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Mythic reGenesisThe Process
Mythic reGenesis I
> Mythic reGenesis II | Footnotes
Mythic reGenesis IIIOBJECT FOR THE FOCUSED PROJECTION OF AN ARCHETYPAL POTENCY
-- MOTHER REUNION --
by ellen Helga Weiland, lcsw"A myth or mythos is a narrative or fable having a meaning attached to it other than that which is obvious when it is taken literally. The term itself is a Greek one meaning 'word." and hence tale or story. It is related to the root mu-, derived from the sound made by murmuring through the closed lips, and with which the words mystery and mystical are connected." [editors of The Shrine of Wisdom; The Human Soul in the Myths of Plato pp. 11]
"Archetypal: The structure or the model of the universe. In this instance it refers to the powers of the divine creator, author of gods and goddesses, who creates the patterns of existence that we experience as psychological and spiritual states. ..." [Jean Houston; The Passion of Isis and Osiris: A Union of Two Souls. pp. 365]
June 1996, United States of America. Would you believe that for the last week the front page of most newspapers, many radio shows and multiple TV reports talked about Hillary Clinton of the White House having conversation with the potency of Eleanore Roosevelt, former first lady. Poorly in-formed, the media pointed their fingers, and wagged their tongues indiscriminantly about Dr. Jean Houston, tagging her with an assortment of labels; all in the service of what?
Many an evolved, experienced and wise, reporter grasps the reality that each of us has within our capacity, extended potencies which we, in an effort to access, mold into forms of known, famous or ancestral persons such as Eleanore Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, great-grandma, or daddy; Some of us even dare to talk, through public prayer, with God, and for Christians, His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.
Some further evolved people allow these potencies to talk back. Prayer becomes a two way conversation, and an in-formation exchange. In other words, we receive data from these potencies which allow us to come into form [in-(to)-form-ation].
Jesus offers a good deal of wisdom and guidance when we dare to interact and be mindful towards him. Jesus in fact tells us ...
John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. [MacBible 2.4, Zondervan, 1991]
Jesus demonstrates conversation with those no longer in body.Matt. 17:1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
Matt. 17:2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.
Matt. 17:3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. [MacBible 2.4, Zondervan, 1991]Again I remind you of Jesus' words...
John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. [MacBible 2.4, Zondervan, 1991]
Do any of you remember Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. He exemplified a conversation with God most beautifully. And how many of you have secretly talked to Charlton or his like, in the quiet moments of your life.By the way, if any of you take exception to my suggesting that you can access God or Jesus Christ through inner energy constellations, consider that God is all the matter and the energy there is.
If you agree with this supposition, then I think it illogical, even preposterous to think or believe that you are other than part of "The All That Is". Each one of us is part of "God". Each one of us is able to access what we are, by connecting to, and dialogue with the Godly potencies in which we find our origin.
The question is how do we establish understandable communication with the potencies? To activate the capacity for comprehensive dialogue with divinity and its potencies [for God is "All There Is"], we need the guidance of a Jean Houston or someone like her, educated, experienced and skilled in addressing not only the complexity of our body, brain, emotion, mind system but in-formed in the psycho-spiritual reality as well. It is my sad experience that many houses of worship employ men and women who have a good deal of faith, even charisma, but lack the under-standing of how to effectively empower our God given body, brain, emotion, mind, spirit system. They mean well, I am certain, but are specialized and incompletely educated.
To continue. Some still living cultures and many individuals randomly form the potencies into various and sundry animated beings; such as flowers, oak trees, reptiles, butterflies, lemmings, dogs, wolves, white buffalo [ 1 ] , or lioness. Entire spiritual disciplines evolve around interaction with such formulated constructs.
These constructs are housed in iconic [ 2 ] representations of that cultures divine potenciesIn Bali, Indonesia, mothers and dance instructors send would be dancers to the fields to watch and interact with the deer and frogs (among others). These students are expected to learn their assigned animal's movements and behaviors, so that the dancer can better represent the essence of that animal in his or her performance. This coming to union with the potencies of animal essence is a sacred temple event. Anthropological reports are filled with countless such examples [ 3 ].
Recall please that a large portion of our population looses itself in conversation and ecstasy with characters from the big screen such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, Gerry Garcia, Red Butler of a former era, or the gods and goddesses from literature and the archetypal world. I live in Ashland, Oregon where the Shakespeare Festival is an ever present testament to the recurrence of archetypal potencies as represented by a master playwright. Can any of us doubt what was intended when we view the three witches of Macbeth [Shakespeare]; or the conversations of Prospero with Aerial in the Tempest? [Shakespeare]
Did you ever, as a child, lie with your back to the fresh, moist, green spring grass and the warm earth, with your eyes deeply embedded in the fluffy white clouds riding a so blue sky? Did you search for recognizable beings among those clouds, and, finding one, did you ever have an enjoyable and in-form-ative conversation with that cloud? Or did you ever talk to a pet, and know full well what that pet was answering?
I remind us of these light moments, these joyful events, these ecstatic experiences, hoping to bring to the light of consciousness the almost unanimous experience with, and appeal of having dialogue with energy constellations rendered in non-material forms.
Going on, the way you may recall such moments in your life is probably casual, light, almost recreational, and playful/joyful. All too few adults take this childlike and theatric play seriously, or give credit to the possibly potent effects such interaction with various forms can have upon our daily life and in the manifestation of our future.
Do you grasp that this childlike play may in fact be the modality, the process designed to facilitate high learning. In other words, children with full focused attention (called entrainment) engage an experience. They talk to beings and objects, real or imaged. In fact, they often become those self same beings. Children in their formative years, by means of magical thinking, focusing, and "becoming" while play acting, receive their "in-form-al" or should I say "in-form-ing" education about much of how the world/universe works. Our schools could benefit by incorporating these processes.
Jesus Christ called on the non material forms of Moses and Elijah to teach his disciples something about the process of living. (see above)
It is my view that any culture which fails to exercise its capacity to sustain and evolve the high story (myth), by invoking, engaging and interacting with the high forms (i.e. the potencies, the archetypes [ 4 ]), will be stilted, stale and stunted. As God is "All There Is", I see these forms as the divine ambassadors representing "The All There Is". They come to serve us, to facilitate our getting on with the business of Godwork.
It is true that we are a nation of egos, and that ego can also play at creating various forms. I perceive such forms as small "i" forms that, with a bit of the light of consciousness, become distinguishable from the divine ambassadors. We can no longer allow ourselves to abandon the larger story, the Godwork for fear that ego will interject its devilish small "i's". Instead we must strive to bring to integrity and to the light, all aspects of ego. That, however, is the focus for a different writing.
In this work I will begin to recount how I became phobic towards parental authority--ultimately my own inner authority--, lost touch with the inner potencies, activated only the Inner Child--"Home Alone"--with an insufficient self care system, a good deal of potential and an overwhelming dependence upon external guidance. I want to illumine how a relationship with an archetype, and icons for that archetype supported my liberation from that phobia, as well as my integration with the potencies. This paper is short and so only gives a smattering of the material.
While I recall, with infinite pleasure the heavenly moments of my childhood. I also have embedded in me the experience, the chaos and remaining body of demonic nonsense which was my legacy from what I call the "1930-1950 German Field of Mother".
We use the word "mother" so indiscriminately, so laxadasically, so mindlessly. We assume that the biological vehicle who honored our soul's entry into the form which she so kindly manifested is "Mother". We burden that person with the full responsibility of all our needs and a lifetime of expectations. We fail to cognize or re-cognize that our biological vehicle is the midwife; and that "Mother" is really so much more than our midwife.
"Mother" is indeed the entire matrix, the underpinning which allows us to involve ourselves into life as well as evolve along a spiritual path. "Mother" includes the collective mind and emotions of family, community, race, and now the planet; the level of psychospiritual freedom, awareness and integration; the physical environment with its ability to meet survival needs, the condition of the land of the air, and of the waters; the political and economic climate, etc. etc. etc.
All that contained "me" was "mother". The air I breathed, the milk I sucked from a warm breast, the soldiers hard goose stepping marching boots, the soft velvety arms holding me, the blue sky spotted with bombers releasing their falling. whistling bombs, the sleepless nights, the exploding, burning houses, the moos of cows in green pastures, and the all pervasive smell of the death of millions, as well as the stale, blood stained streets; the father come and gone, the emotions of his wife and lover at his departure, at the news of his death. The family, confused and grieving, struggling for silent, unnoticed survival. All this was mother. All this encompassed the field which I perceived as "not me", the field which sustained me, the field which became the basis, the foundation of my slope of thought.
When I was a child, so many things were demonic, chaotic and made no sense. Grandmother, daddy and all were often times in a "reptilian survival mode" [ 5 ] and a stupor of their own. They were hardly in a state of balance with which to pattern the young. For us, the children, to call on authority, be they parents, adults or archetypes was dangerous. Germany's obvious living heroes were anything but heroes. I learned to avoid adults with a passion. Even held in their arms, I avoided mental and emotional contact.
What brought me to such a place of avoidance?
Note my birth as example. Yes I remember it vividly, though no longer painfully. I store images of being in a warm, wet, dark place, folded and crowded into myself to the point of an adrenaline high and hormonal confusion. I turned to pushing as I heard mother's familiar organic symphony quicken to an agonizing race. Then I felt the cold, as well as the sound of panicky, chaotic screams emanating from rushing energy patterns all around. I experienced a great loss of support ... and then ... I sensed myself clinging to a soundless, pulse less, dead thing; almost holding my infant breath, if that were possible. While mine was a successful birth, I felt no soft, gentle welcome into this earth plane. This I could do without, and I would learn to avoid at all costs.
The senseless facts were I was being born in a hospital under siege. The air raid sirens warned of incoming bombers. The hospital crew helped pull me from my mother, cut the cord, swaddled me, placed me in a wicker basket on a down pillow and ran me from my mother and the delivery room as fast as possible. I experienced the energy deprivation of my missing mother who loved me. I imprinted on a soundless, pulse less dead thing, which was held in the toxic, screaming, blood wasting surroundings.
I was eighteen months old. Father was home from the war. He wasn't supposed to be part of the fighting force. He was an engineer, and after all he and mother had me. Fathers of newborns did not engage in active duty. There was a paper error. He was sent to fight in northern France.
Now he was home on furlough. I remember his warmth, his smile, his dark eyes looking through me. I remember him playing with me, tossing me into the air, and catching me. Oh how I laughed, my tummy hurt. Up and catch. Up and catch. Up and .... My head hit the marble floor with a bang. I was stunned. Mother came screaming, grabbed me and seeing no blood, placed me into my soft, soundless, pulse less, dead thing. She shouted at my father. There was a grand to-do. I awoke and he was gone. I never did see him again. He was shot, killed in northern France, far from mother and me. Mother's energy was never the same again. Something in her died, and I learned to avoid her essential withdrawal and pain.
Frankfurt was bombed, a flaming inferno, visible for miles and miles. This was our third home gone to ashes. Always mother ran into the flaming house to save those scraps which would assist our survival. Harnessed, sitting in my baby buggy I would focus sharply ("entrain" you call it) on her as she threw clothes and pots and pans out through the fiery window. With the strength of ten men she would lift the cast iron, dented, pot bellied stove and toss is lightly out the window. Those nights the buggy held more than me as she walked and walked to a nearby town and refuge.
We found a house, seemingly deserted, and longed to rest. I don't know how much time passed, but there stood mother with me in her arms, facing a soldier who held his rifle at point blank range to mothers nose. At two I did not comprehend what this meant. I did grasp the energy field. It was one to avoid.
I store, calmly now, the image of mother standing on a third floor window sill, holding me in her left arm out into the empty air as she threatened to jump if the Burgermeister [mayor] did not instantly find a safe place for us to live. Strange world I choose to be born into. Do I avoid or approach this Mother?
Mother worked. I was housed with this one, and that one. I moved here and there. I began school. Pre-kindergarten, a place to herd the children to keep them out from underfoot. Each morning I walked some odd miles to get to school. I carried, as we all carried, my little metal milk or soup container. Each one had its little metal cover. We carried them clean and empty for the teacher to fill with soup or porridge at lunch.
Several times I had tried to run away from this holding pen. Several times mother or some other mother brought me back. This place was one to avoid. The energy of the caretakers was violent and angry denying their un-addressed terror. We children were the targets for their emotional outbursts. I had no feeling words then. I just knew this place was not safe.
I remember a girl friend. We often played in the meadow of the forest. We picked daisies and made chains. Ours were some happy interludes in a trying time. Her name was Brigitte. One day she came to school with her container, having forgotten its cover. As she cued up to get her lunch, teacher discovered the grand error of the cover less pail. He reached to a nearby tree, pulled off a branch and beat her with it. Brigitte never came to school again. Nor did we play in the meadow. She sat with a vacant stare at her window for as long as I lived in that town.
I recall the very plush, almost Orient Express train which transported us from Kronberg to Frankfurt, when I was about five years old. I seem to recall blue velvet covering the benches in the small compartments. Three people could sit on either side, facing one another. The windows were large and clean so one could see the countryside as the train hurried along chanting "Ich can nicht mehr, Ich can nicht mehr." [I can't go on! I can't go on!]
This particular late, summer afternoon we boarded the train just in time. We were going to grandmas' house, a treat for me. Mother directed me to the bench facing the front of the train. I objected to the point of tears. I did not know why. The seat facing front right near the window was usually my favorite.
As the train labored along, I became more and more desperate until I finally I disobeyed the direction to sit quietly, and in hysterical tears jumped into mothers lap. I transgressed just in time to avoid the rock, which came crashing though the window, shattering and disbursing glass all over my bench and the cabin. I had not seen anyone with a rock. But by the age of five I had developed my long distance sensing as a survival skill.
I recall this train incident as just one example of external parental authority directing me to discount my sensing of and connection to the extended reality. External authority appeared hell-bent on teaching children to "mind them" to focus our mind into their chaos. I offered a mind-less obedience while avoiding contact at all cost. Authority was not worthy of my mind, or so I thought. I sustained a divide between me and that authority and maintained that divide internally, long into my adulthood.
Mother worked. She was there and she was not. At times it was days before I saw her. Always she left instructions. "Cook this, eat that, wear these clothes, homework here, sleep then. You are mommy's big girl. I have to work so you can eat. You have to be mommy for me and take care of you." I think I took her more seriously than she intended. I was mommy's big girl, and I took care of me. My smile was sociable, but no one got near, no one got close to me, not even I.
If there be a place in the brain which functions as the inner parent, then that place and the remainder of me were not in communication; not when I was a child, or a teen, or an adult. I certainly took care of me. I did that from the place of a bigger child.
I was an Inner Child [ 6 ] "Home Alone "[ 7 ]. I must admit I did a very good job. No one seemed to perceive the difficulty inherent in my ego formation. I suppose no one would ever have noticed if it were not for the joy of the birth of our son.When I was fifteen I had a dream. I conceived, within my mind's eye a blond, blue eyed son. He was my son, to be raised by my blue eyed husband and me. I was not dating, had no boyfriend, in fact had not even thought about boy friends. But I had the vision of a child. I knew he would be born when I was twenty five. Indeed I physically conceived our son in March of 1968. He began to form within me on the last day of my twenty fifth year.
Parenting Stephen was a painful affair. I loved him, wanted him, wanted only the best for him, but failed to relate in a fulfilling way with his infant and childhood needs. I resonated with his discomforts. I could not articulate the meaning of that resonance. With the lack of inner integration, and lack of access to my full capacities, I failed to respond well to Stephen.
I felt my pain become his pain. Deep within I knew exactly what was going on, but had no language with which to get help in solving the problem. Doctors laughed at me when I complained. They suggested I have more children, as though that would dissolve the wall.
I entered therapy, which became a 15 year effort to restructure my ego. Not once was I encouraged to step beyond ego, into the archetypal potencies, to effect that restructuring. I will spare you the long, laborious details of all the talking, all the approaches, all the labels, all the work, all the learning, facilitated by more wonderful, willing to help, well trained therapists than I can remember. At the end of that time, I found myself still dependent upon an external source to problem solve the various crisis which afflict most lives.
One therapist, an incredibly loving and gentle man, took the time, trouble, and persevered long enough to uncover and define my process and experience. One day in a fit of desperation I spend four hours attempting to articulate--with useless language --that something was not getting touched in the therapeutic process. I remember still, after the four frustrating and trying hours, his eyes growing large as he said, "My God, what an extensive subtle system you have." I had no idea what he meant. He began to work with me energetically, taking me beyond language [ 8 ], beyond ego. Just as we began to progress, he died of a fast growing brain tumor. I was left dumfounded, confused and unclear as to how to complete the work he and I started. I could not articulate what we had done.
By this time I had earned two Social Work degrees and was a successful staff therapist in a renowned national psychiatric facility. I was and am really very good at what I do. My interventions made an impact on the most difficult to reach clients. Families from the surrounding states brought their problems to my office. My director, desiring to further my skills, paid my way to a "Jean Houston Workshop". I spent a weekend terrified of the lady behind the microphone, knowing she could, if she would, get me beyond this stuck place.
One of the many processes she led that weekend, was a simple walk backwards while listening to some ancient Greek music. We were to close our eyes, walk backwards in space and time until we imaginally met some potency. We were to stop and talk to it.
I must tell you, that when I began to study with Jean I was utterly innocent and ignorant of anything mythic or archetypal. As a matter of fact, I had escaped any normal contact a youngster might have with the topic of mythology, as a result of my multiple moves, school shifts, and lack of exposure to consistent parental presence or adult discussion of such matters.
It is true that I recalled the actor Victor Mature in a variety of biblical movies. But I never made the connection between those movies and the broader implication of myth. It is equally true that I had attended a variety of houses of worship. Not once do I recall having perceived the biblical characters as mythic with a potential to be benevolently accessed in the here and now.
Anyway, that weekend I walked backward as instructed, in a large room with about 400 people. I thought how silly this all was. I felt someone's hand on my left shoulder and opened my eyes to tell that person to stop disrupting my silly process. No person was near by; yet the hand on my left shoulder was clear. I sensed it. I closed my eyes again and noted the image of a gentle lady, dressed in long white robes with a blue shawl framing her face and hair, then hanging over her shoulders and back. The image smiled. Her touch was so gentle. I dissolved in large wet tears. I did not know what I encountered, but something touched me deep inside.
I knew I had to continue on this path. I became a student in the second Human Capacities Program. My hospital director supported my study and the hospital happily paid for the tuition.
I participated when Jean taught us the process of focusing and imaging on an archetypal potency. She was demonstrating how she conversed with Athena of the Greek pantheon. On this occasion I spontaneously found myself staring out from behind the form and eyes of a large feline whose only instinct at that moment appeared to be to jump across the room and lick Athena across the face. Jean was speaking for Athena. I was overwhelmed, but managing to contain my lioness. I had no idea what was going on. I knew it was an important learning.
At home, and at my leisure, I looked deeply into the experience of being full of lioness. I began an imaginal relationship with this form, calling her, talking to her, asking questions, hearing her amazing answers which were validated by information from books, after the fact.
Sekhmet and Ptah at the Temple of Abidos, Egypt
I discovered this form resembled Sekhmet [ 9 ], the Egyptian lioness-headed goddess of the Memphis Triad. She represented the protectress of Ra--the light, and was consort to Ptah--the creator god. Sekhmet was the mental health potency, the lady of high magic and fierce warrior goddess who fought to the death when the light (consciousness) was threatened. It seemed Sekhmet claimed me [ 10 ]. I did not know enough to call on her in our early explorations of the archetypal world.
With time Sekhmet became my inner teacher and a mighty task mistress I might add. On some occasions, when I felt threatened by life's chance happenings, up would pop images of Sekhmet protecting me as a lioness protects her cubs. Having failed to internalize images of parental protection, I was pleased at this turn of my imaginal life, and encouraged such imagery.
I kept journals of our conversations, her appearance in my night dreams, and discovered that Sekhmet's input often included data which was not part of my local person. Such data included knowledge of future events, answers to complex problems, historic information related to Egypt and her own origins and functions. I also discovered that my own problem solving ability extended to depth work in the middle of the night. In other words I would go to bed, tell Sekhmet what problem I wanted to process, and I would awaken with answers the next morning.
I was amazed at my increased use of potential.
I perceived an intelligent energy field related to Sekhmet, which constructively served me, in my daily life. I would occasionally ponder whether this field was projected from me, or was separate and idiosyncratic to Sekhmet. I did not dwell on finding an answer. I simple enjoyed my extended capacities and increased productivity.
In working with Sekhmet I remembered the form of lioness as part of my night dream life when I was only four or five years old. In retrospect, I was fascinated by the lioness' recurrent presence during what turned out to be assorted times of need for me.
I remembered waking fearfully as a child, calling my biological mother, clinging to her and telling her the big cat was trying to catch me. She answered, "Es ist nur ein Traum, Kleine," [It is only a dream, little one.] covered me and left me alone to fend for myself.
I recall sitting up, plotting how to deal with this fearsome beast. I clearly remember smiling when I had a plan, lying down and going to sleep once more, only to have the lioness chase me round about our apartment. I still recall how I allowed her to catch up to me, then suddenly I turned and razzed her with my dream body [ 11 ] tongue, jumping up and down and waving my dream body arms. She retreated and stayed at a distance, though she never fully went away.
I had no idea what I was doing as a child, that I was lucid dreaming and intentionally using my imaginal body [ 12 ], or that I was interacting with a non mattered, archetypal potency which never was but always will be. My memory of that time is so vivid, so clear, and so important a part of what I understand now after these years of pursuing the mysteries.
Throughout the three year Human Capacities Program I developed my relationship with Sekhmet. She remained a non-material, imaginal experience. While I occasionally saw pictures or icons of her, I was not especially impressed. The icons did not enhance our relationship. I understood the concept of an icon, and had a brief encounter with an icon of Mary at a local church. But Sekhmet remained a potent mental image and experience.
I had visited Egyptian statues at museums and understood that Robert Masters, Ph.D. owned and ancient statue of Sekhmet reportedly from the temple of Ramses II. None of that mattered. By graduation from HCP my relationship with the archetype occurred during dreams and meditations.
I was excited to continue my studies in Dr. Houston's creative and extraordinary environment through her program of cross-cultural and spiritual studies. In 1990 we explored the lives of remarkable people. Among the many we experienced a weekend dealing with Ghandi, several with Thomas Jefferson, one with Emily Dickinson, then Helen Keller. We studied not only humans of extraordinary genius, but also adventured into the archetypes, that is the persona vitae of myths.
Our weekends as always, are rich; full of sound, movement, color, artistic and creative expressions. We delve into history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and theater--ancient and sacred. New thoughts are nourished and blossom under the tutelage of the school's master teachers, and the many peers.
That year we were privileged to have several gifted artists in our midst, who monthly sculpted and drew a likenesses of the genius being presented. The subject's icon was created while we involved ourselves in raising to consciousness the life and what we knew of the mind of that person or archetypal form.
I remember, for example, the likeness of Ghandi. After lectures and processes pertaining to Ghandi, his sculpture was unveiled. I, if not most of us, felt chills running up and down our spines because his form was so life-like. Through the artists efforts, Ghandi obtained yet another icon to focus or house his incorporeal [ 13 ] being" which we invited and invoked by honoring his genius.
This particular weekend we were going to explore an archetypal form. As Jean is well versed in Athena, a mythic form from the Greek pantheon, I assumed we would study Athena and hold in our presence the icon and potency of that Greek goddess.
Jean's lectures, exciting as always, raised our energy to a level of anticipated transformation. She walked gently in the direction of the still clothed sculpture, talking all the while about the organizing principles of God seen through the archetypes.
As she unveiled the statue, I was shocked and shaking, facing not Athena, but the statue of Sekhmet. I was caught off guard, breathless, heart pounding, sobbing and deeply touched when Jean pulled the cloth from the bronze replica of the several thousand year old statue.
At this time I want to convey something of primary importance from my perspective. These may well be the most important paragraphs of this writing. So read them several times please, and ponder their significance.
While I enjoyed my adventures with Sekhmet, found them profound and educational, I still yearned for a mother.
Clearly from my history, I had unintentionally been deprived of a satisfying parent/child relationship. Intellectually I understood that history was history and that I could not change what was. But somewhere, after all these years of therapy, after all these years of human potential work I still had not bridged the divide between my inner child (perhaps limbic system) and my high being--the source of parenting (perhaps neo-cortex). I had not accepted Sekhmet as the possible source of a permanent supernal parent. And furthermore, try as I may, I could not stop viewing Jean as mother. As I perceived no access to my high self (i.e. my divinity), I projected it out onto Jean every chance I had. This was an involuntary, and unwanted behavior which made me miserable and did not enhance Jean's and my relationship.
Here now stood the statue of Sekhmet, with Jean not a breath away, and me in torrential tears, with the great divide, apparent, and wide open. I watched as Jean looked deeply through me, and as she just lightly touched the statue.
In that one small movement,
that one instant,
that breath of life,
I jumped across consciousness
to secure the connection and the bridge.
My supernal mother and I were one.
Yes she took the form of Sekhmet,
yes I used the icon,
yes I projected out all the energy
which one might normally devote
within a parent/child relationship, to this icon.
Yes all that was true.
What was relevant,
was,
I conquered the divide,
integrated those functions, and states of consciousness,
and from then on felt
self contained.
I am clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no human acting in the role of parent, can ever, after the fact of childhood, play the living icon for such a transformation. Therapists can play the roll of nurturing parent for as long as they will; I doubt that such nurturing will ever facilitate the building of the bridge across great divide.
It is the meeting of the personal energy with that of the divine cosmos [the vertical connection] which transforms the chronological adult-- acting on child capacities, into a full human, in the image of God, as intended.
Chronological adults functioning out of child capacities, interacting with other chronological adults, also functioning out of child capacities, by token of a horizontal relationship, can not facilitate a transformation into a fully integrated human "in the image of God".
The fully matured human must place the ego in its proper position, in relation to that human's extended being and capacities. The extended human thrives in a larger reality, with the service of ego. The extended human does not live in the ego, looking out beyond ego's boundaries at the extended possibilities.
My extreme reaction to this icon, by the way, was prompted by a visit with the original statue of Sekhmet at Jean's residence, several weeks earlier. When I was eye to eye with an icon used to access the potencies since ancient times, I felt lightning ricochet through me, beyond my body, toward the statue and back again to me. The entire event occurred so quickly that I thought the energy came from the statue. I never felt such a powerful energetic current before and was almost knocked off my feet. My psycho/spiritual balance was severely disrupted. I avoided this experience by quickly leaving the room, and the icon's presence. A day later I was sorry I had bolted out and wished I had a second opportunity to explore this unusual event.
This Mystery School weekend and the presence of Sekhmet's statue offered me that opportunity. The fact that I viewed a replica rather than the original, presented food for thought, and assured me that we were using the molded metal as a point of focus.
My opinion was strengthened when during a later meditation I noted that the form of the icon was essentially shapeshifting. The form of her face appeared to change, as did her position appear to change. The icon was metal, and my logical system resisted the concept that the metal statue had volition with which to shapeshift.
In meditation I asked Sekhmet, "Why does the statue change form?" She responded, "I am allowing you to see the icon shift form so you do not fall in love with the form. I am after all, so much more than the form."
I asked, "Why then must I use a form at all?" She replied, "Humans have a limited sensory system. You organize your understanding by way of forms. Were I to reveal my true self to you, you would not know how to process me, and would become afraid and useless to the Godwork. Therefore I address you through the familiar form, which I have used for many centuries."
The renowned C.G. Jung wrote extensively about a universal consciousness. He worked with and explored the archetypes, the personae vitae of the stories which rise out of this universal consciousness. He saw them as necessary potencies in the evolution of our personal and cultural being.
Jung tell us...
The term "archetype" occurs as early as Philo Judaeus, with reference to the Imago Dei (god-image) in man. It can also be found in Irenaeus, who says: "The creator of the world did not fashion these things directly from himself but copied them from archetypes outside himself." In the Corpus Hermeticum, God is called archetypal light. The term occurs several times in Dionysius the Areopagite, as for instance in De caelesti hierarchia, II, immaterial Archetypes, and in De divinis nominibus, Archetypal stone. The tern archetype is not found in St. Augustine, but the idea of it is. This in De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII he speaks of "ideae principales, 'which are themselves not formed...but are contained in the divine understanding.' ..." [ 14 ]
So we see that the call on non-mattered beings in the service of humanity has a lengthy and well documented history, which I suspect has fallen to the wayside in our "modern" western civilization. It is Dr. Houstons suggestion that we have become demythologized, and must again re-cognize our larger story and its evolving myth. It takes people, experienced in the why, who, what, how, and wherefore of the archetypes to teach and increase the mythic awareness of a culture. Dr. Houston has shared the results of her research of thirty years in this and related fields.In light of the fact that Mrs. Hillary Clinton, first lady, working with the non-material potency called Eleanore Roosevelt, was perceived as news, was laughed at and ridiculed by some public personalities and some of the media; and that a profoundly talented and internationally renowned teacher and transformational facilitator, gifted in this area was publicly diminished with inappropriate labels suggests to me, that our culture is sadly lacking in awareness and acceptance of a reality so simple and universal that it was taught two thousand, and many more than two thousand years ago by Master Teachers including Jesus himself.
Perhaps the issue is beyond "What is Hillary Clinton doing?" or "What is her relationship with Dr. Jean Houston?" May be the issue is more about,
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i·con (í'kon) n.; 1. a picture, image, or other representation.; 2. an image of Christ, a saint, etc., usu. painted on a wooden panel or done in mosaics and venerated as sacred in the Eastern Church.; 3. a sign or representation that stands for something by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it; symbol. [1565-75; < L < Gk eikón likeness, image, figure]; [Random House Webster's Electronic Dictionary and Thesaurus version 1.0]
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ar·che·type (är'ki típ') n.; 1. the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; prototype.; 2. (in Jungian psychology) an inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches. [1595-1605; < L archetypum < Gk archétypon, neut. of archétypos molded first, archetypal = arche- ARCHE - + -typos, adj. der. of typos mold, TYPE] [Random House Webster's Electronic Dictionary and Thesaurus version 1.0]
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I am fully aware that Sekhmet is viewed by many interested in Egyptian myth as a destructive aspect of the mother goddess. In some museums she is even relegated to the back corridors, seldom dusted and poorly attended. Most books write of her destructive nature, and attribute the mother's nurturing nature to the goddess Bast. My own experience with this organizing principle [archetype] has been a most beautiful and helpful one.
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incorporeal - spir-it (sp<r2<t) n. Incorporeal consciousness; The soul, considered as departing from the body of a person at death; The part of a human being associated with the mind, will, and feelings; The essential nature of a person or group. [Random House Webster's Electronic Dictionary and Thesaurus version 1.0]