Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Integration - The "Final Step" (of Your "Power Journey's" First Stage)

Integration Equals Mastery - The First Challenge of Your Adult Life Journey


Before you begin any difficult overland travel, the first two things you want to know are:

  • Where am I going?, and
  • What's the map?

Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? We need to know our destination. As Steven Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, states: "Begin with the end in mind."



Similarly for us. Our goal is total fulfillment of our human potential. The nature of this "potential" is unique for each of us. However, we share a common high-level roadmap in our adult life-journey.

Just as no child matures without going through the "terrible twos," and no teenager becomes an adult without some sort of angst; some sort of "identity crisis," as adults we face similar life-challenges. And the truth is, these are as well-known (in some circles) as are the "childhood development stages" first elucidated by Piaget.



As adults, we have similar growth challenges. The ancient Kabbalists understood these, and charted them as twenty-two pathways. These 22 paths became identified with letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and also with the Major Arcana in the Tarot. The first of these paths is the entry point. It simply means, "This is where you start." (More on this later.)

The remaining twenty-one paths or steps are grouped into three sets of seven. Each set of seven paths is a major adult journey. We need to take these in order; we really can't do the third "journey" until we've completed the first and the second.

For now, we focus on the first adult journey; integration.

"Integration of what?" you might ask.

Integration of your internal V8 power-car engine. (I introduced the V8 Power Car - analogy for life-mastery in the August 4, 2011 blogpost.)

The thing about this engine is: it doesn't well unless you can get each of the power-car "cylinders" (archetypes) to fire when and where needed.

The ancients understood the idea of eight powerful archetypes, all drawing one person towards a compelling goal. The Greek god of the oceans, Poseidon, was said to have a "chariot of the gods" drawn by eight immortal horses.


Goddesses also rode chariots drawn by powerful horses; Eos - the Goddess of the Dawn - is shown in a chariot drawn by two gorgeous Pegasi. (Reproduced with permission.)

Our cultural history is replete with this compelling image; a person driving a chariot pulled by two, four, or even eight powerful beasts - each with a determined mind of its own!

Our goal; the "end" that we have in mind at our "beginning," is to identify and harness and use each of these "beasts" or archetypes successfully. This is the completion of our first adult life-journey.


This goal - integration - access to and power over each of our core archetypes - is not trivial. In fact, it is one of mastery. However, it is one where we must succeed - if we are to progress further. This is the "end" that we must "keep in mind" (following Stephen Covey's prescription) as we begin our first adult life-journey.

(Reproduced with permission.)

Unveiling: The Inner Journey takes us through our core power archetypes. Both women and men need to learn, access, and use each of these archetypes - although we may individually do so with different proportions and emphasis.



In particular, two Unveiling chapters- Chapter 7: "A Real Woman's Path (Really Does Exist!)" and Chapter 11: "Shifting State" - describe these archetypes in detail. Succeeding blogposts will follow through with this theme.





Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Playing with Colors - and Indulging My "Inner Hathor"

As of today, Unveiling: The Inner Journey has been available for a tad over a month. In fact, a month ago, today, was Amustela's Jewels show at Vespucci Italian Restaurant in Fairfax - a great show, and the first public release of Unveiling.

Just the day before, Nicole Cutts, who organizes women's Vision Quest Retreats and other life-transforming success-coaching and events for women, hosted a private party with a dozen of her close friends - all "Powerful Women." I had a chance to make a first introduction of Unveiling then - what fun!

Since then, I've had a chance to do book signings at Star*Nuts Gourmet Cafe in McLean, at McLean 1910, and at Anahid Sofian's 5-Day Workshop Intensive in NYC. (I was there for this last Saturday's session, taught by Eva Cernik - great insights into developing drum solos!)

And just last night, was at the benefit held to support our dear Shadiyah, which was hosted by our much-loved Gerson Kuhr, aka "The Fitness Pharaoh". I was tremendously impressed by the dancers Monday eve, especially our dear Caleena Tarantino, who did an awe-inspiring dance, and our very special Nimeera, who came in for the (nearly) last dance of the night, and managed to outlast the musicians - who were at their finest and into really long sets! Impressive, both of you!

In the midst of all of this - actually near the beginning - I had a chance to meet (very serendipitously) Carole Jackson, author of Color Me Beautiful, which I reference twice in Unveiling. Carole kindly gifted me with a copy of her now-famous book, and bought a copy of Unveiling for herself. (Thank you, Carole!)



So right now, I'm applying the "Color Me Beautiful" principles. I'm an Autumn, and have a gorgeous royal blue silk charmeuse skirt with matching silk cami. Gorgeous pieces, wrong colors. Trying now to take them into a more "teal" direction, with a dye bath I've just mixed up. (And am blogging and FB'ing between turning the fabric pieces so they get consistent color.)

Getting our colors right is a really important step. I write about it in a couple of different chapters in Unveiling.




Thursday, August 4, 2011

Your "V8 Power Car Engine" - Accessing Each Core Archetype

Using Your "Power Archetypes" for Career Direction and Life Focus


Recently, I visited with a friend who is (as many of us are) in the midst of a life-change/career-change. (How often these two are combined!) She consulted with a "career counselor" (good step), who advised her to take a questionnaire that would help her figure out her "personal archetypes." (Again, a good step.)

The problem was - the selection of the available archetypes was skewed. They contained some that were "spot on" for being "power archetypes." They contained some "disempowered archetypes." And they contained some "transitional" ones as well. And - what makes questionnaires such as this difficult to use as a life-course-charting tool - there was no real "underlying model" that generated the archetypal set. (Although they were drawn, somewhat hit-or-miss, from the archetypes presented in Carolyn Myss's Sacred Contracts and related works.)



This mix-up of "which archetypes are what" is understandable. That doesn't mean that it's good. And it certainly does not mean that all archetypes are created equal!

I found a similar problem in historical works. When the Tarot became popular (starting around the late 1400's), several different Tarot decks were produced. Now the Major Arcana in the Tarot system are - if anything - the most central archetypes of our culture. All of our "big ideas" about the meaning of life - important events, life-stages, huge transition points in an adult's search for meaning and wisdom - these are all contained within the Major Arcana.

And, as I found during research for Unveiling: The Inner Journey, the first six Major Arcana are all "personal role archetypes."



The "six power archetypes" that I describe in Unveiling (see Chapter 7: "A Real Woman's Path (Really Does Exist!)") are six of the eight "core archetypes" that define or describe our human psyche. Unveiling, following the logical model of the Major Arcana, focuses on six of the eight. (The remaining two are like "archetypal battery packs" - they help us recharge and regenerate our "inner juice." They help us get grounded when we have become too disconnected, or too stressed. But they are not our power archetypes. And Unveiling, as with the Major Arcana, focuses on the "power modes.")

There's a reason why there are eight total "core archetypes"; not ten, not twelve, not twenty. There's a reason that they are exactly the ones that they are, and not some hob-scobbling together from a grab-bag of god and goddess personas, or modes that emerge from our damaged or weaker or "transitional" states.

And there's a reason that six of these eight are "power modes." These are the means by which we attain higher consciousness.

Sound strange?

Maybe, at first.

But I didn't invent these "power archetypes." The earlier Renaissance developers of the Tarot decks didn't invent them, either. (That is, the ones who produced the "accurate" decks. There were a lot of different, individualistic interpretations and made-up decks, just as there are today. But those were one-time offshoots, not the "real thing.")

The "inventors" - if we want to call them that - were the persons who "invented" the Jewish Kabbalah, and understood the "Tree of Life." That meant that they were scholars and mystics, seers and sages. They had rigorous minds, and subjected themselves to challenging "inner journeys" that led them to standing in the presence of God, and knowing their oneness with the Divine.

They understood how to get to this state. They expressed it as the "pathways" in going from one center (Sephiroth) to another within this cosmic "Tree of Life." And they taught their students how to do the same. This is what resulted in the Kabbalah (later the Qabalah).

They expressed this "journey" as a series of 22 steps. One step was the starting point - a person identified himself or herself as an "aspirant." It was like asking for initiation into a Masonic guild. (This tradition, of course, is where the various esoteric schools and "orders" have supposedly received their knowledge.)

Once a person identifies that he or she is starting on an "inner journey," there are three major stages of growth, and seven steps to each stage. (That gives us 21 steps, which combined with the first one, gives a total of 22. Twenty-two cards in the Major Arcana, twenty-two Sephiroth, and twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And yes, of course they're all related.) These 21 steps (after identifying that we're on a journey) comprise our adult life stages.

Most of us know about "growth stages" in children, such as the "terrible twos." If we're more familiar with childhood growth stages, we understand that each one is a distinct stage of cognitive and personal development. Much of this was elicited by Piaget, and has helped us with current childhood development theory.

We also understand that there are "adult life stages." The "mid-life crisis" that men and women alike experience is a good example. (Although it's fairly simplistic, and when we start working with the "real" life stages shown to us by our archetypes, we get a much better handle on things.)

As taught by the ancient Kabbalistic masters, each "life stage" had a distinct purpose in an adult's growth as a human being. The first of these three "life stages" was that a person had to come to know - and gain mastery of - each of their six "power archetypes." (They figured that they didn't have to teach the remaining two; they assumed that people innately understood and could use their own "battery pack" archetypes as needed.)

Six power archetypes. That's what we're after now. that's what the "aspirants" were after then. After gaining understanding of each of their six power archetypes, they moved on to the seventh step; integration.

The goal then was the same as it is today. Master each of six different "power modes." Use them at will. Use them all, together, as needed.

So - what are these "power archetypes"? I'll write about them soon - and also the "disempowered" ones, and the "transitional" ones as well. And I'll explain how each has an important role in our life; they're like magnetic "points of attraction." Part of our inner journey is to release the less powerful (and less fulfilling) ones, and access the ones that help us be more powerful, functional, happy, and fulfilled.

And then, of course, a big part of our inner journey is that we learn to use each archetypal mode as appropriate and necessary, and to combine them at will.

Knowing, and accessing, each of the six power modes, and having your two "reserve modes" to back you up - that gives you a total of eight modes. It's like being your very own V8 engine.

Suppose that you were a V8-engine racing car, and you were going to take on a tough Swiss Alps road course race, involving dangerous turns through mountain passes.

You wouldn't set off on your journey if one of the cylinders in your engine didnt' work, would you?

Our life is our road course race. We need each of our "power modes."

Want to learn how?

Read Unveiling.

You can order it now:
  • For a signed, dated, and early-numbered copy: Order through Cleo's Closet,
  • For fast delivery directly from the "print shop": Order through CreateSpace,
  • For easiest ordering - with a vendor whom you know and trust: Order through Amazon, by going to the image below.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

"Unveiling" Book Signing Saturday, August 6th, 3-5PM, Star*Nuts Gourmet Cafe, McLean, VA

First McLean-Area Book Signing for Unveiling: The Inner Journey


McLean-based author Alay'nya will offer the first free, open-to-the-public book signing of her newly-released Unveiling: The Inner Journey at Star*Nuts Gourmet Cafe on Saturday, August 6th, from 3-5PM.


The book signing will include a mini-reading, and Alay'nya's famed "60-Second Geek-to-Gorgeous" Transformation," which will help any woman look as though she has gained an inch in height, lost 10 years and 10 pounds, and added a sublime element of "gorgeousness" to her personal "arsenal of allure"!

Unveiling: The Inner Journey is available through Amazon.com, and also through CreateSpace.com. For those who want a signed copy, but who cannot make it to a McLean-area signing, signed, dated, and numbered copies are available from Cleo's Closet.