Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Six Top Blog Posts for The Unveiling Journey

Six-Year Anniversary for The Unveiling Journey Blog Series: Six Top Blog Posts Over Past Six Years

Over these six years, I've written about 100 blog posts.

The archetype overview blogs are by far the most popular in the nearly 100 blogposts, written over six years, for The Unveiling Journey - a companion blog to the book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey, published in July, 2011.

 

Congratulations - You've Found One of the Top Blog Posts in The Unveiling Journey

Congratulations!

You've come to a blog series further developing themes first expressed in Unveiling: The Inner Journey. Since 2007 (and across two sites - this and the new website) there have been over a hundred blog posts on these themes: your core power archetypes, the secret of life mastery - how you integrate your archetypes, and your major adult life journeys - originally identified in the Kabbalah (as the Tree of Life).

In mid-2013, we moved the entire blog series to a new location.

Here are some great reading choices:

 

Why the Transition to a New Blog Site?

  • Better Intralinking: You'll find related blogposts easier (look at the end of this post on the new site for good links),
  • Better Categories and Tags: Interested in a related topic? Want to see what else is covered? Look in the right-hand sidebar on the new site - check out the Categories (main topics) and Tags (people, books, events, and sub-topics), and
  • Improved Resources: Look for a Resources Page (main header menu); it will give you a different kind of access to related topics - from the antecedents (books inspiring this ongoing work) to future directions.

 

See you over there - and thank you!

 

Alay'nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)

 

Saturday, October 19, 2013

When You’ve Betrayed Yourself – And How to Recover

All Betrayal Is Really What We Do to Ourselves – and Yes, We CAN Recover!

Right now, there's a nationwide (and worldwide) concern about money.

 

Throughout the whole country, there are many people asking themselves: How could I have put myself so much at risk?

 

I had a mentor once who famously said, We always know. We may not want to admit it to ourselves, but we always know.

 

Sometimes we make great choices.

 

Sometimes, we make awful ones.

 

How do we recover from the bad ones?

 

(Hint: We invoke our inner Emperor - our Protector and Provider archetype - to come to our aid.)

 

To read the full blog post, please go to: When You've Betrayed Yourself - and How to Recover - thank you!

 

Friday, September 27, 2013

The Pathway to Pleasure: Inner Stillness Leads to Knowing What You Really Desire

The Pathway to Your Pleasure-Goddess Hathor Lies in Finding Your Inner Quiet Core

Are you feeling that your life is run – much too much – by your commitments and your “to-do” list? Are you seeking to bring more pleasure into your life? Are you actually desiring to reframe your entire life so that pleasure is at your center and your core? In short, are you ready to start making you your own top priority? Not your job. Not your husband or significant other. Not your family (could be parents, could be the kids). Not even fitting into your own earlier expectations for yourself. In short, are you ready to bust loose? To find freedom? To discover and embrace who you really are? Welcome to the club, dearest one. Pioneers in Pleasure One of the strongest advocates for women finding their own pathway to pleasure these days is Regena Thomaschauer, aka Mama Gena. An early interview with her, for Glamour magazine, cited some of Mama’s suggested reading. Among these were a book by Dr. Stella Resnick, The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings and How to Let Go and Be Happy. Read more: Go to Inner Stillness Leads to Your Palace of Pleasure - today's blogpost from and for the Unveiling community. See you there! Alay'nya P.S. - Haven't opted in yet? Please. Do so right away. Opt-In box is in the Right-Hand Sidebar, as soon as you get to Inner Stillness Leads to Your Palace of Pleasure. That way, you'll get a heads-up each week when the blog post comes out. You won't have to remember to find me; I'll find you! And you can follow-up as your heart desires. Thank you, dear one - and I'll see you over there1

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Have You Missed Me? (I've Missed You - Directions HERE to new blogsite!)

Dearest -

We've moved.  

And even though I did a blogpost three months ago "announcing" the move (and some of you moved over to join me) - not all of you did.  

Which made me realize - you were still waiting for this blog to come through your RSS feed.  

THANK YOU!  

I love and adore you for adding me to your feed!  

I'm thrilled that you wanted to make the latest word on Unveiling: The Inner Journey just pop up magically in your life.  

So - here's what to do:  

Go to the new Unveiling blogsite location - it is now co-located with the web page - makes life so much easier!  

Why the move, you may ask?  

Well, I put it off for as long as possible. The pain of transition, and all that ...  

But here are three really good reasons that are valuable to YOU:  

  • Better content organization - easier for you to find what you want: Travel over to the right on the new blog site (yes, that is the new Unveiling blog - you'll see the right-hand sidebar. It contains widgets. Scroll down a bit - you'll see the archives (they have that here on Google's Blogger), then Categories, then the Tag Cloud. Categories give you MUCH BETTER searchability for main topics. The Tag Cloud lets you sort of see and dive into a "swirl" of supporting topics. Too cool, huh?
  • Easier, smoother website connection - easier for you to see what's coming next. Earlier, the Unveiling website was in one spot, the blog on another - now they're all under the same roof - so when I mention an upcoming workshop, lecture, or other event - easier for you to pop on over and get the deets! And finally -
  • Better integration of images and "fancy things" that make the blog more readable, more fun. This new blogsite is produced using WordPress, the #1 web/blog software framework - it has a whole lot of special little add-ins that give you special little blessings - go on, check it out, you'll like the new look!

So - how to keep being informed on a regular basis?  

Once again - that little sidebar on the right. (The new blogsite, please.) Notice the "Opt-In" form at the very top?  

Yup. That's the one. Red on grey. The one that says "The power of Unveiling ..."  

Do as the form says.  

Give me your name, your email.  

That's all.  

Once a week - on Tuesdays (at least, that's my game plan), you'll hear from me. Short little email, right in your in-box.  

Give you a heads-up on BOTH that day's blog (easy link if you want to read more) AND - should you be interested - a quick peek and link to the previous week's (Thursday's) Alay'nya Studio blog.  

If you're at all interested in the dance aspect, this gives you a two-fer. Quick heads-up on BOTH the Unveiling blog and the Alay'nya Studio blog.  

PLUS - (there's always an extra plus, right?) - you'll be on my first-to-invite list for special events.  

Lectures. Workshops. Public appearances of any and all sorts.  

Even event announcements where I might not be the main player, or even a player, but the person/group is so noteworthy that I'd really want to share it with you.  

Trust me.  

(Famous words, right?)  

Go ahead. Take the risk. Sign up.  

We'll stay connected.  

And that's a good thing, right?  

yours - with much love - Alay'nya  


P.S. Special enticement? My newer blogs have lots more pictures. Lots more easy-to-read well-defined sections. Brief reviews of work-by-others; links to their cool stuff. In short, richer, juicier, more fun. Check them out!  


P.P.S. - Latest - most awesomely cool good news to share: Unveiling: The Inner Journey just got its TWENTIETH (yes, that's 2-0) 5-star Amazon review - the most recent is from Maria Strova, author of The Secret Language of Belly Dancing, along with the newly-released Salome. I give a link to her website and mine, and to her book and mine, and a quick little excerpt from her review, in a recent Alay'nya Studio blog: Does Belly Dance Give You Physical Pleasure? (It Should!). Check it out!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Practical "Unveiling"

Unveiling has been reaching an audience worldwide. Now, Unveiling fans can apply the "art of unveiling" to their lives - and to their dance. Alay'nya has taught women the art of Oriental dance through the Alay'nya Studio, which offers belly dance classes in North Virginia. Her book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey has been adopted by women worldwide as a women's body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway guidebook. For those with an entrepreneurial bent, or those who are aspiring authors, Alay'nya (in her "daytime" persona as Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.) has founded Mourning Dove Press, offering strategic guidance - and the possibility of publication under the MDP imprint - to those who want to sell more than the "expected" 200 copies of their works. Lessons learned while taking Unveiling to a world-wide audience are interpreted for others, using the time-honored principles taught by Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Becoming a "Magician" Is Not Hogwarts-Easy!

Becoming a Magician - Not As Easy as Going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!

Ah, if life were only so easy!

If all that we had to do - in order to become a functioning, real, practicing Magician - were to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (from the Harry Potter novels), we'd have a relatively straightforward task. Perhaps not always easy. (Think of the various nasty elements that Harry, Hermione, and Ron face each year.) However, our course of study would be laid out for us. All we'd have to do would be to attend the required classes, practice hard, and - hooray! - we'd emerge at the end, wand in hand, as a fully-fledged Magician.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

And maybe, we'd think, a bit of luck might be involved. Or at least the right genetics.

But what if each of us had Magician-potential?

What if for each of us, becoming a Magician was a core part of our life's work?

Those of you who have been following along will be familiar with the basic theme of this archetypal study: Our adult "life journey" follows a path laid out in the Kabbalah - really based on the Tree of Life. There is a simple, straightforward, and easy mapping of the various "stages" of our "life journey" into the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

(Sidenote: It may very well be that the Tarot system, including both Major and Minor Arcana, was invented to capture this Kabbalistic "life journey." The first Tarot decks came into being during the height of the Inquisition, when the Jewish people were being persecuted; being driven from their homes, forced to convert to Christianity, and often tortured and killed. This went on for hundreds of years. The possibility of all Jewish esoteric knowledge being lost would have given the Kabbalistic thought-leaders huge motivation to capture their essential teachings for future generations in a sort of "Purloined Letter" manner - hiding them in plain sight, so to speak. More on that in a later blogpost.)

Our adult "life journey" really has three stages. While I address all three within the pages of Unveiling: The Inner Journey, most of the posts in this series have focused on building a deeper understanding of the first stage; that which author Rachel Pollack (in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom) calls The Worldly Sequence.

Prior to starting our adult "life journey," we are each in the role of the Fool. This doesn't mean that we are "foolish," per se. It just means that we are innocent; unknowing. We're like Bilbo Baggins, before he leaves the warm, safe, known realm of the Shire. Before he goes There and Back Again.

As a quick review, this first adult "life journey" takes us through six distinct steps, with a seventh providing a wrap-up or integration. In order, these are:

  • Magician: Visionary and creative,
  • High Priestess: Contemplative and intuitive,
  • Empress: Nurturing and caring, all too often losing oneself as the focus becomes on meeting the needs of others,
  • Emperor: Building and sustaining, from managing projects at work to running the home,
  • Hierophant: Guru and guide; developing our Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda aspects,
  • Love-Goddess: Renamed Hathor in Unveiling (after the Egyptian goddess of love, romance, and pleasure in all its forms), and
  • Winged Victory: Sometimes called the Chariot, we "pull together" the opposing forces of each of these powerful archetypes, harnessing them as needed to our strong sense of will.

Again, if all that we had to do was to cultivate each of these archetypes, in a nice and neat linear order, life would be easy.

But it's not.



Simply getting from our starting place as the innocent Fool into being a powerful and effective Magician is in itself a huge challenge. Most people don't make it this far.

There's a reason for this.

Going from Fool to Magician is not simply taking a step on a garden path. It's not just enrolling for the first year of college. It is a profound, huge shift in the way-we-are in the world.

Furthermore, this Fool-to-Magician transformation is really several giant steps, all rolled into one.

We can credit Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., author of The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, with discerning and elucidating the fullness, richness, and overall complexity of this huge life-transition.

The next few posts will develop this Fool-to-Magician journey in more detail. In fact, the next several posts will concentrate on the Magician archetype itself: what it is, how we get there. How to spot and discern "magicianship" - in ourselves and others. (It helps us to acknowledge our own successes, especially when we can see them as part of the bigger picture.) After suitable attention to the Magician, I'll return to the Emperor archetype. These two - Magician and Emperor - are a powerful duo. Leaders throughout government, military, industry, and non-profit sectors are largely composed of Emperor/Magician personalities; sometimes both archetypes rolled into one; often with partners or teams having strong Emperor and Magician representations.

However, as Dr. Pearson discovered, the Fool-to-Magician transition is not easy. It is a set of journeys within itself, and may be far more arduous and challenging than we would ever believe.

Thus, our first step - in developing ourselves as Magicians - is to study this Fool-to-Magician transition more completely. To "gird up our loins," so to speak, for a potentially long and difficult journey.

We note that in Pearson's diagram (shown above), there is a long distance between the Wanderer and the Magician. Going from one to the other doesn't happen overnight.

However, we recall a line from a poem in The Hobbit: "Not all those who wander are lost."

Even though we may have a long stage of "wandering," in order to discover and fulfill our Magician potential, this is part of doing the magical work itself.

The essence of magic is transformation: Creating something, essentially, from nothing; from the raw, primordial substrate of consciousness. Over the next several posts, I'll provide many examples: creating a cohesive work team where there had been only divisiveness and back-biting. Creating a major symphonic performance with a scanty budget and tired (but still enthusiastic) volunteer musicians. Envisioning and creating a new product, service, and/or marketing plan.

Most of the time, though, our biggest "magical" actions are done in transforming ourselves. We become more of a Magician as we are willing to relinquish the fierce grip of being a Martyr and/or a Warrior. We take an even bigger step as we are willing to step into the unknown, especially the unknown space of our inner selves, when we are willing to relinquish the safety and security of known roles. In this, we are going from Fool to Wanderer. And only then, can we take the most powerful step and go from Wanderer to Magician.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Dethroning the "Emperor"

Dethroning Our Inner Emperor - And Freeing Ourselves from Archetypal Dominance

The function of Emperors is to create empires.

That's simple, isn't it?

Their role in life - both as "external emperors" (in the "real world" of current events and history) and as "internal emperors" (our Emperor archetype) - is to create, build, and sustain empires. Their intent is to grow their empires, by whatever means possible. And to ensure that their empires "reign supreme" over all others.

Ghenghis Khan, creator and ruler of the Mongol empire, 1155-1227 AD

Think of some of the greatest Emperors that the world has known. Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan easily come to mind. Each of these built armies, waged war, and created empires that were - at that time - among the largest that the world has ever seen.

Successful emperors (those who build the largest and most solid empires) typically have not only an intense, committed, and long-term focus on empire-building, but also pursue their aims (as in the case of Genghis Khan) with "a combination of outstanding military tactics and merciless brutality."

The relevance of all of this to ourselves, we might ask?

We might have various Emperor-personas in our lives. A boss or co-worker who is unapologetically ambitious. Someone in a non-profit who uses every opportunity to get the spotlight on him or herself. Even a much-loved - albeit feared - family matriarch. All of these are Emperors in their own right.

We treat these people with due deference and respect - and typically, give them as wide a berth as possible. Most of the time, we find it easier to avoid these people, to simply "not deal" - because we know that they are more focused, cunning, and downright more driven than we will ever be.

But truly, it's not these "external emperors" that we need to worry about.

Our real concern should properly be with the Emperor that lurks inside each of us. In fact, the one that runs almost all aspects of our lives.

This is the Emperor that ruthless and merciless - to ourselves!

This is the Emperor that drives us to work until our health breaks; to ignore our own inner desperate pleadings for time for rest, for pleasure, for connection, for even a walk outside on a lovely spring day. This is the Emperor who chooses a life path of success, power, recognition, control - all, ultimately, based on ego.

We may think that we've managed to elude the controlling grasp of our inner Emperor - and some of us have. However, a lack of worldly success does not always mean that our inner Emperor is dormant or absent. Rather, it can just as easily mean that we have enough internal conflict so that our Emperor can push us to great extents - but is constantly being hampered by internal "palace revolts."

So how do we discern our Emperor? And then, how do we "overthrow" him?

Even more, is "overthrowing" our Emperor what we really want? Or is there a way to "manage" our own internal Emperor, so that we are getting the "best out of the deal"?

Common sense, and a dose of practical wisdom, suggests that complete "dethronement" may not be entirely what we want.

We wouldn't have such a powerful inner archetype as our Emperor if it ("he") were not extremely useful.

What we're desiring, though, is not just a sense of balance, but really something more.

Our Emperor comes from ego. And ultimately, our ego is fear-driven.

Our real goal is to live beyond our egos; to live according to a higher vision and sense of purpose. We design to align ourselves more with God's will in our lives. This means changing our internal "power structure" somewhat.

Walt Kelly first used the quote "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" on a poster for Earth Day in 1970.

There's that well-known saying; "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Well, that "us" would be our own internal Emperor - the most powerful, determined, focused, and controlling of our six core power archetypes.

So how do we discern him? And how do we "dethrone" him? (That means - not remove completely, but get him into a useful and somewhat "subordinate" place?) That will be the subject of the next few blogs.

Yours with love -

Alay'nya

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Is Your "Emperor" Ruling Your Life?

Is Your Inner Emperor Ruling Your Life? (And If So, What Can You Do?)

A gentle tyrant.

Perhaps, sometimes, even not-so-gentle.

Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor (1557-1619), painted by Hans von Aachen (1625).

We each have an inner Emperor.

Our Emperor mode, or archetype, is our "Project Manager" self. When we deal with cognitive, rational, "get-things-done" types of tasks - tasks often involving budgets, deadlines, and deliverables - we call on our inner Emperor.

Our inner Emperor is one of our six core power archetypes, and is often dominant. He (along with is compatriot, the Magician) tends to be a "resource hog."

We can't blame him; not really. Any good Project Manager, CEO, or President-of-Anything will charm, co-opt, or just plain commandeer any and every resource that he (or she) can find to get the job done. That's why they're paid the "big bucks." They get things done - and to hell with whose toes get stepped on in the process.

Our Emperor is all about - whatever he's "all about." This could be getting a law degree or a promotion at work. It could simply be getting a five-year-old's birthday party to come off successfully. Regardless, our inner Emperor is highly task-focused. And because "his" role is to get things done, at all costs, when he's in charge, no other archetypal mode gets much attention.

Our inner High Priestess wants to go for a walk, or even to get out of town for the weekend to simply chill? Sorry, but we're staying late at the office until the report is done.

Our inner Hathor wants some spa time? Later.

Our inner Empress wants to connect with girlfriends, or stay at home and cuddle? Again, later. Her needs get deferred in the face of the Emperor's overwhelming (perhaps even obsessive) task-focused nature.

Now don't get me wrong. We need our Emperor mode. This aspect of our psyche is essential to our well-being.

The challenge is that - for too many of us - we've allowed our inner Emperor to really become an inner Tyrant - gobbling up all of our time, all of our resources, and all of our energies. And then we find ourselves exhausted, frustrated, and just downright depressed and angry.

So how do we deal?

That will be the subject of the next several postings.

References

Soloman, Presidential Address to the Eastern Psychological Association, NYC, April, 1963.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Hestia - Our "Rest amd Recharge" Archetype - Part 2

Why We Need Some "Hestia Time"

 

It Was More Than "Just Winter"

Shortly after Thanksgiving, my father died. This, of course, was the "tipping point." But it was one event on top of several.

Within a single week, one housemate - someone with a severe medical condition - went into the hospital. Another, newly moving in, announced that she had quit her new job, would be unable to pay her security deposit, and would likely not have the next month's rent. Then, a tooth condition flared up, and it looked as though I'd need an emergency root canal.

Within another week, a housemate (yes, the same one who couldn't pay security or rent) lit a fire in the fireplace. The flue was open, but it was cold - and she started up a fire of magnificent proportions. Naturally, the smoke went into the room, instead of up the cold chimney flue. We had smoke throughout, as never before. I was faced with the somewhat daunting task of repainting the entire living room.

This combination - of grief over my father's passing, of simply too much stress from external events, and the onset of winter - kicked me firmly into a combination of High Priestess and Hestia modes.

High Priestess and Hestia - Two Natural Complements

High Priestess, by Mari-Na

Our High Priestess, as we know, is our contemplative and intuitive mode. This is where we take a spiritual retreat, or even just take a long walk. We need our High Priestess to find the "calm spot" within ourselves.

Our High Priestess is a necessary complement to our visionary, creative Magician mode. Without some reflective time, we find it difficult to tap into our inspirations and creativity. This is why our High Priestess is the second major archetype we encounter in our first adult life journey. Within the Major Arcana of the Tarot, she is Card II, and immediately follows the Magician (Card I).

Since our High Priestess plays such an important role in our lives, we often miss the important corollary of our Hestia mode.

Hestia - Our "Hearth and Home" Goddess

Hestia image created by Katlyn Breene, permission requested.

She [Hestia] is the Goddess of the hearth flame and temple flame, and at every public or private ritual, the first offering was always made to her. Upon marrying, a new bride would carry fire from her mother's home to the new, symbolizing the Goddess's presence blessing her new family. Hestia is the symbol of the sanctity of home, of home as temple and refuge, and of the fire of life contained within each place that honors her. (Text from Lunaea.)

"Mend, Tend, Befriend": How Women Deal with Stress

Shelley E. Taylor, Ph.D., has led breakthrough research uncovering how women's typical stress-responses are different from men's. In her book, The Tending Instinct, she found that "tending and befriending" behaviors - those that involve bonding - are part of women's natural responses to stress. However, it was also Taylor who coined the phrase "mend, tend, and befriend." The "mending" part, and also our "tending," may refer to our physical environment as well as our emotional landscape.

Emotional bonding behaviors - whether caring for a child, a husband, a friend, or a pet - or even having lunch with girlfriends or phone call with a long-distance sibling or friend - help to produce oxytocin. Oxytocin is a "feel-good" neurohormone, and is important in many aspects of our lives. However, to "feel good," we also need other hormones. Dopamine helps us to feel the zest and juiciness of life, and serotonin is soothing and calming.

Archetypes and Neurohormones: A Strange and Useful Relation

Although it is very simplistic, we can make an "overarching" correlation between certain of our archetypes and the brain "states" that we wish to induce with each of these archetypal modes.

  • Empress - our "tend and befriend" mode - strongly correlated with oxytocin-inducing behaviors,
  • High Priestess - intuitive and contemplative - and least well-understood in terms of neurohormonal correlates, but most likely linked to anything that is serotonin producing (and hence the strong association with the Hestia archetype)
  • Hestia - the "mend" part of our "mend, tend, and befriend" stress-coping strategies - less emotionally-connected than Empress, and much more focused on the "calming" (serotonin-producing) activities of cleaning house, mending items, and generally keeping order, and
  • Hathor (the Love Goddess) - focusing on sensual pleasure, love and romantic passion - a "dopamine-focused" (feeling exuberant and ecstatic) archetype.

Hestia and House-Cleaning: Breaking Through the Winter Doldrums

Alana Morales, writing for the online Mommie's Magazine, shares that house-cleaning helps relieve stress. She's not alone in this, as even the Mayo Clinic offers activity (such as house-cleaning), as a means of stress reduction.

Laura, a writer for Radiant Recovery, describes how she found that house-cleaning helped her to reduce stress . A friend and colleague pointed out the relation between cleaning, stress reduction, and seratonin.

She wrote:

That when OCD gets really bad you can not stop the need to clean that one spot on the table or keep washing your hands or organizing the silverware drawer or whatever.

And, here is the kicker, she said how do you feel after you clean or neaten the things up that bother you? I thought for a moment and said, I feel much , much better. A sense of relief...and calm.

She said that is because you just got some serotonin. The act of cleaning, or repetitively doing something calms you down which produces a small amount of serotonin.

Women, Stress, and Serotonin

For women, stress, depression, and serotonin levels are often linked.

We can, to some extent, improve our serotonin levels with certain kinds of foods, with exercise (which produces endorphins), and with sufficient sleep and even light-boxes (during winter).

Upcoming: Hestia Strategies

In the next blogpost, I'll share how we can consciously invoke the Hestia archetype into our lives, calling upon the "sacredness" of house-cleaning - of deliberately using our "mend and tend" instincts - to help us deal with stress. This can even help us deal with more difficult situations - such as sharp emotional life-changes, including major losses and transitions.

Related Blogs

Hestia - Our "Rest and Recharge" Archetype - Part 2

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Masculine vs. Feminine - Core Archetypes

Your Masculine and Feminine Core Archetypes: How Are They Different?

 

Have you wondered yet how much you really need the archetypes of the "other gender" in your life? That is, if you're a man, have you wondered how much you "really need" the four core feminine archetypes? And if you're a woman, have you wondered how much you "really need" the masculine qualities in your life?

Yin and Yang not only embody classic masculine and feminine qualities, but each carries the "seed" of one within the other

If so, you're not alone.

 

Congratulations - You've Found One of the Top Blog Posts in The Unveiling Journey

Congratulations!

Whether by luck or by design, you've come to the fourth most popular blogpost in The Unveiling Journey since the blog was started in 2007. (The six "most popular" blogs are selected by statistics current as of October 22, 2013. This one is actually the best on this topic to date.)

Since then, we've moved the entire blog series to a new location.

Here are some great reading choices:

 

Why the Transition to a New Blog Site?

  • Better Intralinking: You'll find related blogposts easier (look at the end of this post on the new site for good links),
  • Better Categories and Tags: Interested in a related topic? Want to see what else is covered? Look in the right-hand sidebar on the new site - check out the Categories (main topics) and Tags (people, books, events, and sub-topics), and
  • Improved Resources: Look for a Resources Page (main header menu); it will give you a different kind of access to related topics - from the antecedents (books inspiring this ongoing work) to future directions.

 

See you over there - and thank you!

 

Alay'nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.)

 

Post edited and content moved to The Unveiling Journey website, specifically to the The Masculine vs. Feminine - Core Archetypes blogpost on Tuesday, October 22, 2013. Original post February 12, 2013.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Core Archetypes Year-Long Study Guide - The "Big Picture"

Your Master Plan for Understanding and Integrating Each of the Core Power Archetypes

Suppose that you've been studying - and using - the power of archetypes in your life for a while now. What will make this year the year in which you achieve personal mastery? What will make this year your breakthrough year, and launch you to a new level of personal success and victory?

You may already understand that as we grow, we go through archetypal "growth stages." Perhaps no one explains this better than Carol Pearson, in The Hero Within. She walks us through how we go from the not-so-empowered Innocent to the fully-empowered Magician.

You may also know, from reading Caroline Myss's Sacred Contracts, that we simultaneously access and use several different archetypes. In fact, she has us select "current" and "desired" archetypes from a roster of a few dozen possibilities.

With all these great teachings, there is still something missing when we seek to fully capture the power of archetypes in our lives - the power to be in the right frame of mind for different tasks, relationships, and intentions. This "something missing" was actually laid out for us in the first seven cards of the Tarot's Major Arcana.

A Master Plan That Goes Back Thousands of Years

The background story tells us that this knowledge actually has a much older provenance than we may have thought. The earliest known Tarot decks are several hundred years old. However, the Major Arcana are based directly on the twenty-two "pathways" connecting "spheres" (Sephiroth) in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The Kabbalistic written tradition goes back for hundreds of years; the oral tradition to perhaps a couple of thousand of years. And since the Tree of Life is the earliest known base for esoteric teachings in our culture, the origins may even be earlier. The Tree of Life is mentioned in the earliest known human writings.

In short, it is very likely that a certain "esoteric teaching" - based on mastering six core power archetypes - goes back at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years.

Three factors stand out when we undertake this "journey":

  • The six core power archetypes (together with two reserve battery archetypes) match directly to three of the four "dimensions" used by Carl Jung in creating his Psychological Types,
  • There is a certain order for study and master, and
  • There is an "endgame" - that is, we don't want to just master these archetypes in isolation; we desire the ability to pull on each one (or several) as needed. That is true mastery, and it is our goal as well.

 

What is Our Master Plan?

As with all big intentions, it helps us to have a "game plan."

 

Our "game plan" is that over the course of a year, we will spend each semi-quarter on each archetype. Integration, we trust, will be something that we take up as we go along. (We may choose to repeat this study for a few years, each time gaining greater levels of insight and refinement,)

A second - yet very important - aspect of our "game plan" is that we're tying in our intellectual and practical archetype study with our "lab work" - our daily practice of energy exercises and dance movements. We tie all of these together with the appropriate "season", using the traditional Western esoteric approach of assigning and "element" to each "season."

  • Winter: Season of Earth (pentacles, the physical body, a "feminine" season),
  • Spring:Season of Air (swords, the mind, a "masculine" season),
  • Summer: Season of Fire (rods, the spirit, a "masculine" season), and
  • Autumn: Season of Water (cups, the emotional realm, a "feminine" season).

 

Master Plan Overview

Each "element" has a set of qualities associated with it, and a particular focus of attention. Our archetypal study curriculum focuses on intellectual study combined with reflection and exercises that highlight each of the specific "archetypes" for the given semi-quarter. When we combine this with pathworking, we add in elements of spiritual discipline, emotional release work, energy cultivation exercises, and (of course) dance movements and techniques and choreography.

The archetypes that we will consider, are (in order):

Winter Quarter - Season of Earth (Pentacles, a "Feminine" Season)

  • High Priestess: Dec. 21 - Jan 31 Being contemplative and intuitive, a time for gazing into the fire, creating a "vision board" for the coming year, and being open to "dream-time", and
  • Hestia (a reserve battery archetype): Feb 1 - Mar 20 Spring-cleaning - for our homes and our psyches; the classic "wax on, wax off" approach to opening our minds for insight and guidance.

 

Spring Quarter - Season of Air (Swords, a "Masculine" Season)

  • Magician: Mar. 21 - April 30 Being a visionary, creating reality according to your "big dream", and
  • Emperor: May 1 - June 20 Bringing your desired reality into fruition; business plans, project management, process flows, stabilizing your "empire."

 

Summer Quarter - Season of Fire (Rods, a "Masculine" Season)

  • Green Man (a reserve battery archetype): June 21 - July 31 Escape to the "great outdoors," breaking out of the molds that civilization puts on us, and
  • Hierophant: Aug 1 - Sept. 20 Becoming a guru/guide for those younger than us - either in years or in skills and understanding.

 

Autumn Quarter - Season of Water (Cups, a "Feminine" Season)

  • Hathor (The "Love Goddess"): Sept. 21 - Oct 30 Reveling in sensual beauty and pleasure, and
  • Empress: Oct. 31 - Dec. 20 Connecting, loving, nurturing - sending out Christmas cards and gifts, holiday entertaining, time with family, friends, and loved ones.

 

Putting the Master Plan Into Action

For this coming year, each semi-quarter will be devoted to the appropriate archetype. I'll offer resources and guidance, and as you feel led, you can follow up at will. Resources will include:

  • Guest Bloggers: Special invited guests for each different core archetype - Giving you insights from the "best of the best," together with real-life stories from others who've achieved amazing results in different areas of their lives,
  • Suggested Readings: Links to books and online resources - Get greater depth, and
  • Exercises and Checklists (Strictly optional): What to do to get the most out of each archetypal focus.

From time to time, I'll write about the integration process - how we can combine two or more archetypes to create "mastery" for ourselves in different life situations. I'll also point the way to what happens after this level of mastery. (Yes, mastery comes in levels - and the whole work with archetypes is simply the first level. However, it's the level where we need a good foundation before advancing to anything else.)

So here's to you, with very best wishes for an absolutely awesome coming year!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Using Archetypes and Gaining Personal Freedom

Using Archetypes and the Power of Forgiveness to "Break Free" Forever!

Well, darlings, it's time to come clean.

I haven't written to you for over two months - not counting the little "warm-up" exercise that I did in two weeks ago.

There's been a reason for this.

My daddy died recently, and I've been hugely grieving his loss. And as I shared with some colleagues and friends earlier this week, I was grieving not only the loss of what we did have as a relationship, and also - what we didn't have.

I've been doing a huge amount of processing lately. And just recently have been able to do more "cognitive" tasks - such as handling emails, balancing the checkbook and paying bills, and - of course - writing.

Now, don't get me wrong on the family-thing. Daddy was a magnificent "protector and provider." He was a deeply honorable man.

But emotionally - there were things that I craved, and simply didn't get. No matter how hard I tried, or what I did.

The turn-around has come only recently, as I've started really working with forgiveness - as described in both A Course in Miracles and in the Lord's Prayer. ("Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those ...")

So here's the important thing to share. This is coming not as some abstract "word on high," but because it's been what I've been doing and working with in my own life, over the past several weeks - and it's been making a huge difference.

Forgiveness shifts things.

According to A Course in Miracles, when we forgive, we actually alter the impact of time in our lives, and in our "reality." Forgiveness extends back in time, and forward, and (as I'm sensing right now) into the lives of people who are connected with us and are around us.

Not that this makes it any easier, but I've found that forgiveness has been the one thing to release a huge logjam of "stuck stuff."

Forgiveness is one of three core "principles" with which I've been working over the past few weeks, rebuilding my life from the inside-out. (And what better way to start the new year? The new B'ak'tun even?)

The most valuable books that I’m reading right now reinforce these three principles:

  • Own Your Power & A Course in Miracles – the importance of forgiving,
  • The Power (by Rhonda Byrne) – the importance of gratitude and “giving love,” and
  • Money and the Law of Attraction (Abraham-Hicks), and all other A-H materials, the importance of always “reaching for a better-feeling thought” – of how important it is to carefully culture and nurture good-feeling thoughts, and deliberately choosing our thoughts, as they set up vibrational points-of-attraction.

 

A Course in Miracles and Own Your Power

A Course in Miracles is a true heavyweight. It's the basic "graduate-school level text" for spiritual growth. And it's not real easy. I've been working through this book for over a year. (It's designed as a one-year study program, with substantial "exercises" for each day). If I were to grade myself on this, I'd be somewhere between a C- (at my very best) and a D-. (That's for those days where I'm cussing under my breath, being really sarcastic, and generally blowing the whole thing off.)

 

 

Paper

 

Kindle

 

 

The only reason that I stay with the Course?

Well really, there's two.

The first is that there are only three people in my life right now to whom I will turn when things go really down. Only three people whom I know, and to whom I can call, who have the right "tone" when they address an issue. That is to say, they have real spiritual depth. Each of these persons has done A Course in Miracles. A couple have done it several times. One teaches it, another is getting ready to teach it. It's not that another really substantive spiritual path wouldn't do as well, but in my personal circle right now, those who've worked the Course are those who have worked their lives.

The other factor?

Well, A Course in Miracles itself states: "Everyone will answer in the end..." In fact, the Course makes it clear that once we start on this particular journey, we will finish it. We may stall about, but ultimately, we can't drop out of this particular "Course." It's like being enrolled in a school curriculum required class. If we screw up, we just get to take the same class over again. And again. There's no real "quitting." Which is the only reason, some days, that I don't quit.

That doesn't make it any easier. And since this isn't easy, I don't go about recommending this book to all my family and friends, because it's just a little bit of a big challenge.

What I do recommend, however, is a book that is not yet on the market - although it soon will be.

My dear intuitive friend Alice (S. Alice, or "Alicja," Jones) is getting her second book, Own Your Power, published soon. Own Your Power is kind of A Course in Miracles-light. A “see Spot run” approach to spiritual teachings. More accessible. Be certain, I'll let you know as soon as it's released. I've been looking at a pre-release copy, and it has had a HUGE impact in my life already!

And so – while I’ve been reading bits and pieces of the pre-release Own Your Power, I've noticed some big shifts in how I've dealt with situations and people that were beyond irritating. Truly, this book has helped me get through some very awkward and difficult times in these past two weeks; times when I’d really have blown it unless I used Own Your Power to get re-centered. I’ll keep you in the loop for when it’s coming out.

Now I've told you that three principles - and three sets of books - were having a major impact and being very useful for me right now. The first was (see above) the power of forgiveness, and the relevant books were A Course in Miracles and the forthcoming (and much easier) Own Your Power, by S. Alice ("Alicja") Jones, out soon.

The other two principles were gratitude (see The Power, which is the sequel to The Secret, by Rhonda Byrnes), and the importance of carefully aligning and shaping our thoughts - focusing our thoughts - so as to carefully establish our "vibrational point of attraction." (See any of the Abraham-Hicks material, although I'm currently working with Money and the Law of Attraction.)

This blog contains enough to read (and enough for me to write) in one sitting, so I'll defer the next two principles to a subsequent blog.

And then, I'll take the "big step" and link up these principles (all three of them) to how we can work with our archetypes. Because I've found that our archetypes - the primary ways or modalities in which we shape our psychological core - are not something simply handed down to us at birth.

We're not just "born with" an archetypal predisposition, as we might have thought if we'd been following a simple Myers-Briggs approach. (Please recall, as mentioned in Unveiling: the Myers-Briggs approach was adopted during World War II as a means to effectively match service people to the jobs for which they'd be most suited. The deeper, Jungian-based material on which the MBTI questionnaire was based does suggest that we access all archetypal modalities, and mature in our use of them over time.)

Now here, in brief, is what we'll cover soon in terms of archetypes and their relation to spiritual principles, such as forgiveness.

Sometimes, we have a natural predisposition towards one archetypal mode, but have the ability to use another mode.

This is particularly true for women; I expect that we women are more psychologically flexible then men.

Sometimes, we have life events - of a variety of sorts, ranging from family influences to huge cultural surrounds - that cause us to reject an archetypal mode that would be our natural and normal "home state." And in self-defense, we pick up another mode that we think gives us better "survival value." (I know. Complex. More on this soon.)

When that happens, we get stuck. It's hard for us then to make full use of all the archetypal modes available to us. It's like having to drive a car in one gear only. Really, really tough at times.

Forgivenesss (see the reference to the spiritual stuff?) helps us break down the defenses and fears that we build up about accessing our other, rightful and enjoyable and effective and sometimes downright necessary archetypal modes. It breaks the logjam. It tears down the (often imaginary but still impactful) internal "barbed wire fence" that keeps us locked into a very small "range of motion."

Now, as a quick overview of where this will lead us.

When we release something at the spiritual level, we release it energetically as well. When we reframe our emotional setpoints (using gratitude) and train our minds to select better-feeling thoughts (changing our "vibrational point-of-attraction"), we make it possible to have huge shifts in our physical bodies. We can release tension. We can breathe better. We can move out old, tight little nodules of pain.

But when we've had energetic/emotional "stuck stuff" lodged in our bodies for a long time, this physical release doesn't come about automatically.

That's why we need a pathway.

Specifically, we need a body/mind/psyche/energy pathway that helps move the release work that we do at the spiritual, energetic, and emotional levels into our body, and vice versa.

There are two art forms that I've found, in my more than thirty years of studying body-mind arts, that help us with this purpose. These are T'ai Ch'i Chuan and Oriental dance.

Yoga is good. Yoga is downright necessary, as it helps us stretch out and release tension throughout. And let's keep in mind that yoga was designed to be a pathway. The physical yoga movements are the complement to the other spiritual disciplines of meditation, etc. So yoga can work very well.

However, for women who desire to include emotional expressiveness as part of their total life-integration and healing, Oriental dance works much more, because once we get a certain amount of technique down, the dance is all about emotional expression. Not fancy choreography. Not virtuoso technique. But rather, Oriental dance gives us the opportunity to tap into how we feel as we listen to music, and listen to our souls listening to the music.

I've had all my "big breakthroughs" in my body associated with dance. However, yoga, and healing therapies - Reiki, massage, Rolfing, a number of things - they have all been very powerful in helping to do "logjam releases" at the physical level.

For men, and for women who simply don't have an affinity with Oriental dance, I continue to recommend T'ai Ch'i. It allows the same physical release and integration work to take place. And I've taken a number of Principles from T'ai Ch'i and applied them to Oriental dance, so that at the core, these two arts come from the same place. (At least in how I express them, and teach them to my students.)

In the next few posts, I'll round out the spiritual principles of gratitude and deliberately shaping our "vibrational point-of-attraction." I'll start the new year with a survey of the major archetypes; how we can use them, and how we can move from one to another. Also, we'll look at how we can draw archetypal complements into our lives; this allows us to primarily invoke one state, and yet get the benefit of others.

In the related blogposts for the Alay'nya Studio, I'll develop specifics of how we can use Oriental dance as our body/mind/psyche/energy integration pathway. I'll include specific techniques and general exercises. I'll provide links to music, DVDs, and other resources, and I'll share how we are structuring our quarterly curriculum.

By combining spiritual release work with the energy-cultivation and physical practice, any of us can create a much more powerful - and happy and fulfilling - way of living. Here's to a joyous 2013 and beyond!