How might we engage with the planets within, the archetypal fields of pattern and influence in ways that could help promote healing?
This was a question asked via our facebook group.
The short answer is ‘tentatively.’
There is also far more to say on the subject than contained in the video below, so much more that really needs to be said.
One way of view archetypes, as Jung suggested, is as self portraits of instincts.
By the same token, the symbols that they become, or are, at a cultural level – fixed in history and shaped by the interaction with life – seem to have a potential all of their own. If one is not careful, they can hold sway and influence over people beyond what might be considered helpful or useful. If we are not careful we can adopt them, almost become possessed by them. Maybe at some level we have no choice to express them in some way, because they are just products of what is. Perhaps it is more a question off we recognise that that is the dynamic – the game of life playing out through us, or, if we mistake ourselves for an archetype, they might play us.
In some instances it can seem like healing requires that we work back through some of these symbols – some of the archetypal shapes and processes that show up in our lives – and tap into the experience of being that they are acting as a mask for.
In some, perhaps most ways, it is about upping our conscious awareness. Sometimes this can be a growth in awareness of influences as we become conscious of them, at other times, it can be just being present and letting go of judgement or prejudice for a specific outcome, a sense of just showing up to the moment – doing what feels good and right (and doing what need to be done) and then just staying present with things as they unfold.
In short, what does living actually feel like for you, not in an intellectual or cognitive sense, but before you put words to it – What does it feel like in your body, what does being alive mean in your body, in this moment?
We could call it showing up to life.
This quality of conscious awareness that precedes words is really what the experience of life is at it’s base. All sense of division that we experience; neuroses, psychosis, and maladaptations are conscious and/or unconscious results of attempts to manage potential threats to our being – in mind or body. Resolving them might be as simple as letting go, accepting the experience we are having in the present moment, and letting oneself just update our choices of what to do next in real time as it happens.
Sounds fairly simple doesn’t it. And in some ways it is.
There are a number of things that can get in the way of this. Expectations and anticipations of repeating old mistakes are a major one. these can be conscious or unconscious.
Also, the notion of living in the moment, of being present, of being limited only by trying to find out what your limitations are now, can be a treat to someones sense of identity. they have to let go of what they think they might or might not be capable of – the fear of making a mistake or looking foolish – again, many of these things are anchored in expectation and anticipation, judgements based on passed events. Of course, I am not talking about abandoning all learning, we don’t need to burn ourselves a fresh every day to discover what harm a naked flame can do.
Also, for some there might be a fear that in opening up in this way they might lose touch with their moral compass. But it might, at some level, challenge it.
What is really being asked is that people feel the affect – the physical state of being , to become more conscious of that, to question – what living viscerally feels like. It is the foundation on which our conceptual responses are built.
Being in the place where you are. Showing up to yourself in the moment. In some ways, every answer that we seek can be found here.
Easier said than done?
Of course, it takes practice.
We cannot abandon all of our memories and learning just like that. Nor, one might fairly argue, should we.
The language that we have used to shape our lives is a matrix that overlays most experience at some level. The planets within, the archetypal processes, patterns and principles are echos of that langue at a symbolic level, at a specific level of resolution.
Are they essential for healing? I would say no, not essential.
Is there potential value in using them in healing? For some people, yes, I would say almost certainly.
Again, it really comes down to how they are used.
There is an old saying about teachers. When you see a teacher pointing, it is not the finger that is the lesson, but rather, the thing the teacher is pointing to. It is in this way that I would invite you to consider symbol and metaphor in healing. That the planets within – whilst a rich tapestry – are a terrain that one can get lost in if not discerning. Remember, the universe is beyond the power of language to define, words may be used but none of them are absolute. If we take the words and the symbols as things then we might, if not careful, end up in service to them.