The Shadow on the Road of the Initiation

"A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think." Joseph Campbell

          I recently bought the book, The Integral Life Practice.  I went straight to the Shadow chapter.  Their definition and process of teaching how to deal with your shadow led be to an examination of the last 6 months.  Between my own research on the initiation process of heroes, since I am an avid Joseph Campbell follower, I have found that my path is starting to match that of the initiation process of many of our ancient cultures but with a modern theme.  Joseph Campbell advocates that the heroes journey is a separation, imitation and return.  After his immense study of different cultural  archetypes he advocated that the modern human must continue the process of the hero path without the tribal and or ancient rituals and rites of passage.  While he did not give specific steps, the Integral Life Practice does give me a step by step process to follow.  TILP helps you understand each mode of emotional level- authentic vs. inauthentic.  I have only just begun.  While this piece is on a mixture of psychology and mythic symbolism it all helps in the discovery of unconscious tendencies that need to be addressed. 

          Joseph Campbell  promoted the idea that we are modern sages out in a field and we need a new mythology, and our only guide is the collective unconscious.  The collective unconscious will be tapped by humans through their dreams, as the psychoanalysis has discovered during the therapy sessions.  So as I understand the old rituals and rites of passage for different phases of ones life, I realized I was that person without a direction, even though I was entering a new phase of my life.  Where do I turn?  Where are my guides?  Will anyone give me some sort of ceremony, some catharsis anything that will speak to my unconscious.  Joseph Campbell said that the symbols found in our ancient myths speak to our unconscious.  If there is no bridge between conscious life and unconscious life we are in big trouble.  I wasn't about to go down the depression road or get lost in the wasteland.  I had to create my own rituals, find my own neurosis and go on a rites of passage of my own making.  It is not smooth and I didn't have any ceremony or group to witness my shift, for I dwell in the modern wasteland of Commercial/materialism.  This is a monster that needs to be fought everyday, but I choose to fight a different battle, one of moving on.  This is my story. 

"Clearly, mythology is no toy for children. Nor is it a matter of archaic, merely scholarly concern, of no moment to modern men of action. For its symbols (whether in the tangible form of images or in the abstract form of ideas) touch and release the deepest centers of motivation, moving literate and illiterate alike, moving mobs, moving civilizations."
— Joseph Campbell (Primitive Mythology)

         

          There is no denying that some deep shift is happening to our world and my personal world.   I could feel lost if I let the society's empty hand describe my current position.  I cling to mythology , psychology and my own intuitive nature to guide me in the wasteland that stretches out before me.  I am going through a divorce.  I am working as a devoted school teacher who only finds that the brokenness is an endless sea of dysfunction.  I am trying to make up my own initiation into the coming shift that I feel the world is going through. 

          The reason I believe in the shift is because all of my male relatives have vanished from me in the last ten years with my husband being the last one.  And he might have been one of my greatest teachers but someone I could no longer struggle against.  My first three iconic male relations were like The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.  My grandfather was the ultimate heroic father figure, not just to me but to all of his children and their spouses.  He wasn't about intellect or words, but actions that reflected freedom, forgiveness and adventure.  My brother is the one who was equal and a modern day broken Buddha.  We have the same spirit split in two.  He and I went on the adventures with full hearts that opened wide .  He recently married and now does know my name.  I have released him from my emotional body- it was a tearing of my heart but I have let it go.  My father passed on six years ago.  He was my holy spirit, teaching all the sensitive things about my soul and forgave me.  Him and I were the same as far as our spiritual nature. 

          Between death, old age and just a different lifestyle all of the men I loved and or love dearly are no longer in my life.  My husband is the last one who could not grow spiritually or mentally and so I ended this relationship recently. 

          I do not feel secure.  I am out in a field that has no sign posts or markers for me to reach for.  I decided that I would make my own initiation.   I will make my own markers so to guide me onward.  If I did not embark and or mark my way I would fall too deeply into the vast sea of depression and or inauthentic existence. 

          I was laid off for the second time in the school district I work for.  My husband and my business closed down.  My husband left to go find another job in Mexico, which is somewhere I did not want to live.  It seemed as if I was entering the forest of despair.  The only light was that my mother came to live with me the previous month before all this happened.  I began to exercise and try to focus on things I could control. 

          I read the books The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.  This book was paramount in my path.  It was like a lighthouse that was a beacon.  The author was male and made it a point to research ancient female warriors and their tribes.  Most of them were warriors of the most fierce kind.

"An estimated 600 women served during the American Civil War.  They had signed up disguised as men.  ....Historians have often struggles to deal with women who do not respect gender distinctions, and nowhere is that distinction more sharply drawn than in the question of armed combat.... But from antiquity to modern times, there are many stories of female warriors, of Amazons."  Stieg Larsson Pg 3- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

During the summer I began going on hikes in the mountains that was led by women.  There was at least four to five always climbing mountains.  This sank down into my psyche, like my unconscious was a hunter of all things feminine, like a parched survivor of the desert.  These books and involvement with women were oasis in dunes of desolation. 

         Life has a way of meeting you half way.  As I began my job the feeling of security starts to return with my young- adults- they are pure of heart and open for life to greet them.  This beauty that presented itself in Southside-ghetto classroom was my first saving grace.  I had beautiful souls in front of me and their fullness for life was infectious.  As I began again to teach I began to make friends which I had not done throughout my marriage.  Three females came into my life.  Did the three females replace my three males, I do not know.  All highly feminine and intelligent.  Two women who are partners and one married.  My mother was another foundation that came into my life before the crisis hit me, and remains as she always has, a rock of guidance.  So I have four females. 

The three women who manifested themselves like good witches before me reminded me of the triple goddess... virgin, maiden, crone, and or the three fates. 

"...triple moon is a Goddess symbol that represents the Maiden, Mother, and Crone as the waxing, full, and waning moon. It is also associated with feminine energy, mystery and psychic abilities.

The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the female principle, the promise of new beginnings, youth, excitement, and a carefree erotic aura. The Maiden in Greek Mythology is Persephone - purity - and a representation of new beginnings. Other maiden goddesses include: Brigid, Nimue, among others.

The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, fulfillment, stability, and power. The Mother Goddess in Greek mythology is Demeter, representing wellspring of life, giving and compassionate. Other mother goddesses include: Aa, Ambika, Ceres, Astarte, Lakshmi.

The Crone represents wisdom, repose, and compassion. The Crone in Greek mythology is Hecate - wise, knowing, a culmination of a lifetime of experience. Crone goddesses include: Hel, Maman Brigitte, Oya, Sedna, Skuld, and others. " Ellie Crystal (http://www.crystalinks.com/triplegoddess.html)

Shadow and Anima or Animus

The shadow and anima or animus are Jungian's idealogy and all are found in the unconscous part of the psyche.  They are usually hidden to a person.  The heroic journey is sometimes just a metaphor for the journey down into your own inner world.  Here is an explanation of the parts of the unconscious. 

Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton University Press, 1954) xxii n. 7:

"It is in this sense that we use the terms "masculine" and "feminine" throughout the book, not as personal sex-linked characteristics, but as symbolic expressions. . . . The symbolism of "masculine" and "feminine" is archetypal and therefore transpersonal; in the various cultures concerned, it is erroneously projected upon persons as though they carried its qualities. In reality every individual is a psychological hybrid. . . . . [I]t is one of the complications of individual psychology that in all cultures the integrity of the personality is violated when it is identified with either the masculine or the feminine side of the symbolic principle of opposites."

"The Anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies within a man, the archetypal feminine symbolism within a man's unconscious. The Animus is the personification of all masculine psychological tendencies within a woman, the archetypal masculine symbolism within a woman's unconscious."  (http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/anima.html) 

          I felt the tide shifting within.   If the unconscious was a sea beneath and my self was at the mercy of dark waves growing larger, I had to do something to break these waves, to address the unknown.   I began a friendship with an old flame male friend, but I later find that this friendship is really only my unconscious projected onto a male friend.  I had found my shadow.  I did not know this at the time but it was a golden/monster shadow experience.  It was long distance correspondence, non-threatening, not based on reality really.  Yet what it accomplished was my new found talent of writing in the virtual world was verified by him.  My feelings for another man and the possibility of another encounter with the opposite sex was blooming.  I had become so not myself in my marriage.  I had lost my way.  I was growing and shifting and my husband was not with me in my new found land. 

 I asked him first to be my priest, I needed the confessor.  If I followed what Christ did, he mediated, then came forth to teach his fellow men what he knew.  Yet also he was being anointed, baptized and finally crucified.  All these experience are part of the initiations that are required to shift your consciousness.  The initiation requires certain physical rituals.  I only voiced my beliefs, faults and things that I wanted to leave in the past, for there was no other ritual to go through. 

          So as my energy grew through the active shadow, I became exited and sort of obsessive.  I decided to travel to him, which in retrospect was on the edge of insane.  This is the energy that motivates you from the unconscious.  My shadow was in full gear and the projection was of my Animus who was projecting those things that I was attracted to in the old friend.  A female has male qualities inside her, usually repressed into the unconscious realm.  So when she meets a man, she will if she is unaware of her unconscious tendencies project her hidden qualities onto the man.  For example,  my old flame was a writer, musician, father and very spiritual.  All these qualities attracted me immensely to him.  My excitement was from my shadow energy. 

                He was 2000 miles away.  I did not actually have a physical meeting with him until Christmas time and it was two days only.  I had a virtual relationship with him for three months prior to actual physical meeting.  This was all just my projection energy bouncing off of an idea of a man.  It was very false, yet it served a purpose.  My focus was not on my husband, it was now on a man who embraced the same ideals, talents and spiritual nature that I felt were important.  Did I fall into his arms and spin a dysfunctional relationship? No, I did not.  I read my life as a metaphor.  I originally asked him to be my spiritual mentor and he was, even if I brought my shadow up and used the energy that was hidden.  I brought my repressed animus up at our of my unconscious and used this energy to move myself on. 

                   I requested that my old friend go on a initiation with me, but it was all done jokingly yet I knew things had to be done for me.  I got a tattoo in November when the path was going into the darkest night.  It is a triangle-a representation of the male with the point facing up.  It has a Keltic knot inside that represents eternal circle.  It seems silly but in tribal times when shamans or warriors go on a vision quest they would mark each other according to your spiritual journey. 

            I did not go on a Walk About, nor a Vision Quest, but I did travel across the US to do something.  At the time I was playing the society superficial card.   I fell back into society's falseness with expectations of sex and romantic ideas.  This was my monster shadow rearing its misguided head.  The energy was miraculous.  The energy of the shadow is no small amount.  I projected so much onto my old male friend I could of flew to the moon.  My pulse, my feeling were in overdrive.  I was looking at myself in the mirror, and finding myself attractive again.  I was fantasizing about our meeting.  While it was a frenzy of energy no harm came to me, but I was lucky that the gentleman I chose was pure of heart.  I could of been in danger if I chose to focus on a different kind of man.  This is why one should take seriously their unconscious tendencies. 

          When I arrived it was like meeting a priest.  He was gentle, welcoming, excited and pure.  Not one move was made sexually.  He listened to me.  It might have been the most beautiful moment- a psychological anointment- there was no oil, but there was sincerity- and I do not care if it was my own projection.  We enjoyed ourselves, confessed some issues that hurt us.  We flirted a little.  The only thing that was missing is that he did not dip me in water and say I was redeemed, yet I felt it.  He was my mirror.  I found a sensitive beautiful, father(he has 5 children) who let me project my hidden dark areas - both negative and golden-both heavy with energy that needed release. He is a musician, good writer and adventuresome in nature. Just as broken as me, but somehow making our way out of the ashes.  I was looking at myself when we met. 

          When I returned home from my adventure, I sank back into myself, but I felt good and not in a frantic frenzy over this man.  So what had happened.  It was not until I started looking at what the shadow does in your life that I realized what I had done.  I do not feel lonely.  This whole episode was not arrange.  I wanted to have some sort of inititation, something planned and meaningful.  What happens now in modern times is this sort of dysfunctional piecing together of rituals.  Making your own markers and confrontin your neurosis is done alone, in silence and seems silly to the average person.  Am I making something out of nothing?  Maybe but it is all I have.  I will continue to pursue this line of reasoning and searching until this modern world shifts or makes up a new mythology that speaks to our soul and helps us to move on through each phase of life.  Life will not change, and be less sorrowful or challenging. 

          Jung says there is the persona, ego, shadow and anima or animus and self.  When people want to work on themselves they hardly penetrate the shadow and must need guidance to meet the animus head on.  I am not sure myself, but going down inside is no small venture.  I have met my shadow, and as the book Integral Life Practice shows writing in a journal and doing their recommended exercises will help you merge this part of you self into a more manageable and or healthy awareness.  I have a lot waking up, work, and or merging of all parts of my mind, body and soul to do.  The Integral Life Practice is a practical road map to go forth into the dangerous abyss.  My mystical helpers are the literature, art and beauty of the people who surround me.  The modern hero seems evolved beyond the ancient heroes, but we really face the same monsters.  Pick up a sword and a shield and instead of falling -pierce the energies that lie deep within they will save you in the end. 

The Grail Quest is Your Quest

William Morris, Vision of the Holy Grail, 1890
www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/we_parzival.html

"The Grail Hero- particularly in the person of Parzival, the "Great Fool" is the forthright, simple, uncorrupted, noble son of nature, without guile, strong in the purity of the yearning of his heart..... in the end, as in the case of Parzival, the guide within will be his own noble heart alone, and the guide without, the image of beauty, the radiance of divinity, that wakes in his heart amor: the deepest, inmost seed of his nature, consubstantial with the process of the All, "thus come." And in this life-creative adventure the criterion of achievement will be... the courage to let go the past, with its truths, its goals, its dogmas of "meaning" and its gifts: to die to the world and come to birth from within." Joseph Campbell

The Holy Grail represents the human pursuing their highest spiritual attainment. This is a very western story. The Holy Grail is only the end boon, but it is the journey to this place and or state that finally the grail will reveal itself. It will not be clear to the hero until the hero attains the right state of mind and soul. The Grail is not a factual or physical thing, but a representation of the ultimate spiritual attainment. It would be similar to Nirvana in the East.
The spiritual quest is one where the individual's talent is important. This is opposite of the Eastern view of spiritual enlightenment. In the East the Buddha or guru all follow the same type of path to attain Nirvana, and to extinguishing the ego completely is the goal. There is a problem with this in the west since from the minute we are born our ego is promoted- shaped by our wants, talents and desires. In the East the ego is only there for a small measure because your path is so set out for you. You must marry, get a career, raise children. They do not push you to develop your talents like we do in the west. So when the western person goes to an Eastern guru we really have a hard time going into that space were we must get rid of the giant ego that has been at the center of our life since we can remember. Many would say this is bad but it is not it is only a different approach. What is the bad thing is misunderstanding our western mythology, which is mostly the story of Christ. He is our Buddha, but he is so above us and so chosen as in factual incarnation of god's only son we have become lost. The Christ story is so literal that we can not understand it on a metaphorical level that speaks to our inner yearning. Since the church as stated he is "The Son of God" and there is no other then his journey is not one we can pursue. This story must be approached differently and can be a guide if you get a different interpretation.
The Grail or Twelfth century stories are another approach to the spiritual quest of the western man. The nature is similar to the Buddha's issues of overcoming attachment to this and that, which distracts you from your spiritual nature. Compassion is the key also to your approach to your inner wisdom. The Grail quest begins with each night entering the forest on his own and where there is no path ever trodden upon. This is how western man must approach his spiritual quest. We are unique and it is up to us to find that talent and the thing that speaks to us, that erases the ego eventually and leads us to our center and where bliss takes over. Now your never going to get rid of that Giant Ego but you will know how to go to your center, or the creative place so that bliss and joy flows through you and you can deal with the sorrowful life that will greet you at every turn. We can not get rid of the sorrow because time means things decay and eventually die. So what shall we do in the in between? The struggle or initiation is seeking your path, the path that is uniquely yours. What tool do we use on this quest? Compassion with ourselves and others will be the first centering component, then courage and persistence. It will not be easy. The reason it will not be easy is because we have so many people saying " you should and you shan't" so you must throw off what society says you must do. If you are traveling down the path that your father or mother laid out for you, you are on the wrong path. This is hard because their is a whole lot of society, especially media, spinning a picture of what you should do. To ignore the TV alone is a heroic accomplishment in itself. To not focus on money every single minute of the day is another heroic accomplishment. And you are on your way.
"In the grail legends, the land of people doing what they think they ought to do or have to do is the wasteland. What is the wasteland to you? I know damned well what the wasteland would be to me: the academic approach to my material; or a marriage to someone who had no thoughts or feelings for me or my work. Living with such a person would be the wasteland." Joseph Campbell.
The initiation- the task is to become individuated. Jung says this about an individuated person. " ... to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one's various life roles.... The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one's own center, in control of one's for and against. And this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any general masquerade of fixed roles."
It is a constant quest toward your evolvement here on Earth. It is not a two week course or a 12 step program. If you think of the discipline a knight had to go through and all of his attributes; honor, courage, courtesy, compassion, loyalty and more, these give you tools to travel along the path. The journey becomes one of inner seeking and believing deeply that you are worthy of such a journey. The compassion must be applied to yourself and for many this will be the most difficult task. To believe one hundred percent that you deserve to have joy, pursue your dream and live in bliss daily. So get your Parzival shoes on and enter the darkest spot of the forest where the vines are so think there is no way to get through, yet you pull your sword out and cut through because you know deep in your heart you will find the Holy Grail. You were made for this quest.