You can do this assignment by looking at three or four of the key
events on your timeline and determining which Jungian archetypes were most active and
which ones could have been used will enlarge your Story.
According to Carl Jung, our lives are influenced by archetypes—images that represent different aspects of our psyche. These archetypes are innumerable but have often been divided into twelve major ones (creator, orphan, magician, innocent, lover, rebel, hero, ruler, jester, caregiver, sage, seeker/explorer.). You can learn more about these types at http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html You can also take an online test to determine which archetypes are currently dominant in your life:
Here are some questions for
you to consider: According to Carl Jung, our lives are influenced by archetypes—images that represent different aspects of our psyche. These archetypes are innumerable but have often been divided into twelve major ones (creator, orphan, magician, innocent, lover, rebel, hero, ruler, jester, caregiver, sage, seeker/explorer.). You can learn more about these types at http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html You can also take an online test to determine which archetypes are currently dominant in your life:
http://helloquizzy.okcupid.com/tests/awakening-the-hero-within-hero-archetype-test-1 (I recommend purchasing this book if you want to go deeper into archetypal analysis.)
Each of these archetypes are present in all of us and became activated during different periods of our lives, depending on our temperament and needs. All archetypes have positive and negative aspects. The part of our psyche that we undervalue or repress is known as our shadow. When we recognize and acknowledge the shadow, the hidden and rejected parts of ourselves, some of the most important spiritual growth occurs.
-do I usually
respond with the same archetypal energy?
-how did
the preference for that archetype arise?
-what other
archetypes could have been activated?
-would
using other archetypes have changed the outcome?
-was the
unused archetype shadow?
-if it is shadow, what is
being denied?
We are also invited to consider this saying by Jesus:
“If your eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light.” (Matt 6:22)You may find it helpful to reflect on this passage and see what it means to you. I came up with the following response.
Jesus is describing
how it feels when we look at the world non-dualistically, letting go of our
judging mind (“judge not, lest ye be judged”).
In this non-dual, non-judgmental state of mind, one’s heart opens up,
and one can breathe deeply and easily, as if breathing in God’s spirit and
breathing out peace. One “sees” with one’s whole body, mind, and spirit—not
just with the physical eye and the intellect. There is deep joy, peace, and
clarity, even in the midst of painful times. It is as if the clouds part, and
one sees the world in color, not simply in shades of gray.
Here's is my Jungian reflection on my life, my attempt to see with a single eye:
Here's is my Jungian reflection on my life, my attempt to see with a single eye:
The first significant turning point in my spiritual life
occurred in 1971 during my final year of college at Boston University. I was
studying poetry with Anne Sexton, the Pulitzer-prize winning poet who wrote
amazingly imaginative poems about her bouts with mental illness (despite her
enormous talent and great success, she eventually committed suicide). I was editing
the BU literary magazine and felt elated that my dream of becoming a writer
seemed about to come true. Then I plunged into depression during my final
semester. This dark night of the soul was exacerbated by drugs, alcohol, casual
sex and financial insecurity. I dreamed of becoming a great writer like Robert
Lowell or John Berryman or Ezra Pound, but in reality I was a poor struggling
student working as a pot washer at Sears who barely had enough money to pay for
food and rent. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life when I
graduated. When I asked Anne Sexton, she replied: “Why not become a poet?” The
idea was very appealing but I had no idea how to make this happen. A friend of
mine bought a ticket on the Trans-Canadian Railroad and a light bulb went off
in my head. That’s it! I decided to go on the road, like my hero Jack Kerouac,
and write about it. Then, my father, who had been suffering from a protracted
terminal illness, died in June, just as I was about to graduate. I went home to
Princeton, NJ, for the funeral to take part in an event I had dreaded for 10
years. After the funeral, I left my mother and 10-year-old sister and went on
my Canadian adventure. Along the way, I had a “road to Damascus” experience in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I went into a church and saw an open bible on the
altar. I began to read it and my heart opened up and I began to cry tears of
joy. I realized that this was not an ordinary book and Jesus wasn’t an ordinary
man. I also realized that if these words were taken seriously, they would
transform my life and revolutionize the world. Evangelicals would call this
experience “coming to Christ,” but it was more as if Christ had come to me. I was
utterly blown away. After this experience, I realized I wasn’t the center of
the universe. There was indeed a Higher Power, a God, with whom I could have an
inner dialogue. I began to pray and commune with this Higher Power, sometimes
in silence, sometimes by seeking Divine guidance. It was the beginning of a vibrant
new life.
The archetypes most active in my life during this time were the
Creator and the Seeker. What helped me through this spiritual and emotional
crisis was my creativity and my yearning to explore the world, including the
world of religion. I avidly read books about Christianity, Taoism, Hinduism,
Bahai and other faiths. I worked with an artist in Vancouver who was
illustrating the I Ching, and did poetry readings and wrote for underground
newspaper. It was such an exciting, life-affirming period I felt no need for
drugs or alcohol. I was on a spiritual high. I hitchhiked across the country
several times and had many adventures. It was the beginning of my spiritual liberation.
“My heart leaped for joy,” as George Fox, founder of Quakerism, said when he
had a similar experience of the Inward Christ.
My “shadow” was the caregiver and the orphan. Looking back,
I realize that I utterly neglected my mother and sister and totally ignored the
practical side of life. If I had done my duty as a son and stayed home and
gotten a job, my mother would probably have been pleased but I wouldn’t have
become the person I am today. This was a time of life when I needed to break
free and find my true self. Yet I realize that what I did hurt my mother deeply
and she didn’t forgive me until many years later.
The seeker and creator archetypes are still strong with me,
but over the years I have learned to respond with other archetypes, as I will
explain. How did my preference for creativity and seeking arise? Creativity was
something that helped me to cope with a deprived childhood. My parents were
both immigrants who were raised in poverty and never graduated from high school,
and both suffered deprivation and trauma as children. They did their best to be
good parents, but my mother was alternatively abusive and overly affectionate,
and my father was often emotionally distant. I grew up relatively poor in the
affluent town of Princeton (we had a modest home but no car, and never went on
vacations to exotic places like many others in this wealthy community). My
“escape” from the boredom of small-town life was my imagination. I wrote poetry
and lived a rich imaginative life through voracious reading. I learned Latin
and Greek so I could travel in time to the world of the ancients—the world of
Homer, Plato, Socrates, Ovid, Virgil, Catullus, Petronius, Apuleius, etc. I
also loved to explore history, politics, and the world of ideas. I became what
Blake called a “mental traveler.” Influenced by Timothy Leary when he came to
Princeton in my junior year of high school, I turned to LSD and
“tripping”—another way of inner exploration. I also became a rebel—an archetype
that was strong for many of us during the Psychedelic, Radically Rocking
Sixties.
The next big turning point occurred when I became a Quaker
in 1984. After my spiritual adventures, I returned to Princeton, married the
daughter of a Presbyterian minister and settled down to become a teacher. I
earned a Masters in education, and PhD in British literature, becoming the
first and only one in my family to join the academic world. My dissertation advisor
was Paul Fussell, an 18th century scholar who became famous and won
the National Book award for his book “The Great War and Modern Memory.” I got a
plum teaching job at Carleton, a prestigious liberal arts college in Minnesota,
and was on my way to fulfilling another dream—becoming a scholar—when my life
fell apart. My marriage broke up and then I learned my mother was dying of
emphysema, with the prognosis of only a year to live. I went back to Princeton
to care for her and found I was not able to be of much help because of all my
personal issues with her. I prayed for God’s help and was led to the Quaker
meeting. There I found my spiritual home and a support group that helped me
through this emotional and spiritual crisis. I began working for a magazine
called “Fellowship in Prayer” and started another period of spiritual
exploration, traveling all around the country visiting spiritual communities
and leaders, and finally ending up in the Providence, RI, Zen Center, where I
lived and practiced Zen for nine months.
This time I did not neglect my mother. I helped her through
her crisis in numerous ways, and we had a good relationship during the final
seven years of her life. We stopped quarrelling and learned to accept each
other. When I found my spiritual home
among the Quakers, I also reconnected with my Inner Voice, my True Self, which had come to me in Saskatoon. I felt free
and fully alive again. I became involved with a fascinating Quaker
project—editing a book of writings by Soviet and American writers—that gave me
the opportunity to travel to the Soviet Union during the period of glasnost and
perestroika. I had the opportunity to live at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for
study and contemplation near Philadelphia, and met my second wife Kathleen, a
Methodist pastor. I felt as if I were re-born after my dark days as a
self-serving academic. After years of inner conflict, I felt a sense of inner peace
as a member of a peace church, and married to a peaceful wife who loved and
practiced the contemplative life.
The archetypes that emerged during this period were
caregiver, sage and seeker. The
caregiver part of me was very important since I had neglected that part of me
during my previous spiritual revival. As a caregiver, I was able to heal my
broken relationship with my mother and feel as if I were acting the part of a
mature man, not simply a boyish adventurer/explorer. My “shadow” was still the
orphan, but I was becoming a bit more practical. I helped my mother sell her
bankrupt business and dilapidated old house and move into a condo she could
afford with my sister. But I was still far from being very practical about
money matters. I preferred to be an explorer and creator. I also began to
become more of a sage as I deepened my practice of meditation. If I had focused
more on my “orphan,” I would have tried to find a job that earned a decent
salary but that has never been important to me.
I chose instead to follow my heart, which led me to the Quakers and to
Kathleen and to life of spiritual abundance. I don’t regret I took the road
less traveled.
The next big turning point in my spiritual life occurred when
my wife Kathleen got cancer seven years ago, in 2007. Kathleen was my soul
mate. We were married for twenty years, had a wonderful joint ministry, and
were looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together. We decided to
spend our twentieth wedding anniversary at Pendle Hill, the place where we met
and fell in love. I quit my job as editor of a Quaker magazine, Kathleen got a
leave of absence from the Methodist church, and we sold our home for a very
good price. I had a scholarship to write a book while at Pendle Hill, and
Kathleen enrolled in a spiritual direction program. Then we learned she had
lymphoma, a form of cancer that killed her mother at the same age. For ten
months, we went on a cancer journey together. At first, the prognosis was good
and her oncologist was hopeful. “This is an easy form of cancer to cure,” he
assured us. But some bits of cancer didn’t respond to chemo so Kathleen decided
to have a stem cell transplant at the City of Hope. Unfortunately, she had a
severe reaction to the transplant and died in a couple of weeks. This was
devastating to me emotionally, but it was also a spiritual high point of my
life. During our ten-month cancer journey, I learned how much I needed God and
my faith communities to get through this crisis. Because of my work as an
interfaith Quaker, we had the support of people of many faiths: Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists as well as Methodists and Quakers. My love for Kathleen deepened as I
did my best to be her caregiver.
Kathleen showed by her shining, peaceful example how to face
life-threatening illness and death as a Christian—a lesson I will never forget.
During this period I became “broken and tender” (to use an old Quaker phrase).
Even though I didn’t have the opportunity to go to Pendle Hill, I was able to
complete a good deal of the book I intended to write there, thanks to
Kathleen’s encouragement. Because of my new-found empathy for people going
through health crises, I started visiting folks in the hospital and eventually
was asked to clerk the Pastoral Care committee of my Quaker meeting.
For two years, I lived my life as a single. After a year and
a half, I began to feel the need to remarry and God led me to a wonderful
Christian woman named Jill Shook. I met this kindred spirit at the Palm Sunday Peace Parade in Pasadena and
proposed to her three weeks later. I have begun an amazing new life with Jill,
but Katheen’s spirit is still with me. One reason I felt led to embark on the
Stillpoint program was to continue the work that Kathleen started but was
unable to finish. I feel as if God is helping to complete Kathleen’s work
through me. That is a great blessing.
The archetypes that emerged during this period were the
caregiver, creator, lover and magician. Being a caregiver has now become an
important part of my life since my new wife suffers from many illnesses and
needs a lot of TLC. But the strongest archetypes are the magician, sage, and
lover. Marrying at age 60, I feel as if I am 30 again. I have had to learn a
whole new way of relating to a woman who is totally unique (like every woman),
and it’s been very challenging. Therapy and counseling has helped us to weather
the storms of our first few years of marriage, and our love feels very strong
and secure. It feels almost miraculous to be Lover at this late stage of my life.
A lover and a sage and a creator, and an elder—what a combo!
The magician part of me animates my work as a writer/peace
activist/spiritual director. Through prayer and worship, I seek to cultivate
the inner peace I need to do my peace activism. Therapy and spiritual direction
have also helped me to work on the inner issues that sometimes block me from
experiencing the Light, being honest with myself and others, and expressing my creative self. The sage part
of me is always seeking answers, seeking to figure out what’s genuine, real,
and true. Thanks to the sage and the seeker I have come to see much more
clearly the hidden parts of myself---the repressed traumas, the selfish habits,
the anger and the fears that I have been reluctant to explore or even
acknowledge. My shadow is the orphan part of myself. Through self-reflection I
have come to realize this vulnerable part of me carries a lot of pain, but is
very practical and necessary. I wouldn’t be in the good financial shape I’m in
today if I had not been cautious and realistic and practical about financial
matters—a byproduct of my orphan
archetype that often worries about the practical issues. My orphan self enables
me to see the world as it is, and to appreciate those who are struggling simply
to survive--those who are poor, homeless, marginalized. Although I was never as
desperately poor as some of those I encounter in my work, there have been times
I was so impoverished I had to panhandle and live on the street. Thanks to my
orphan self, I have some sense of why St Francis extolled Lady Poverty and why
Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in heart. “ Lady poverty and the orphan are great
teachers.
I am grateful to God for giving me this opportunity to look
at my life, and to see it whole: not only the achievements and high points, but
also the failures, the brokenness, and the dark nights of the soul. I began
with Jesus’s enigmatic saying: “If your eye is single, your whole body is
filled with light.” I believe that at the end of our life, when we transition
to the next stage of existence, whatever that might be, Jesus will lead us
through our life, moment by moment. This will not be a divine final exam with
right and wrong answers. Jesus, our advocate and friend, won’t judge us, but
will ask us gently: “So, what did this experience teach you?” I think it’s
healing and wise to begin this self-examination with Jesus before one dies, so
that one can live more authentically and wholly. This is one of the goals of
spiritual direction, as I understand it.
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