Back to Work

I'm dragging my internal clock back to its normal schedule after four days in a row of staying up late and sleeping late -- but at least I can anticipate a quiet day at work to ease back into my routine. I'm very glad I took Thursday and Friday off last week. I actually enjoyed a Christmas holiday this year, instead of a busy day or two in the midst of a normal work week.

But my December isn't over yet. We celebrated my dad's birthday yesterday, and my daughter's birthday is coming up day after tomorrow. (December is a long haul of celebrations for my family.) I still need to finish painting my bedroom blue (remember that project???) and I've resolved to do that over the New Year's weekend.

I'm still clicking away on those mythic themes I mentioned last week, but I need to switch gears for a while and put some thought and energy into what I want to put on my new spiritual direction website (now that I've met my obligation and turned in my articles to my web-designer friend). Even if no one visits the site for a while, the exercise is important for my own progress.

Remember the gift I mentioned from my boss? She gave it to me before she left the office for her own vacation, telling me "This is the only personally selected present I bought, and you can't open it until Chrismtas."

One of her sons attends St. John's University, where there is a Benedictine abbey. The abbey is in the midst of a huge project of "creating the first handwritten Bible since the creation of the printing press. Using eggs, feathers, calfskins, and hand-ground inks along with gold, silver and platinum, The Saint John's Bible employs ancient techniques to create a contemporary masterpiece intended to put us in communication with the Infinite."

That quotation is from the front cover flap of the large, hardbound copy of The Gospels and Acts, from The Saint John's Bible which Jeannie gave me for Christmas.

Wow. . .!!

It's an utterly gorgeous book. I wish you all could see it. It's an amazing and thoughtful gift.

Joy!

Despite the holiday feasting, I was down 1.4 pounds tonight when I checked in at Weight Watchers!

And I met bookchick's sister!

Archetypes for Spiritual Direction

I have long been fascinated by archetypes, so I was delighted to have Amazon recommend to me a book called Archetypes for Spiritual Direction: Discovering the Heroes Within, by Bruce Tallman. I've been enjoying it a great deal, getting some insights on my own psyche, and slowly building a conceptual framework of how my own sense of archetypes relate to the role of spiritual director.

Obviously there are many dozens of possible archetypes from which to choose. Tallman has selected the Sovereign, Warrior, Seer and Lover -- and those have been working very well for me, within his context. He does a good job of describing each individually and also illustrating how the four complement and complete each other. Few of his examples are purely of one archetype. For example, he cites Gandhi as a Warrior-Seer, and John of the Cross as both a Seer and a Lover of God. (In fact, his major point is that all four archetypes need to be strong and healthy.)

As valuable as his assessments of the positive aspects of the archetypes is his examination of the dual-aspect shadow of each: the excessive aspect and the under-developed aspect. The shadows of the Sovereign are the Tyrant and the Abdicator; for the Warrior, the Sadist and the Masochist; for the Seer, the Manipulator and the Fool; and for the Lover, the Addict and the Frigid. All of these make gut-level sense to me, and have helped me do some deeper self-assessment in some areas than I have in a while.

The section of the book I'm in now describes how each of the four healthy archetypes functions in the role of spiritual direction, and it's quite fascinating. I can see my own potential for being a Sovereign, but at the moment my strongest aspect is that of Seer -- and just about everything he writes about how the Seer functions as a spiritual director resonates strongly with me.

( More behind cut, for those who are interested )

For more than a year now I've been wrestling with my own sacred/mythic identity. A year ago last fall, all the old archetypal references which I had used to define myself stopped working for me. I have yet to fully re-build them, or fully re-imagine myself. This book is very helpful in taking classic archetypes, ones to which I feel a strong connection, and applying them to my relatively-newly-discovered vocation. It's giving me new ways to think about myself and my Work, a new way to name and grapple with the under-developed and/or wounded areas of myself (my Sovereign and Warrior are underdeveloped; my Lover is wounded).

During a very long, slow afternoon at work, I did some mapping of the archetypes to the elements and other symbols, deliberately ignoring many of the traditional -- or personally customary -- associations, and working from my gut. It was very interesting and rewarding.

One thing is very clear: there may be other ways to describe my current psychological state, but saying that my Sovereign, Warrior and Lover archetypes are primarily shadowed, and I need to work on owning/empowering/healing them, is a pretty good way to name the work I need to do. I'm not yet exactly sure what form that work will take, but I've got some ideas.

I'll let you all know how it goes.