Tag Archives: “A Course in Miracles”

Using Archetypes and Gaining Personal Freedom

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

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

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

There’s been a reason for this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forgiveness shifts things.

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

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

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

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

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

A Course in Miracles and Own Your Power

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

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The only reason that I stay with the Course?

Well really, there’s two.

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

The other factor?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s why we need a pathway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"God is the Biggest Joker of All" – Book of the Month, September 2012

God is the Biggest Joker of All, by S. Alice (Alicja) Jones, is Book of the Month and First “Recommended Reading” for Alay’nya Studio Members

S. Alice (Alicja) Jones has written a book that combines personal story-telling with themes similar to A Conversation with God.

In an easy, conversational, and personal style, Alice (Alicja) tells how she both developed her intuitive gifts and her spiritual walk.

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S. Alicja Jones, a gifted intuitive, Reiki master, and spiritual teacher, has taught “A Course in Miracles” for many years, and credits it with saving her marriage.

In this book, her own “conversations with God” have no less spiritual truth in them than the sometimes more abstract and challenging “Conversations” and “Course in Miracles.” However, the conversations in her book are often more personal, and more approachable, than either of the two aforementioned books. I find it helpful, in my own spiritual journey, to learn that others who have been on their path – diligently and for many years – still feel uncertainty, and have many questions.

While I’ve been studying (and grappling with) “A Course in Miracles” for almost a year, the “Course” is a multi-year, if not life-long challenge. It can be very “in your face” at times.

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In contrast, Alicja’s “God is the Biggest Joker” is a gentler, more humane approach. The issues are the same, and the “conversations” here are those that every person who seeks an honest relationship with God must ask. But somehow, as Alicja conveys them, they seem much more like the questions that an “everyday” person (not someone who is already a mystic or saint) might ask. And the answers are both surprising and comforting.

This is the kind of book that can be read in a few short hours, and is a “comfort read.” It’s a good one to pick up at the end of a long work day, while coming home from a business trip, or if staying at home with the flu. It is inspirational and heartwarming at the same time.

And God’s sense of humor, as revealed in this book, comes across as gently loving – the way that a parent or favorite teacher might be, when he or she teaches us to not take ourselves – or our lives – so very seriously.

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.

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.