Think of Debbie Ford’s Dark Side of the Light Chasers. Think of World War I, World War II, and genocidal purges around the world. Yup, been there all along – but a lot of real nasty, truly ugly has come out in the past 100 years.) This is the Devil stage, where we encounter the worst-possible. And the really worst part is that what we truly encounter is that which is inside ourselves.

It is this, of course, that unleashes the Tower. Encountering our own ego – in its worst form – is what brings about the destruction of comfort and removes the illusion of safety.

Pretty awful stuff, indeed. And the Tower time is no fun. Not for us individually, and not for humanity.

But if we can put this in context, we’ll see that it is a necessary step, and a transition to the freedom and joy that we truly desire. We move beyond the Tower, and become that which we were meant to be. And at that moment, each of us will be able to say (taking words from A Course in Miracles), “I am as God created me.”

So with that thought of love and encouragement, let’s move onward. And through.

And for those of you who live in the Northern Virginia/Metro DC area, there will be an absolutely fabulous concert on Saturday, June 2nd, at the Langley High School. Performed by The McLean Symphony under the direction of Maestro Dingwall Fleary with Special Invited Guests, it will feature Beethoven’s Ninth Chorale Finale (the “Ode to Joy”) as its closing piece.

Let’s use this to lift up our hearts and spirits, and gain encouragement for the times ahead.

We can certainly make it through the next sixty years. But a “joyful” heart will help us greatly.

Artist of the Month – Maestro Dingwall Fleary

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Maestro Dingwall Fleary – Celebrating Forty Years of Classical Music Leadership in McLean, VA

Maestro Dingwall Fleary, Founder and Music Director of both The McLean Symphony and the Reston Community Orchestra is working hard developing his Season Finale Concert for The McLean Symphony. This spectacular event will feature Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Choral Finale, the much-loved and ever-popular magnificent Ode to Joy.

Now why should this matter to you?
There are very few genius-level leaders who combine their artistic passion with intense devotion to their people. Forty years of “making music in McLean.” This is with an all-volunteer symphonic orchestra. (Actually, two such orchestras. The McLean Symphony traces its ancestry back to Maestro Fleary’s first founding of a classical chamaber group in McLean in 1971, and the Reston Community Orchestra has been in existence for 26 years.)
Some of his players have been with him for over two decades. Others travel for miles, after a hard day at their “day jobs,” to rehearse with him.
Why? Because by working with Maestro Fleary, they achieve heights of excellence – greatness even – that they would not reach with any amount of hard work and passion on their own. Not if they are being “volunteers” in their musical efforts. (And relatively few of us can afford to do our artistic work full-time.)
The mark of “true genius” changes over time. When we are young, it is all about our own fire; our brilliance and our passion. We epitomize the Magician archetype. And bluntly, society will forgive a great deal of self-centeredness in the young artist, provided that the gift is commensurate. We cut the “emerging prodigy” a great deal of slack.
Then, the artist matures to establishing himself or herself. He or she becomes an Emperor, recognized as the “preeminent expert” in a certain area. Maestro Fleary, for example, is very likely the world’s leading interpreter of Duke Ellington’s works, such as Harlem, which he featured in a recent TMS performance.
Beyond that, there is yet another stage; the Hierophant. The Hierophant is the master teacher, the Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hierophants are one of the least-understood archetypes of our society. However, once we understand the Hierophant concept, we see Hierophants in action all around us. They’re the senior executive who mentors the up-and-comer. They’re the Youth Pastor and the Girl Scout Troup Leader. They’re the college professor who always has an open door so that a student can come by and ask questions.
And even more than that, the most-developed Hierophants among us not only help us get through the college chemistry course; they help us have real, true, honest-to-God, for-real breakthroughs. These are the teachers whose books we read, whose audio CDs we listen to, whose blogs we follow. If we’re really lucky, we get to interact with them in person.
That’s why musicians travel from around the area for the privilege of performing in his orchestra.
Maestro Fleary was featured in Unveiling: The Inner Journey as an example of an “integrated person.”

"Holographic Archetypes" – Experiencing ALL of Your Archetypal Journey At the Same Time

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The “Holographic Archetype” – Why You Seem to Be Experiencing Everything All at Once

“Life,” we sometimes think to ourselves, “is supposed to be simple.” And all too often, it isn’t. Especially for those of us who are trying to do some “personal growth work” while still carrying on some semblance of normalcy; jobs, family, school, community involvement and friends. In the midst of all of this (sometimes), we’re carrying on with the rather difficult business of discovering and accessing/integrating our various “core power archetypes.”

Our inner work is powerful. And as we dive into it, we can go through some very unsettling times. By analogy, let’s imagine what would happen if we had a company that had a succesion of CEO’s, each having a different dominant archetype.

As we know from any shakeup at the executive level in a company, when we start moving key figures around, things are (temporarily) unstable. If our company has formerly been headed by an entrepreneur/inventor (Magician archetype), and the Board of Directors decides that the time has come to put someone in whose background is in running a “tight ship,” or who is formerly a CFO, we know that everything changes. (Switching from a Magician in charge to an Emperor in charge.) And there would be even bigger shake-ups if the Board put in charge someone who is focused on mentoring and developing “leaders from within.” (Hierophants love to mentor!)

Imagine, further, the absolute chaos that would erupt if any of the other “core archetypes” were to be calling the shots for a while. If it were an Empress persona, the company would be all about “relating.” We’d be hugging our clients a lot; but the eye would not quite be on profits and deliverables. (However, our clients might start placing bigger orders and referring their friends to us. Who knows?)

And if a Hathor-type were running the show, it would be all about parties and having a good time! (The High Priestess, wisely, would recluse herself from all considerations of corporate leadership. If she had to take this role, though, the first thing she’d do would be to declare a nine-day corporate retreat in the Catskills. Lots of walking the footpaths in silent meditation. Then she’d happily foist this job off on the first qualified Emperor.)

Now that’s the simple version.

Really.

In real life, for most of us doing this kind of archetypal integration, our inner landscape is about as comfortable as frequent shifts in corporate leadership. That is to say, highly uncomfortable – especially when the various archetypes that we’ve finally accessed begin to assert themselves. Each one wants to “run the ship” – at least for a while!

And as I said, that’s the simple version. This version presumes that we’re doing our archetypal access and integration in a calm, linear, and “safe” manner. This was, in fact, the “curriculum” a few thousand years ago, when the Kabbalah was first discovered or understood. Back then, a certain sense of orderliness was assumed.

Now, however, all bets are off. Our world is highly chaotic and nonlinear. Our lives often are, as well. Instead of picking up our archetypes one at at time, and then doing our archetypal integration under the careful watch of a renowned integration master, we are often attempting this on our own. What advice and mentoring we get often comes from books, weekend workshops, and “life coaches.” (These latter may or may not have done their own integration work. They may or may not even know what you’d be talking about – that is, in a real, substantive, and useful sense.)

So here we are, many of us, attempting to do the very rough-and-tumble work of archetype access and integration, all too often on our own. And to make it much more challenging, in the REAL “real world,” we’re often dealing with several emerging archetypes all at once.

Imagine a boardroom war in which various key players are vying for control. In the morning, the Emperor takes control, sets up the goals, objectives, deliverables, and timelines. All seems straightforward and doable. The goals may be stringent, but you know how to pour on the overtime. You can work evenings and weekends; you’ve done it before. (Many times, no doubt.) So you gear up, and mentally factor in the vacation that you’ll take when bonuses are announced.

Then, around noon, Hathor seizes control. She wants that vacation now! You count up accrued vacation days, visit your favorite travel site, and figure out which weekend you can afford to extend to a three-dayer. No sooner have you made your plans and submitted a vacation request when whammo! The High Priestess emerges. And what she really wants is quiet time, because, lo and behold! She’s paving the way for the Magician to emerge with his next great invention!

This is what the archetypal integration journey is all about. It’s not all that poetic. In fact, it’s downright messy.

And now – adding in more “real world” factors – there are at least two major integration processes. The first is when you’ve accessed all your core power archetypes. Everyone is “present and/or accounted for, Sir!” You (the cognitive, dominant “you-in-charge”) can access each one as appropriate and at will. You know when to charm, and when to command. You know when to take some time off to connect with nature and your “quiet mind,” and you know when to party. And you also know when to get the “deliverables” delivered. On budget, and on time.

You’ve mastered your game.

Or so you think.

It’s the second integration process that comes up as a surprise, and is much more disorienting. It’s more than the various key executives in a company taking on leadership roles. It’s a lot more like when the Board decides that the company is going to go in a whole different direction. Instead of being a “service company,” focusing on government (or commercial) contracts, you’re going to be “product company.” And the word comes down – new divisions are created, people are laid off while the company retools and regroups, new people come into newly created power positions. This is hugely destabilizing.

And necessary.

Just as companies must reform – sometimes very radically – we also need to rework ourselves from the inside out. Sometimes very radically.

You’ve heard about this. Someone who has made a living in the banking world leaves their job – their whole career – to become a baker. A successful business leader leaves his or her company to teach in an inner city school. Huge life-changes like this do happen; they happen all the time. But they don’t just come up out of the blue; there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes before such an overt change happens.

Not all of us will switch careers, of course. But as we go through this second integration, we learn to pay much more attention to the needs, wants, and desires of core archetypes whom we may have repressed for many years. It’s similar, in a sense, to the case in which a wife finally does leave a husband who’s never really had time for her. After all the years that she’s accomodated, she’s finally decided that she can’t deny her own self anymore. What a shock that is for everyone!

Then, of course, the husband has to woo and win her back. And finally, for perhaps the first time, he starts listening, paying attention, and allocating some real time to her; to her wants, needs, and desires. And for a good long while, he won’t be putting in any overtime. In fact, what he might do is put in for a leave-of-absence or a sabbatical, in order to discover just who his wife really is. It’s that, or the divorce court.

If we’ve similarly been Emperor-dominant all of our lives, there comes a time when we need to give some “quality time” to the other core power archetyps. Otherwise, they’ll simply desert us. (Usually, this comes at a huge cost. Pay now, or pay later.)

Now, there’s a reason that all these archetypal integration processes are coming up at once for many of us. It’s not just that we’re going through “changing times.” We are, of course, but that’s not the whole story.

It’s not just that we’re in a massively accelerated world. Yes, that’s also true. And again, it’s not the whole story.

It’s much more that we – as a species – as a whole planetary species (and perhaps even as a planet) – are undergoing this kind of archetypal journey at a mega-level. We’re not just doing archetypal integration individually; we’re doing this as a society.

Moreover, steps like these are broad-ranging; they pull in all other aspects of our archetypal journeys. It’s like living inside a kaliedoscope. Or, more appropriately, experiencing our lives as a hologram.

Why Women Love Christine Feehan’s "Dark" Series

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Dark Lords, Castles, and Windswept Heights: Why Woman Love “Romance Novels”

About a month ago, I read one of Christine Feehan’s (by now incredibly popular, but brand-new to me) “Dark Series” novels. The standard yummy stuff: a “dark prince,” who is of course “a dominant male.” (How novel!)

Much more recently, I’ve come across Lynsay Sand’s novels; Scottish lairds in the highlands, more castles. (And she also does a vampire-series, just to feed our taste for blood. Haven’t read any of those yet.) And of course, the male lead is (once more) a “dominant male.”

In our fantasy lives, we’d rather have windswept moors, craggy peaks, stern dark castles – and stern, dark men! A strong counterpart to days spent in office cubicles with overhead fluorescent lighting, hmm?

We are so completely wrapped up in these novels! As blogger Bookworm Kristal put it, “I couldn’t explain it, I couldn’t understand how I … in one book, ONE book I was hooked! I poured over this book for hours…. At work, on my breaks, at red lights in my car, I even remember reading some of the book while folding a load of laundry!”

But what is it that we really want? Surely not to exchange the comfort of microwaveable meals and clean bathrooms with their white porcelain fixtures and “squeezable” toilet paper for the charms of haggis meals and smelly privies. All the “Dark Lord”-ishness in the world can’t compete with some comfort and clean sanitation.

So what is it that we really want?

Our “Dark Prince” – whether Scottish laird or vampire lord – is really just a foil for our own deepest desires. What we really want is to get out of our Amazon role (for at least a little while) and go into full-blown Hathor – our inner “Love and Pleasure Goddess.” That is, we desire to experience our full emotional range. We desire to let our emotions build up, crest, and break through our own walls, spill over the dams, and sweep us away.

That’s right. We don’t want the man to sweep us away as much as we desire to let our own emotions surge through and carry us over the edge.

Really, when we get right down to it, it’s about what is going on inside ourselves.

The masculine role, in these stories, is to provide structure and form. We provide the energy and the unleashing. It’s as though we become a great river, and the man becomes the channel through which we flow. Our desire is to let our emotions run wild, complete, and free – without having to censor, monitor ourselves, or hold ourselves back all the time. In these stories, the lead male allows us (vicariously) to experience this release.

Real life, of course, is a little different.

Most men can’t provide this kind of structure – the decisiveness, the clarity, let’s call it the leadership – against which we can relax our own boundaries. Some can, but even so, most men are afraid of our emotional cresting.

And so we find ourselves confronting – all too often – men who are lacking in leadership, inner strength, and character. Then, among those (few) who have these qualities, there is often a fear – almost a panic, even – when we do release our emotions. So we have learned to rein ourselves in.

Men wonder, then, why we don’t release to them sexually.

For them, it’s sex. It’s a tension release, and a chance to recharge.

For us, it is a much more connected experience. Sex and emotions blend and blur together. What we desire is release – both emotional and orgasmic. We all too often don’t find this with men, and wind up bottling ourselves up.

The solution? We cultivate our own inner Amazon, and create our own “structures” and “channels,” against which we can surge and flow. We carry out the release that we desire – within ourselves.

Sometimes, we use dance to reach into this realm of expression. Sometimes, we find some other creative passion that serves. We treasure and nurture our inner Hathor; we find time for her, and we shower her with the attention that she craves and deserves.

We model the kinds of behavior that we desire from others by treating ourselves the way we would love to have others treat us. And oh yes, this is scary. But it’s the only way through.

And as for men? We give them a little time and space. We reward them for good behavior. We allow them to grow into being that which they truly can be.

P.S. Enjoy learning about our inner dynamics – as expressed through the plotlines of romance novels? Read Chapter 3, “Bedtime Stories for Grown-Up Girls” in Unveiling: The Inner Journey. Order it through Amazon today!

Our "Hierophant" – Mentor, Protector, and Guide for Our Love-Goddess "Hathor"

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Our Hierophant’s Most Important Role: Championing our Love-Goddess Hathor

My work with A Course in Miracles is really kicking up a storm. I feel as though there’s a whirlwind going on inside me. All the “internal dynamics” that I’ve ever had are massively active, and it feels as though I’m living inside a tornado.

Grounding things help. These include the physical hard work of cleaning; especially deep-cleaning – the sort that involves moving furniture and getting behind things. Gardening helps – slowing down and working with plants. Cooking also works. Anything that keeps my body moving and is not overly demanding of either fine motor-skills or a great deal of cognitive attention. (Does this explain why I haven’t updated my database in over ten days, despite meeting lots of interesting new people at recent events? Cognitive storm.)

With all this inner “churn” going on, I’m noticing the interplays – the dynamics – between my archetypes more than ever. And I’m amazed (sometimes shocked and horrified) to see how these same dynamics are playing out in the lives of people around me. Apparently, many of us are dealing with the same things. It’s just that most of us don’t know it.

The biggest challenge that I’m facing is in learning to love myself more. That means finding and loving the “real” me – not the “superficial” me – or the construct that I put together many years ago. The “real” me is artistic, sensual, and emotionally expressive. The “cover story” is that of being an intellectual, and even a businesswoman.

Now to some extent, the “cover story” is real. But it’s not real if I take it to be all of who I am.

There’s history behind this; for myself, and (I suspect) for almost everyone whom I meet. In my case, I did a form of “psychic amputation” when I was twelve years old. I decided – for a number of reasons that came together all at once – that being who I “really was” was not a safe place to be. That is, being in my expressive, feminine, sensual core was not safe. And I don’t mean physically; I was in no danger of physical harm whatsoever. This was all an emotional interpretation.

So instead of developing my artistic and sensual aspects, I sort of “lopped” that part off, and went into masculine-themed pursuits. I studied math, science, and martial arts. I tried to put a damper on my emotional expressiveness, and simply not to feel. (Hah! That was certainly not successful. Suppression never is.)

Be as it may, a lot of other life-decisions came out of this. Some good, and many not-so-good.

And over the past twenty or thirty years I’ve kept seeking to reconnect with, and to rekindle, my artistic/expressive aspects – with at best partial success.

This has resulted in a sort of “archetypal war” going on inside.

My Emperor is (as with many expressive women) my least “favorite” archetype. As I was explaining it to a friend two days ago, our Emperor builds empires. He’s all about structure and control.

My Hathor wants to come out and play. She’s the one who wants to do “kid-art.” Everyone has a Hathor, and each of our Hathors are a bit different – but this is where are inner “party girl” resides.

In fact, our Hathor really is our “inner child.”

So imagine what it’s like if we have a rather sour and dour middle-aged man running the show, insisting that life be lived in a framework of timelines and deliverables, and there’s a very active, imaginative, willful little girl that wants to divert all the attention.

Yup. That’s exactly what it feels like.

So how do we make our own inner breakthroughs?

It sure isn’t easy. I’ve been chipping away at this for years and years, and right now – even though a really big change could be underway – it feels like a maelstrom let loose. Just a “word of warning” for others who take on this process.

But in terms of dynamics: Our Hathor needs the structure and boundaries and guidance that one of our masculine archetypes provides. She needs this precisely so that she can run free and play. She is “safe” simply because someone else (one of our masculine archetypes) has taken on creating and protecting the “play zone.”

You wouldn’t just drop a wild and willful child off in an unknown area, would you? You’d make sure that there was a responsible, capable adult nearby. Not so much for supervision, but for protection.

The interesting thing is: the masculine archetype that fulfills this role is not our inner Emperor. He simply can’t. He’s all about building an empire. Creating and monitoring a play-space for a wild, expressive, sensual, fun-loving art-child is something that he’s just not capable of doing.

But our Hierophant is absolutely right for this job.

Our Hierophant, like our other “core” masculine power archetypes, is very focused on completing goals and getting to the “end-game.” However, unlike our two other primary male archetypes (Emperor and Magician), he is Feeling rather than Thinking. That means that he is strongly driven to connect with others, and that he (like our Empress) is governed by the feel-good sensation that comes from oxytocin release. This means bonding and connection.

Our Hierophant functions best when he can direct a student towards a “high goal.” Remember, our Hierophant is our own inner Obi-wan Kenobi; our own Yoda, our own Professor Dumbledore, and our own Mr. Miyagi. He lives to bring the student to a new level of mastery.

And our Hathor is not particularly concerned with mastery, so there’s a little dissonance in their interests.

However, of all our masculine archetypes, our Hierophant is most concerned with the true happiness and well-being of others. In other words, if we had to pick from our set of masculine archetypes the one who would be the best “baby-sitter” for a highly creative, expressive, and willful girl-child, it would not be our Magician. Our Magician will not take time away from his creative vision to be open-ended and playful.

Nor would it be our Emperor. He’d just want to put our Hathor off in a corner someplace, tell her to play quietly with her dolls, and don’t disturb him while he’s running the kingdom.

But the Hierophant? Now there’s a chance.

Our Hierophant is most likely to not only care about and be interested in our Hathor, but also to be fascinated by her.

If a man finds his soul-completion when he “lives to serve his Queen,” then our Hierophant (think of a wise older man, a grandfatherly sort) finds his true completion in nurturing Hathor.

Imagine a very kind, wise, and loving grandfather who absolutely adores and dotes on his grandaughter. He is endlessly fascinated with her. He’ll do whatever is in his power to schedule play-dates with her; to take her places where she can have fun (but safe) new experiences.

Of all our masculine archetypes, he’s the one to not only look out for her, but to be her advocate in “time-splicing” how we spend our days.

When our Hathor is deprived for too long, she stages a hissy fit. A good old-fashioned temper tantrum.

But that’s not the best way to keep our inner “selves” in order. Having our Hierophant negotiate up-front the playtime for his darling and wonderful Hathor is a useful strategy – if we can simply get to this place in our lives.

This archetypal integration process is not all that easy. And it’s something that we re-do and relearn, again and again. But each time, we add in a bit more of our wholeness and fullness.

If we can survive the maelstrom.

Hathor or Hierophant – Who’s On Top?

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Power Struggles Within Our Own Internal Archetypes – and Helping Our Love-Goddess Hathor to Win!

Have you ever wanted to make a life-change? I’m not just talking a cosmetic make-over. Not even a full-out, change-my-hair, change-my-wardrobe, change-my-life kind of life-change. Not even a get-a-new-job, get-a-new-boyfriend, move-across-country change.

I mean radical.

I mean a change that comes from inside, that router-roots out all our “icky-stuff” from the inside out. Something that is transformative. Something that is enduring. Something that sticks.

And oh, yes. By-the-way. Something that makes us so much happier.

Well, you’ve wanted this, I’m sure. And I’ve wanted it as well. In fact, that’s why I wrote the book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey.

Writing Unveiling, and even getting it published, and sharing it with you, has by no means been the culmination of my own Inner Journey. A waypoint, most certainly. Having enough “stuff” together to be useful to you – to give you a concise guide and reference; well, that too. (If 544 pages can be considered “concise.”)

But the truth is, as soon as I got Unveiling finished, I began going deeper into my own Inner Journey. I began to get more insights – and have incorporated many of them into my blogposts over the past six months.

But still, during all this time, I was desiring – craving – a deeper level of personal transformation.

And over the past few days, almost overnight, I’ve reached a new milestone. Had a breakthrough. And I want to share this with you.

A quick bit of background.

If you’ve been following this blog for the past six months, you’ve been learning about each of our six core power archetypes in detail. (A bit randomly, but with at least a little attention to most of them.) You’ve also been learning why and how each of these is important.

And here’s something important: You and I are not alone in our Inner Journeys. We’re desiring happiness. We’re desiring to know and bring to fullness ALL of who we are. And we’re desiring to fulfill – for each of us – our true “meaning in life.”

And the word is: People – people like you and me – have been wanting this throughout time. And those who have accomplished this are those whom we regard as Master Teachers.

The truth is; these Masters really do exist, and various ones have existed throughout time. And – a very long time ago – certain ones either discerned or had “given” to them the Kabbalah, which essentially is a guide to life-mastery. It’s a roadmap to the cosmos – and also to the core of our being. And over the years, the teachings of the Kabbalah were used to create the Major Arcana.

Where this relates to us is that the first seven Major Arcana Cards depict exactly this Quest for personal happiness and integration. (At least, the first stage. There are two others beyond this – for a different day.)

At first glance, the equation seems really simple. Master (access and cultivate) each of our six core power archetypes, and integrate these archetypes (be able to use them at will), and we’ll have each achieved the first level of Life-Mastery. We will each be the Master of our Fate. The Captain of our own Ship.

And, of course, somewhere along the way – our “ship will have come in.”

If it’s that easy, then where’s the problem?

Well, it’s simple. (And it’s not.)

Our inner archetypes are very real, and very powerful. Each is strong-minded, purposeful, and willful. And they each should be. We don’t want any wussies in there!

The challenge is that occasionally (more likely, way too often), the wrong archetypes get to “pull the strings.”

Let’s be clear about this.

Each archetype is very useful. Vital, in fact. We can’t do without a single one. (For a quick review, go to Your Six Power Archetypes – What Happens When One Doesn’t Function? and Mastering the Power Archetypes – Essential for CEOs and Strategic Leaders.

So to be clear – we need our masculine core archetypes. We need our Magician, for vision and inspiration. (Sometimes, our Magician keeps us up all night – writing that play, coming up with a new business venture.) We need our Hierophant, who teaches others. (This is our own, internal Obi-wan Kenobi, our own Professor Dumbledore.) And oh-my-God, we need our Emperor. Our Emperor gets the projects done on time, the groceries bought and put away, and the bills paid.

The challenge is: these three masculine archetypes tend to pull “power-plays” inside our heads, just as they do in much of the world around us. And the real challenge – the real stumbling block for many of us – is that, over time, we tend to believe them.

Let me back up a bit. Bear with me, this is important. This is one of the most important things you’ll ever get in this blogpost series.

There are certain times in our lives when we hit a crisis. A certain kind of crisis. This is the kind of crisis that happens when we’ve been in one of our feminine archetypes for a while, and totally revelling in it, loving being in that state, and just rejoicing in the juiciness, the flowingness, the freedom. Examples are: being in love. Giving ourselves lots of time for artistic creativity and play. Feeling very emotionally connected with others.

And then something happens that we perceive as a life-threat. And we react by pivoting into one of our masculine archetypes. Very often, we move into Emperor. We “rule” ourselves with harsh authority. The only things that we value, in this mode, are a form of hyper-masculinity – almost a caricature of the masculine. So we will spend enormous hours at work, but somehow not ever get ourselves the perks or rewards that come to our male colleagues. We’ll find reasons to not go on vacation. (If you’re familiar with Jung’s concept of the animus, this is it. This is an animus-in-charge type of living.)

And there’s something that we do that’s even worse, that’s even more self-defeating. Once we give (any or all of) our masculine archetype(s) power in our life, they tend to keep control. And “they” tend to make decisions that get us “locked into” the mode where they stay in control.

An example? One very brilliant businesswoman whom I know. Fabulously effective. Hard-working. Absolutely the first person with whom I’d “do a deal.” But she has confessed to me – more than once – that in her “heart of hearts,” she longs to do fashion design. She started out there, but somewhere along the way, took a detour. She recently bought a wonderful new set of dressy day clothes – really a whole new “wardrobe look” – at a very high price. Paying off this expensive set of clothes partially satisfies her need to create her personal aesthetic. However, it also forces her to stay in her Emperor-dominant job. She now has far less “wiggle room” for exploring a different career. Many, many little decisions like this add up. Her Emperor now controls her life.

(Quick – and important – little digression. There are times when we are on a Heroic Quest – an important life-journey. Getting an advanced degree. Starting a new business. Heavens, even writing a book! During these times, we must remain very diligent, and true to our Quest. But Quests are transitions. They lead us from one state to another. They have defined endpoints. Being in our one of our masculine modes – for a long time – is different. These are not questing, they instead become controlling. Learn to discern the difference!)

Returning to examples of how we react to a life-shock by “pivoting” into our masculine modes: Another woman, a dear friend, was in love. Her lover was powerful, influential, and wealthy. She was exploring and moving into her feminine modes when she met him. Especially, she was opening up her Hathor – her Pleasure-Goddess. Her long, russet hair played freely in the breeze. She wore long, flowing dresses. She was in love with life. Her lover desired those qualities that he saw in her. He promised “protection.” He pledged his heart to her – and promised to divorce his wife. (Whom he said, in the classic sense, did not “understand” him.)

A while later, he told her – it had all been a mistake. He was returning to his wife. The time with her had been wonderful, it had been incredible, it had opened his heart – he would always treasure the memory. But there she was. Out on her own. No lover, and no more mirage of the support of a lover.

Her Hathor felt alone and exposed. Defenseless and scared.

So what did she do?

The only thing possible. She reacted. She slammed down – hard – on her Hathor. She got a job where (she was kindly informed) it would be “best” for her if she put her hair up in a bun. And this new job drew heavily on her Emperor skills. Spreadsheets and checklists. Time management and deliverables.

And because her Hathor was scared (Hathor knows about play – not about defending the fortress), her Hathor submitted to the new lifestyle. It was about survival. And she still lives the dichotomy. When it comes to survival, she emphasizes her Emperor strengths – and disowns her Hathor.

I have done the same. In fact, I shut down – hard – on my inner Hathor when I was very young. And I won’t blame family, or society, or pubescent angst, or any one thing more than anything else. And I’ll fully acknowledge that I chose – I created – my life in order to have these experiences and to learn these lessons.

However this came about, though, when I was about twelve years old, I shut down hard on my Hathor. With a vengeance.

And it has been the hardest thing that I’ve ever done to claim her back.

As with my friends – and with many of you – being in one of my masculine archetypes has represented “safety.” Sometimes it was Emperor. (My least favorite.) Sometimes Magician. (I learned to become a scientific inventor, and wrote four patents. Ground-breaking and magnificent in scope, each one. And each now in the hands of others.) Sometimes a Hierophant. (I’ve taught in several universities, and had my own dance school for aabout twenty years.)

In each case, the masculine “mode” has vied to be “in charge.” Each has wanted to control my life – and very often, I’ve let “him.”

So as a result, I’ve spent years at work – becoming a strong scientist and inventor, and even (more recently) a good businessperson. And of course, sacrificed many evenings, weekends, and holidays to the masculine motif.

But I’ve been determined to “break through.”

And the method?

I’ve been deliberately cultivating my inner Hathor – and my inner High Priestess.

For the past year, I’ve been doing the kind of work that has paved the way. Sometimes it has been simply housecleaning – every corner of the house, every pile of paper, moving out piles of “stuff.” (This allows a new wind to come through. And it’s very hard for Hathor to play, or for my High Priestess to have calm insights, when things are messy and disorderly.)

I’ve been doing physical conditioning of all sorts – and with the warmer weather, I’ve been walking much more. (This has always been one of the best ways to let our High Priestess come through. Julia Cameron, in the Vein of Gold, recommends a Daily Walk.)

And I’ve been focusing on pleasure. (My favorite source for encouraging Hathor is Mama Gena’s works, particularly Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts.

Prayer (or at least, quiet time and “listening-in”) and play: the two vital themes.

Also, forgiveness. I’ve been doing A Course in Miracles for several months now, and yes – the “miracles” have been happening. Shifts in how I think. Shifts in how things are happening in my life. More focus. More energy. The daily exercises are challenging, though. Most recently, they’ve focused on letting go of grievances – and this has been an essential component.

What I’ve found is that experiences with any one man – or even with an aspect of the world – reflect an attitude or a judgment that I’ve made inside myself. So if I’ve entered into a relationship with a man who does not really honor my feminine aspects (business or personal), it is because that man accurately reflects how I am not honoring my femininity.

What has helped me to put such full attention on making this breakthrough is realizing that being (dominantly) in the masculine modes – for so many years – has simply not been effective.

It’s as though my Hathor and other feminine modes have at some level sabotaged the inner masculine ones. They’ve not allowed the masculine modes to receive the full adulation and acclaim that their pre-eminance (at least in my life) would seem to have drawn.

And why should they? After all, this would be an imbalance.

So my Hathor and High Priestess – both very unhappy – have sabotaged the “authority” of the masculine. In many ways, over many years. (Including various “dis-eases” – to the point that I’m lucky to be alive!)

Through a concerted effort – culminating this last month – of having substantial “quiet time” when the various archetypes could work things out, we’ve finally agreed. Hathor is number one. She’s the Queen. She makes the important calls (and the not-so-important ones as well!).

High Priestess is the moderator. She’s the observer. She notes when the other archetypes are yielding to Hathor, and when they need to be brought to heel. She also lets Hathor know when it’s time to “go Emperor” for a while – when a project simply needs to be done. (And then there’s a little dialogue – a little, “How can we make this project as pleasurable as possible?” Because Hathor is always the one who is to be satisfied.)

Empress is important also – she’s the one who wants connection. Family, girlfriends, pets, gardens – she’s always about connecting. About the “feel-good” factor that comes from oxytocin. That comes from bonding. So she’s always important as well.

The “men in my life”? That would be my Magician, my Emperor, and my Hierophant. Three wonderful, loving, caring men – now that their roles are carefully defined. Each of them now “lives to serve the Queen!” (See P.S. note at bottom, on why they are the way they are.)

And unlike some men in times past who have professed this intention, now I expect it to manifest more happily and completely in my life. Because my internal “masculine modes” are living to “serve the Queen,” and NOT the other way around.

This has taken time. It’s taken a huge focus and push. It’s taken an immense amount of physical work – moving boxes, cleaning odd spaces, pruning bushes – while letting the inner “psychic surge” work its way out. And it’s taken letting all the “masculine modes” know that the Hathor-Queen is now in charge. To the point where they’ve all come and prooffered their crowns, and pledged fealty.

Darlings, this is the most exciting and wonderful adventure. And I’ll let you know how it unfolds, so stay tuned!

Yours in the “dance of life” – Alay’nya

P.S. – On “why men are the way they are” – even in our internal modes, or archetypes. They are that way because they have to be. It’s that simple. They (both men in their masculinity – and us, when we access our masculine archetypes) – are effective at least in part because they seize control. An Emperor governs and establishes his kingdom through taking control and mandating that which should be done. And of course, there’s some wooing and charming, and some alliance-building, to be done. But an Emperor governs. He rules. And to do this, he takes control. He has to.

Similarly, a Magician – if he is to make his creation “real” in the world, must seize every resource and tool, every ounce of personal energy, and every moment of time. Creative genius is real, and it requires total commitment, passion, and focus. So any of us, in our Magician-moments, is totally wrapped up in our creation.

And our Hierophant? Ah, that’s the most subtle of them all. Our Hierophant, after all, is Feeling-oriented. (Unlike our Magician and our Emperor, who are Thinking.)

But our Hierophant lives not just to coach and mentor and guide, but to facilitate our breakthroughs. Our Hierophant is like a Zen Master who knows when to slap the student on the side of the head – so that he can get a breakthrough. (Going through a curriculum, step-by-step, is much more Emperor than Hierophant. And designing the curriculum is more Magician.)

So if our Hierophant is so wonderful, what’s the challenge?

It is simply that he, like our other masculine modes, is closed-ended. He wants us to gain insights and breakthroughs – to develop our genius – within the system. Our Hierophant, much though we love him, is very structured.

Our Hierophant does not really understand our Hathor. He just doesn’t “get” her open-endedness, her focus on pleasure-in-the-moment. Her desire for play.

So here’s the conundrum. For our Hathor to come out and play – safely – she needs the structure given to her by her masculine modes; Emperor, Magician, and Hierophant. And at the same time, once these modes are “given an inch,” they each want to “take a mile.” They LOVE taking over our lives, and all societal messages support them.

How do we solve this?

By giving our Magician, Emperor, and Hierophant – most especially our Hierophant (who is indeed most Feeling-oriented) a mission. A sense of purpose. Something that appeals to their masculinity.

They exist to serve the Queen.

Do this, and their lives have sense and make meaning.

Fail in this, and no matter how many achievements they create, their lives are barren. (And they probably won’t really have the success that they’re desiring either.)

Do I have examples in mind?

Most certainly. (How to dish without naming names? Hmmm. And believe me, I’ll point the finger to my own life as much as to others … )

This is probably the most important lesson that we can learn. This, in fact, defines our mastery moment.

Finding Peace and Happiness Through the Power of Your Archetypes

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Personal Happiness – Linked to Archetype Mastery and Integration

How happy do you feel, on an overall, consistent, across-the-year basis? (We’ll ignore the times that the dog’s thrown up on the new carpet.) How happy are you in specific areas of your life? This includes job, relationships, where and how you live, your friends, and other factors. And how much do you feel that you are in control of the evolving nature of your personal happiness?

That last one is crucial, isn’t it? It suggests that each of us, alone, is in charge of our personal happiness – and that we can do something to adjust our “happiness factor” along the way.

This isn’t a new question. In fact, I believe that the “happiness question” is what led certain people – sages and mystics, for the most part; certainly “seekers of truth – to receive the Kabbalah. I’m saying receive in a loose sort of way; I don’t think that the Kabbalah was discovered; and I certainly don’t think that it was invented. It seems to be the sort of thing that certain seers grew to understand – that they communed at some level with a higher wisdom. “Higher wisdom,” in fact, is what the Kabbalah is all about; it is a roadmap to God-consciousness. And it’s been around for a very long time; it was oral tradition long before Jewish scholars wrote about it in the Middle Ages. In fact, there is some research that suggests that the Tree of Life theme, central to the Kabbalah, predated even the formation of the Hebrew peoples.

This is not to get too far into historical dating; rather to support our central notion that our human search for happiness has been linked, for many millenia, to our search for connection with God. That is, we seek to experience the “God Within.” We seek to know God; personally.

Now we’re not going to get into religion here, and we’re not going to become Kabbalah students, either. (At least, not right now.) But we are going to note a very important point; one that I made in Unveiling, and one that many other scholars have made as well: The Kabbalah is the foundation on which the Major Arcana of the Tarot is based, and the Minor Arcana as well. We’ll concentrate, in the majority of these blogposts (as in Unveiling itself) on the Major Arcana.

The Major Arcana consists of 22 cards, or “Trumps.” Not the “Donald” sort of Trump, but rather, the notion of a major, big, important idea – the kind of idea that we call an archetype.

Now get this: There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet (also in the Phoenician alphabet, and in the Pre-Phoenician as well – as in – in our very oldest Indo-European alphabetic system). There are 10 “Centers” in the Tree of Life, and while there are numerous possible “graph links” between them, there are only 22 connecting “pathways” defined in the Kabbalistic system. And there are, of course, those 22 Trumps or cards in the Major Arcana.

So for scholars in this area, the connection is clear – and has been clear for hundreds of years. The Trumps – the Major Arcana cards – correspond directly to the pathways, or to steps that we take enroute to knowing God.

So suppose that you were a seeker of knowledge, several hundreds of years ago. Perhaps even a few thousand years ago. And you had reached that point in your life – children grown, career stable – when you were asking yourself, “What next?” For all your success in the world (let’s presume that you were moderately healthy and wealthy, and let’s even throw in “wise” for a good measure), you felt there was something missing.

So you did what many men and women had done before you, and what many would do in the years thereafter. You went to your local Mystery School or Temple, and consulted with the best teacher that you could find; someone who was kind and gentle, and who seemed to emanate a sense of both loving-kindness and wisdom. In short, you set out in search of your own Obi-wan Kenobi or Yoda. And you asked your question.

And because you were not the first to do this (nor the last, to be sure), this kind, wise teacher spent some time talking with you, but then, ultimately asked you the question: Were you ready to take on the next level of life-study?

And your answer was, in all likelihood, yes.

Thus you found yourself, at the next time that their “academic year” started, in a class with people like yourself – and some not-so-like. There would have been other local business-people and professionals. There would be society matrons. There would be the occasional itinerant seeker-after-truth, whose whole purpose in life was to visit the various temples. But together, you would be undertaking the first steps in a course in God-realization, in personal mastery, and – ultimately – in happiness.

Now, here’s where the archetypes come in.

The Major Arcana are designed to have a single starting card representing you, setting forth on your “search for wisdom.” (And for personal happiness, for enlightenment, for the meaning of life, etc.) This card is called the Fool. (No real insult intended; this just means an open mind, a sense of lightheartedness, and – most importantly – that you’re not carrying a whole lot of “baggage” with you as you set forth on your journey.)

The remaining 21 cards are grouped into three sets of seven, and – this is where our connection to “happiness” comes in – the seventh card is a sort of “completion” of a life-journey-stage. That is, you attain a certain kind of happiness – unique to each journey-stage – as you reach the seventh card (or completion) of each stage.

Interesting idea, isn’t it? There are various kinds of happinesses. And they correlate to certain levels of life-mastery.

The very last card, called the World, shows a naked woman (sometimes a hermaphrodite – a being both man and woman, or combining the qualities of both genders), dancing in space, surrounded by a laurel wreath which contains the heads of four animals, each looking outward. These are the traditional four “powers” (lion, ox, eagle, and a human head as well). The central figure is lightly draped in a purple veil, she holds the two scrolls of knowledge in her hands, and she is simply – dancing. She represents complete joy and freedom; the successful completion of our life journey. And yes, she represents happiness.

But it is not as though we need to get through all 21 cards (or life-lessons) in order to experience peace, freedom, and happiness. At the end of each of seven-card sequence, we have a card that represents some level of integration, mastery and well-being, and – yes – happiness.

So the World card is the end of the whole journey. But prior to that, we have two other sequence-completion cards. They each represent completing a big portion of our life journey. It is somewhat like saying that reaching the World card is like getting your Ph.D.; before that, you get your Master’s degree, and before that, you get your Baccalaureate.

Everything that I’ve been writing about for the past several months – all of these blogposts on “archetypes” – has paved the way for you getting your “Baccalaureate in personal happiness.” This is what seekers-after-truth did hundreds and maybe even thousands of years ago. And it’s what you’re doing now, when you focus on archetype mastery and integration.

Now, here’s where things come together – at least for a while. There are six core archetypes in the first set of seven Trumps, or cards. These are the six “core power archetypes” that I’ve been writing about for several months, and which I’ve described in some detail in Unveiling (Chapters 7 and 11).

These archetypes are the ones that you would – essentially – have “gone to school” to study and master. Of these six “core power archetypes,” three are masculine, and three are feminine.

Masculine Core Power Archetypes:

Magician
Emperor
Hierophant

Feminine Core Power Archetypes:

High Priestess
Isis/Empress
Hathor (“Love Goddess”)

There are two other core archetypes as well; I call these the “reserve” archetypes, or the “rest and recharge” ones. They’re not a part of the set of six that you need to master, because they come to each of us more naturally and easily. These are Hestia (Goddess of Hearth and Home; essentially – the one who “keeps the fires burning” – and keeps our personal lives in good order), and the Green Man (the one who returns to nature for balance).

Now, here’s the summing-up point – where all these archetypes “come together.” The seventh Trump in this series is the Chariot. Essentially, at this point, you have it all “under your control.” You really, truly, literally do “have your life together.”

It’s a fantastic feeling. And also, for many of us, it’s hard-earned. Just as no college curriculum is easy for everyone – each of us finds some courses hard and some easy – getting to the Chariot stage, our first waypoint in our big life journey – is a huge completion. But it is at this point that we really do experience a very real sense of happiness.

This happiness doesn’t come from having developed any one particular archetype, but rather, from having them all – and having them in working order and in balance with each other.

Think about this. Many women reach their early forties with two archetypes that are almost over-developed; their Emperor (a big component of their inner Amazon, which they use not only on the job, but to organize their lives and their families), and their Empress (nurturing and caring).

But if that was all that we needed, why would so many of us feel – as our children leave home for college – that we’re eager to get back to ourselves? We seek to find those aspects of who we are that were pushed aside during career-building and child-rearing. In short, we’re ready to discover – and to integrate – those other core archetypes. And this is where we get our “happiness.” It’s not just in two or three, but rather in using all six (actually, all eight, since we call on our reserves from time-to-time). This is the basis for personal happiness. It is also a basis for personal freedom.

So here we are, at the beginning of a new year. (The Chinese and Druidic New Year, at least.) Why not make this a year of starting your archetypal discovery, mastery, and integration journey? Make this the kick-off point for entering your own “school of happiness” – and also well-being, awareness, and total life mastery? Join me, because I’m beginning aspects of my own journey along with you!

A Strong "Inner Amazon" – Our Most Powerful Ally!

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Our “Inner Amazon” – Strength at Our Service

When Antonia Wolff, the protege of Carl Jung, intuited her understanding of the four “modes” that made up the feminine psyche, she did a great job of describing three “feminine” or “soft” archetypes, and one that she labeled the Amazon. She published her work as a pamphlet; Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche.

Wolff’s delineation gives us a very useful way to “look inside ourselves.” Functionally, we each have eight core archetypes (four masculine, and four feminine), and six of these (three masculine, and three feminine) are our power archetypes. These are the ones – according to the Kabbalah (and shown visually in the Major Arcana) – that we need to cultivate in order to become a fully integrated person. (The remaining two, it seems, are those which we naturally use as “rest-and-recharge” modes.)

When we women “look inside ourselves,” we easily see our three feminine modes or archetypes; our wise, intuitive, and calm High Priestess, our loving and nurturing Isis or Empress, and our sensual, fun-loving, and playful Hathor or Love-Goddess. We can also easily discern our feminine “rest-and-recharge” mode; Hestia. This is when we clean house in order to clean out our heads.

Because we live in a masculine-dominant world, we see the masculine roles very easily as well. Thus, it is easy for us to discern when we are being in any of our three masculine power archetypes; our creative and visionary Magician, our organizing and managing Emperor, or our guiding and coaching Hierophant. We can also discern when we are in our masculine rest-and-recharge mode, or Green Man. (For women, the Artemis imagery is useful; think of Women Who Run with the Wolves.)

As a side note: If we were male, it would be easy for us to “lump together” our three feminine power archetypes into one. This would be a convenient kind of emotional shorthand. Moore and Gillette did this when they described the four core masculine archetypes as King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. In their “typology,” they’ve combined all three feminine power archetypes into one, and called it the Lover. Not completely accurate, but useful. Or rather, this is as useful a shorthand for men as it is for women to think about their inner Amazon. Each is a compound of three modes, but each of these “compound archetypes” has something in common.

So what is it that characterizes our inner Amazon, and makes her so distinctly different from our other three feminine power archetypes? And at the same time, we could be asking ourselves: What is distinctly different about the Lover “compound archetype” that makes it unique when compared with the three power masculine archetypes? (These are the Emperor, Magician, and Hierophant – Moore and Gillette missed this last one, and instead substituted the Warrior archetype – which is transition mode, not a power archetype. More on that in some future blog.)

The answer is simple. (Keep in mind, now, that we’re talking archetypes – overarching and really rather simple modes, and that we each have some aspects of each of these archetypes in us.)

The masculine archetypes are all Judging, to use Jung’s terminology. That means, they are all “come-to-closure” archetypes. (This is what Jung meant with Judging; this is not about being “judgmental” about people.) The feminine archetypes are all Perceiving; that is, they are more open-ended. They are open to possibilities and connections.

In short, the basic “male psychology” (each of the core masculine power archetypes) likes to compartmentalize-and-complete. The basic “feminine psychology” (each of the core feminine power archetypes) likes to connect-connect-connect. This insight is what led authors Bill and Pam Farrell to write their book, Men Are Like Waffles – Women Are Like Spaghetti: Understanding and Delighting in Your Differences.

So with all of this as a frame of reference, we now understand that what our inner Amazon does for us as women is to give us the masculine strength of “getting things done.”

And is this ever a useful gift!

One of the best things that we can do to empower our inner feminine archetypes is to have a strong Amazon living in service of our feminine core. She gets things done, she protects and defends, she provides strong boundaries. Within the boundaries that our Amazon establishes, we get let ourselves go. We can be soft and vulnerable. We can be as “diffuse” as we desire. We can connect-connect-connect – knowing that our Amazon put some structure around our connecting.

Our Amazon is valuable. She is our strongest ally. And the more that we cultivate her, the more we are able to let ourselves go safely into our feminine core. Sounds a bit contradictory, but worth considering. So why not make this a journal topic over the month of February? Re-ignite a hot, sexy, voluptuous love affair with yourself. And let your inner Amazon “live to serve the Queen”!

"Wise Woman Wisdom" – from Susun Weed – Great Resource!

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Wise Woman Wisdom – Compendium of Unique Values – by Susun Weed and the “Wise Woman” Team

Came across this lovely website recently: Wise Woman Tradition – they have lovely references, information, resources, and links – and I am absolutely thrilled that they’ve chosen to feature Unveiling: The Inner Journey as their current Featured Website for one of the “sister weblogs” – Empowering Women.

This set of websites is very information-rich, including many small steps that we can do to shift ourselves towards greater vibrancy, health, and overall well-being. I’m going to be reading through their content over time, and incorporating many of their recommended “healing practices” into my life.

Check this blog over the coming month of February, 2012, to find out when I’ll be doing an online radio interview with Susun Weed of “Wise Woman.” Will post time and date for when this becomes available!