Anne Maria Clarke - Tales of Wonder

Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: Homer's Illiad: The Transformation of Achilles' Rage

9/5/2020

#Achilles #Briseis #Epic #Homer#Love #Poetry #Troy #Homer #The Iliad #warroir archetype

The Transformation of Achilles' Rage

Sing oh muse the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death.

Begin. Muse, when the two first broke and clashed; Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.What god drove them to fight with such a fury? "
― Homer, The Iliad

So begins Homer's great work - and straightaway we learn - as was the custom to reveal at the very start - that the key notion to be explored - is the legendary rage of mighty Achilles.

What follows is the epic tale of how this affliction came about - how it broke and eroded his character and how it was eventually eased and transformed. Lasting three whole nights in the telling the tale was performed from memory, most frequently to the accompaniment of a lute - and it would have been presumed that listeners were already aware of the main characters and their back stories.

The muse, as always was invoked at the start to illumine what followed. For those were the days (and perhaps they still are) when the affairs of gods and mortal folk were mysteriously intertwined. Zeus, Aphrodite, Hera and Athena are behind the scenes from the start, some say they have even orchestrated the war with Troy & they intervene on different sides throughout along with Apollo & Thetis, divine mother goddess of Achilles. But even behind these great figures stood Eris, goddess of discord who had ignited the flames at the start - but that's another tale for another time.

The poem itself begins -in medias res (in the midst of the plot). The war with Troy is already in its tenth year. The city is besieged. Numerous battles have been fought and won in the surrounding country led by our champion, the swift footed Achilles. Settlements have been raided to provide for the great army encamped near the shore and prisoners have been taken including two women around whom the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon is centred.

Now, Achilles had taken the beautiful Besius after one such raid and had come to love her some say, whilst Agamemnon had claimed Chrysius, daughter of a high priest of Apollo who soon after came to the encampment to beg for her release, offering a huge ransom - but when Agamemnon refused - the priest prayed to Apollo that a terrible plague might come down upon Agamemnon and his men until his daughter was returned. And so it was that great Apollo, god of medicine & healing - knower of wounds & also wounding - rained down a flurry of poison arrows upon the encampment - and “his coming was like the night” (1.47)...and the arrows fell....

“ one after the other, and the shafts .....ranged everywhere throughout the wide camp of the Achaeans” (1.382-384).

Apollo in his darkness brings an 'evil pestilence' to Agamonon's men

But pride & hidden hurt had a hold of Agamemnon and still he refused to relinquish the girl even whilst his men perished before him. And Achilles came and saw, imploring him to do what was right. For...

“...constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick”
(1.52)

And all openly agreed it was the right thing to do, and so begrudgingly he gave in - but only - and this was where the enmity between the two really began - only on condition that Achilles gave him Briseis, and he cried out for all to hear,

....since Phoebus Apollo robs me of Chryses’ daughter, a ship and crew of mine will return her, but I’ll pay your quarters a visit myself, and take that prize of yours, fair-faced Briseis, so that you know how my power exceeds yours.....’

Both women were 'war prizes!' taken against their will, so it is hard to imagine any notion of romance between them and their captors as portrayed between Achilles and Briseis in the 2004 film Troy, Netflix’s Fall of a City or Madeline Miller's recent best selling Song of Achilles. We bring our own values to bear on these matters, our own wishful notions maybe - which some say are utterly mis-placed.

In any event Agamemnon’s failure to acknowledge Achilles' worth - his disregard of his importance - and the claiming of Briseis was a grave insult to the champion, who had fought unwaveringly for this king for nine long years - securing victory's that could never have been dreamed of without him and all the men knew this to be true. And whilst Agamemnon spoke,

the son of Peleus was gnawed by pain, and the heart in his shaggy breast was torn; whether to draw the sharp blade at his side, scatter the crowd, and kill the son of Atreus, or curb his wrath and restrain his spirit.

But just then, the goddess Athena came to him imploring calm ....and Achilles yielded to her voice but thereafter withdrew to his tent, refusing from that moment on to re-enter the battle.

And when the Trojan's heard they were emboldened - for without the great Achilles, the army of Agamemnon would be greatly weakened - and they began to push hard, forcing the Greeks back to the shoreline where they had first alighted.

Soon after, still enraged by Agamemnon, Achilles visited his mother
Thetis & pleaded with her to punish Agamemnon and his army. He would rather see the Greeks loose altogether it seems than permit Agamemnon to dishonour him further.

Much has been said of this conflict throughout the intervening centuries. What was it exactly that caused Achilles to react in this unexpected way - to abandon the cause as it were - to put so many men's lives at risk and - send them down to Hades - as Homer tells us at the start?

Was it love of Briseis, honour, pride, or all of these things put together - and what do his actions reveal? Many commentators focus upon Achilles emotional immaturity in an attempt to understand his rage & withdrawal from the fray but Jonathan Shay, Psychiatrist at the Department of Veterans Affairs, in Boston and author of the acclaimed - Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma & the Undoing of Character - sees it quite differently. With many years experience in treating veterans he suggests that what we are really witnessing here is Achilles' reaction to the violation of a central and universally held moral code of combat conduct.

In dishonouring his mightiest warrior - in publicly taking Briseis - Agamemnon inflicts the most grievous Moral Injury upon Achilles that Dr Shay has seen replicated time and time again in his work. Whilst of course the collective enemy is always a danger to life and limb, he says - the Moral Injuries inflicted by one's own 'side' and particularly by leaders causes far more severe and long lasting damage, than the physical wounds of war, compounding symptoms of PTSD and leading to a far greater incidence of mental breakdown, suicide, substance abuse and domestic violence.

Where there is a failure in military leadership and military ethics he asserts - soldiers experience a catastrophic loss of trust which is not only experienced emotionally - but viscerally too. The body reacts as if under major threat - the heart rate pounds - adrenaline pumps - hyper - alertness is activated - persisting long after the triggering event and from this, the veteran can find no rest - no peace long after the incident has passed.

It is extremely common for such men & women to withdraw within themselves and often literally too - like Achilles. They are acutely aware says Shay, of the danger they pose in this hyper - alert state and remove themselves as a precaution - but often never find their way back home.

We have all bought into the great misconception, asserts Shay, that given a sound enough childhood, free from serious trauma and abuse - that a solid character will be formed - that will be able to maintain itself no matter what is endured in later life. The notion is woven through our cultural history explains Shay. But it is simply not true. Everyone can be undone - everyone can be broken - as Homer clearly shows us in his portrayal of mighty Achilles and his fall from grace.

In one way of looking we can see that Achilles has been plunged into a kind of existential crisis, a breakdown of sorts. His whole reason for choosing the short life of a warrior has been thrown into question. His entire raison d'être has collapsed. This kind of dissolution of one's previous identity - is very much part of the Hero's Journey as we have seen many times - and it gets worse long before it gets better.

Those who suggest that the tale is simply about the maturation of Achilles - his egotistical thirst for glory - his struggles to overcome pride, his need to stand out - to be remembered in times to come grossly underestimate the level of Achilles maturity before the opening events of the tale to which numerous retrospective references are made throughout - but perhaps more importantly - they completely underestimate the disintegrating impact of the type of Moral Wounding inflicted by Agamemnon.

Don't forget - we are already in the ninth year of the war. Much has been endured but also accomplished and a very large part of this success is due to Achilles' own leadership - his own ethical code. He was well liked, we hear, highly respected, charismatic, skilled at healing the war wounds of his men. In short - he was already a mature warrior - in the sense that Moore & Gillette (link below) have outlined for us. This is Dr Shay's conclusion too - and that of the many, many war veterans he has treated - who we are told, resonate and identify so profoundly with Achilles and his wounds - in spite of the fact that the story was written down in approximately 762 B.C. Some things, as we have seen many times - are universal - no matter time or place.

The Iliad holds a special place in the corpus of Greek Tragedy, an epic tale told & told again to ancient Greek audiences for many hundreds of years, perhaps around a crackling fire, deep into the night & later staged in the great amphitheatres throughout the realm. Simon Critchley - the contemporary classicist reminds us of the derivation of the words, theatre and spectator in his recent lecture on 'Tragedy's Philosophy,' (link below).
Theatron being the word referring to the seating area of an ancient Greek theatre.....and,

....from the Greek word for spectators, theatai, the later philosophical term “theory” was derived, and the word “theoretical” until a few hundred years ago meant “contemplating,” looking upon something from the outside, from a position implying a view that is hidden from those who take part in the spectacle and actualize it.
The Life of the Mind: Investigation on How We Think : Hannah Arendt

The gods too, as we have seen, provide additional perspective – they are onlookers in a different way to us - as is the chorus – each providing different ways of understanding the story that expands our own.

The idea, in attending such productions - an integral part of Greek life - was to contemplate the matters in question, from a detached position, not just to be entertained or distracted - but in order to learn, to see - through exploration and contemplation - the very nature of the issues - and in this case Achilles' rage. And not just his rage of course - but rage itself - our rage - how and why it came about and how it too can be transformed.

...and this is the great beauty of tragedy and the reason for its longevity - is that it does just this - it resonates with us on a profound level, yielding precious insight those who care to take note.

So taking up the tale again, we hear that Achilles' mother agrees to help him teach Agamemnon a lesson and that later so does Zeus - who promptly sends a false dream to the emboldened King, causing him to act against his own interests and those of his men - ordering them into battle prematurely - an act that ultimately, in an unforeseen twist, will cause Achilles an even greater pain and a greater loss than he could have ever imagined.

Now on the battlefield beyond things do not go well - and the Trojan’s soon get the upper hand. Odysseus & Ajax we hear both go to Achilles' tent, pleading with him to re-join the fight. They understand his raging at the injustice of what has happened but try to give him the benefit of their counsel. Odysseus especially speaks to him as a father might,

"Fail us now? What grief it will be to you & through all the years to come. No remedy, / know to cure the damage once it's done"
(9.301-3)

But still Achilles will not budge - not until much, much later - when loss, keener than he will ever know drives him to act.

Death of Patroclus

Now there were three dear loved ones who somehow softened and soothed Achilles, at various points in this long tale - his mother, Briseis & Patroclus, his foster brother and lover some say, who had travelled with him to Troy as a fellow warrior. Patroclus was especially loved, for the two had grown together and were bonded for many years.

Patroclus too had withdrawn from the fight in support of his friend - along with the rest of Achilles' men - but when he saw the Trojans getting the upper hand he lost patience with Achilles and begged him to return to the field.

All our best men lie by the ships wounded by arrow or spear thrust: The healers, skilled in the use of herbs, are busy trying to cure their wounds, while you, Achilles, remain intractable. May such anger never possess me as grips you, you whose useless valour only does harm to all. How will posterity benefit, if you fail to save us from ruin?
....at least let me take the field ....leading the ranks of Myrmidons, .... And let me borrow that armour of yours, so the Trojans might take me for you and thus break off the battle. Then ....we may win a breathing space: there are few such chances in war. We who are fresh might easily drive a weary enemy back to their city from the ships and huts.
Illiad BkXVI

So reluctantly Achilles agreed and Patroclus entered the fray. Had he been himself he would not have acted as he did but his mind was elsewhere - and in consequence he paid a terrible price - for when Patroclus appeared on the field, he was immediately taken for Achilles - and though he fought valiantly, slaughtering many of the enemy, he soon came face to face with Hector, the great Trojan prince, warrior worthy of any foe. Patroclus fought brilliantly but he could not match him and soon fell.

We are all somehow complicit with our fate, says Critchley - which seems like a contradiction in terms - tragedy is not something that just happens out of the blue he suggests - although it mostly appears to do so - but when unpicked, it becomes clear - as it does here - that that the moral wounding sustained thus far by Achilles has critically undermined his judgement causing him to unwittingly send his own beloved to his death.

Though for the most part such complicity is unconscious says Critchley - it never-the-less reveals a deeper truth about our participation in the tragedies that befall us. Maybe, in some mysterious way - we all know of such things but cannot face the thought - often projecting blame as far away as we can from ourselves.

When Achilles hears of the death of his beloved ...

... a black cloud of grief shrouded (him). Grasping handfuls of dark sand and ash, he poured them over his head and handsome face, soiling his scented tunic. Then he flung himself in the dust, and lying there outstretched, a fallen giant, tore and fouled his hair.
Bk XVIII:1-77 Achilles’ sorrow

and he let out a deep and harrowing cry of pain, that echoed and reverberated throughout the camp - and from far away...

...his divine mother Thetis heard him, deep beneath the sea where she sat beside her ancient Father.....and all the daughters of the deep gathered to her.... (and)...the bright sea-cave was filled with nymphs, beating their breasts,
Bk XVIII:1-77 Thetis responds to Achilles’ sorrow

and together they rose up and left the caverns of the deep - and it is said that the waves parted before them, until they came to the shores of Troy where Achilles wept openly upon the beach.

One after another, they trod the shore, where the ships were beached in lines around swift Achilles. His divine mother reached his side, while he lay groaning there, and with a piercing cry took his head in her hands, and spoke to him winged words of sympathy...

But Achilles could not be consoled for his grief was deep. ...and he set forth in anger to claim Patroclus' body from the field.

It is very often the death of a soldiers best friend in action that triggers a mental collapse says Shay. This has always been known in the military. A soldier might cope with unimaginably harrowing events and remain relatively intact - but when one's combat partner falls - everything can begin to unravel.

When Achilles returns with Patroclus’s body he is wild with grief. He refuses let the funeral pyre be laid - maybe in a tragic attempt to hold on - maybe in denial of his friends untimely death. Understandable to us all no doubt - for who here can say they might not wish to do the very same thing when the death of a loved one occurs? Who amongst us has the truly uncomplicated capacity to just let go?

But Patroclus later comes to him in a dream - needing to go on - needing to be set free - to go wherever souls must go when life is over - and seeing him appear - Achilles reaches out, longing for his warm embrace - but Patroclus slips from grasp - his beautiful image dissolving into the night air. Only then does Achilles give in, allowing the funeral pyre to be set - and afterwards, in the gleaming new armour his mother has created for him, he mounts his chariot and sets forth to the gates of Troy bellowing Hector's name. And all quivered with fear within - knowing the love between Achilles and the dead Patroclus - and hearing the depths of Achilles fury.... and Hector's wife, knowing what was to come, begged her husband not to go forth.

Desire for revenge utterly possesses the tragic Achilles at this point - revenge & the brutal execution of the warrior Hector who has slain his beloved. And as Homer tells, it will be a revenge without mercy, without honour that will bring him no peace, no relief from his agony.

The Archetype of the Warrior

The archetype of the warrior is perhaps the most challenging of the four mature archetypes discussed by Moore & Gillette in their book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover - the one most unloved they say, for so many have suffered under its shadow - yet it is as much a part of the psyche as all the others and must be faced, understood and brought to its fullness.

It is a vital force we all must develop in order to defend our shared and personal values - our boundaries - and to defend and attack where necessary. Such qualities are hard-wired into every human being - from a mother defending her young - to a great warrior destroying a dangerous foe. In everyday life too - for both men and women such energy is a pre-requisite for the execution and satisfactory completion of any endeavour.

In its highest expression it is an art form par excellence. The warrior literally transcends the world of the everyday in order to serve a transpersonal ideal, something greater than himself - and to do whatever is necessary to achieve its manifestation. He/she is single minded, poised, ever alert, awake - resigned to face death at any moment - and as a consequence - enabled to live and to be fully present in the moment, a rare ability. There is a beautiful moment, when Achilles lays with Briseis in the 2004 film Troy - The gods envy us, he tells her,

"They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
Troy (film): 2004

The words - mistakenly attributed to Homer - strike a chord never-the-less for they do in fact capture this idea of the paradoxical aliveness or one-pointedness that frequently accompanies awareness of imminent demise. And this of course, say Moore & Gillette, is the state in which the warrior in his fullness inhabits. The state of utter fearlessness that renders him/her so powerful - but also so fully awake to the richness & beauty of life.

The Warrior in Shadow

But like all the archetypes it has its shadow. The warrior energy can be cold, emotionally distant, ruthless in the execution of its goals - dangerously unchecked and lacking honour at times as Homer shows us most graphically throughout. And as the tale proceeds we see Achilles utterly caught in the grip of such passion - where nothing else matters but the destruction of his foes. Homer shoes us how perilously close a warrior can come to this crucial moral line, this code of conduct between enemies and how too, so many tragically fail.

Achilles, in so many ways is the quintessential hero - part human, part divine - beautiful beyond imagining - courageous - dangerous - bold - impetuous - yet when broken by the deep wounds inflicted upon him fails spectacularly, as is plain for all to see.

The Death of Hector

Now, the story tells that the two men faced each other alone beyond the gates of Troy and each was as fierce and as terrible as any warrior might be. Some say the Trojan family looked on willing Hector to come through but on that day, even whilst noble Hector, prince amongst men, was a mighty as ever a man might be - Achilles in his fury was mightier by far. For it seemed as though the god of wrath himself possessed him so that no mortal might man stood any chance. And when he had murdered his brave opponent, he kept on in his rage - striking him foe time and time again, long after he had breathed his last. And he tied the ragged body to his chariot then, before his entire family, and dragged him through the dust to his encampment.

Homer tells that for many nights thereafter Achilles like a man deranged, paraded the body of Hector around the city walls, refusing to return it for burial as was written in the Warrior Code, thus heaping insult after insult upon the honour of all concerned - and it is said that he continued on and on in this way for his rage could not be quelled - not even by Briseis who was returned unharmed to him after the victory and mourned for Patroclus at his side.

The Transformation

But some time later, in the depths of the night, King Priam, Hector's grieving father - disguised in humble robes and under the protection of Hermes the messenger stole down to the encampment of the Greeks and to the tent where Achilles lay - and he entered in, an old, frail man and he knelt at Achilles' feet and kissed his hands and begged for the body of his son.

"I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son."
(Troy, 2004) Peter O'Toole, Brad Pitt, Priam, Achilles, Homer's Iliad

“Divine Achilles, remember your father who is, like me, on the grievous door step of senility. Maybe he, too, is all alone in sorrow and no one is there to defend him. But when he hears that you are alive, his heart is filled with joy. Because he still hopes that one day he will see his beloved son returning from Troy. But I, I am utterly unblest, seeing I begat sons the best in Troy, yet of them not one is left…”

It is very often the wounded who finally heal themselves - if healing ever does occur - despite all heroic and well-intentioned therapeutic interventions. This is the observation of Shay, author of Achilles in Vietnam. The therapist might open the field so to speak, lay the ground, set the scene, create the space - and be immeasurably helpful in simply bearing witness to the hurt - but the very best way to find relief is with others who have suffered the same.

There is something about the humility of King Priam's approach in the depths of the night - about his willingness to put aside his pride - to kneel at the feet of his enemy and kiss his hands - acknowledging Achilles' great loss - their shared loss - shared grief - and utter brokenness that somehow softens and tempers Achilles' rage. And in that moment some say, the unbearable fury that has caused Achilles' to violate so many accepted boundaries now 'freezes' out of 'respect & compassion' and deep admiration for this frail old man.

“Ah unhappy man, too many are the evils you have endured in your soul. How did you find the courage to come here all alone and meet the eyes of me that have killed your sons? Your heart is truly made of iron! But come here, sit on the throne and despite our pain, let our suffers lie quiet in our hearts. For no profit comes with lament!

Like one released from a deadly enchantment - Achilles is somehow returned to his humanity and to recognition of their shared plight. The two men then wept together for many hours and afterwards shared a meal - like Achilles used to do with Patroclus and then graciously he granted the release of Hector's body so that it might be taken back to Troy for fitting funeral rites to be observed. And whilst the night passed both men were finally at peace.

… and Priam was admiring of Achilles. He was so great and comely, like a god! But Achilles also was looking at Priam with admiration, for he was so noble and hearkening to his words!

A true King it seemed to Achilles - so unlike Agamemnon who betrayed him - a King he could have served - and he ordered a truce then - and a cessation of the war for eleven days and nights - until the funeral of noble Hector was over and done.

And so ends Homer’s great tale.

Anne Maria Clarke
x x x

Plains of Blood - Illustration by Yuko Shimizu

References
The Iliad: Homer
The Song of Achilles: Madeline
King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Paperback –1992
by Robert Moore Douglas Gillette
The Warrior Within: Accessing the Warrior in the Male Psyche - Robert L. Moore
Hero Within - Rev. & Expanded Ed.: Six Archetypes We Live by
by Carol S. Pearson |2016
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character Paperback – 1995
by Jonathan M.D. Shay
Tragedy's Philosophy, Simon Critchley
https://youtu.be/tv3j9U0g0qQ

Hold the Light/blog published regularly @ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy Tale: Queen of Heaven: The Significance of The Virgin's Assumption & Coronation

8/15/2020

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Sandro Botticelli 1490/1500

Queen of Heaven

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. Rev. 12:1

In the midst of recent posts exploring archetypes of the masculine which began back in June with The Fall of Eve, it may seem odd to suddenly break off and return to something quintessentially feminine - but the 15th August is a special day. For it commemorates the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven where she is reunited with her beloved son who crowns her Queen of Heaven.

This re-unification of the divine masculine with its feminine counterpart is full of promise which goes way beyond the confines of the catholic church. The symbolism is nothing less than that of the Sacred Marriage - an alchemical blending of estranged opposites heralding the birth of a divine child - a whole new beginning.

Clearly this is not what was intended in 1950 when Pope Pius XII declared that the assumption of Mary was a dogma of faith.

If the myths of Atlantis represent a Golden Age - the matrilineal world of the goddess a Silver one, the Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian & Greek, a Bronze Age and those of the last 2000 years, an Iron Age dominated by Islam, Judaism and Christianity - then the relatively recent Papal decision of the 1950's is an absolute game changer! So it seems fitting that we pause mid-stream as it were, to celebrate its significance.

Those who know me well will know that whenever talking about such matters I habitually quote Carl Jung who was reputedly delighted by the church 's decision to elevate Our Lady. The symbolic significance of this act is immeasurably important he felt and perhaps,

‘the most significant event of the twentieth century.’
Carl Jung

Such a powerful statement when viewed alongside all the dramatic events of that century - the wars, the spiltting of the atom, the moon landings and all the rest - but somehow this symbolic re-admitance of the feminine into heaven deeply re-connects us to long neglected aspects of our collective soul.

We have all lived in exile from our roots, which have been severed and cut away from beneath us. We have forgotten we ever had a mother with whom we were once one.

In our present phase of right-brain sophistication, we understand that we could not remain in the womb forever, the mythic Golden Age. The chord that connected us to her body had to be cut. To develop normally we must realise our separateness. Our survival as adults depends upon it. We must stand on our own two feet as it were - and eventually leave her domain completely.

The rise of the god and the development of the patriarchal religions are an inevitable part of this process, part of a much wider story of the development of human consciousness. Yet each phase of this vast story, each branch of this inconceivably vast tree, reaches back to a root, a root which sinks down into the depths of the earth, which the most ancient peoples of the world conceived of and worshipped as the womb of the mother.

Like so many of us I have lived in the mists of forgetfulness interspersed with flashes of remembrance. For the most part I have not understood their meaning. How could I? Yet always they have affected me deeply. They have been like strong pulls inside, arising when least expected, taking hold for periods of time, only to be forgotten and put to one side as the demands of everyday life asserted themselves.

My first encounter with the Virgin Mary is a case in point. I was fourteen years old at the time and had been taken by the school to a Latin Mass at a Catholic Church in the city where I lived. Stepping off the street into the hushed interior of that strange place felt like stepping into a dream. The evocative combination of the sung Latin refrains (never heard before) - sprinkled holy water, candle light and heady plumes of incense sent me reeling. Yet I immediately felt at home, lost and found - all at the same time.

The church was full of mystery and wonderfully exotic, with a rich, gold inlaid domed ceiling. There were and lots of paintings too and side alters with golden cherubs and statues of various saints. And the Virgin Mary, clothed in a deep blue mantle and crowned with a circlet of glittering silver stars. The flickering flames of numerous candles and curling wisps of perfumed smoke surrounded her.

Oddly, I had never seen a statue of her before and had never been to Italy, or Spain or even France, where such sights and smells are common. I had no knowledge of the Reformation of the 16th century and certainly had no idea that the Virgin Mary, with the infant Christ nestled in her arms was a far distant relative of the great mother goddess, for I had no conception the word goddess back then, apart from that derived from the Greek and Roman myths we studied at school - and myths we all knew, were lies, which had nothing to do with religion and truth, which was the story of one god and his divine son. The Virgin Mary was simply a very nice young girl whom god had mysteriously made pregnant, though she was not his wife and she was not divine.

I took her straight to my heart where she has remained ever since - and though we were not Catholics, I continued to visit her sanctuary in secret for several years, fetching home small replicas of her image, bought from a nearby shop, that I tenderly arranged on a shelf in my bedroom wardrobe. I tried for many a month to convince my parents to let me become a catholic but to no avail. Retrospectively I am glad, for it was not Catholicism as such that was pulling on my heart strings, though I still do attend Mass, but the lovely lady in blue, the unnamed goddess from which I had lived in exile.

Giotto The Coronation (detail) 1334 in Santa Croce. Italy

Several years ago I attended a course during which were we asked to look back through our lives to moments where it seemed as if our souls were somehow pointing the way, calling us home if you like, reminding us of who we are on a deep, deep level. This was such a moment for me - everything that followed has been influenced by that encounter. It was like a portal through which I stepped and never returned. I wonder what such moments might have been for you? It's a fascinating and important question.

Unwittingly I thereafter joined a stream of similarly enamoured souls drawn to her image throughout the centuries - (including all the artists featured here who adoringly re-imagined and rendered the image of her assumption & coronation hundreds of years before it was accepted by the church) - unaware for the most part - as I was - of her ancient heritage - and her deep roots in our collective psyche, but responding to them never-the-less. Somehow we all know her - no matter what she is called, Ishtar, Inanna, Isis, Sophia, Artemis, Venus... ...no matter the name - we are still drawn, like moths to her eternal flame.

And this is what we see reflected - every year on the 15th August - and most particularly in countries that still honour her - this primal recognition and celebration that somehow brings together the essence of all the forgotten Goddesses and fallen Queens of Heaven and re-admits them to our hearts, to their rightful royal home.

Anne Maria Clarke

Gaddi Agnolo The Coronation

Hold the Light/blog published regularly @ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy Tale: Healing the Wounded King

7/21/2020

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The Quest & Attainment of the Holy Grail: Austin Abbey

Healing the Wounded King

Last time we looked at Moore & Gillette’s book - King Warrior Magician Lover; rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine - and at the role of the Magician in relation to the notion of initiation & rites of passage. Here I want to focus on the archetype of the King and upon the motifs of woundedness, renewal & the relation of the king to his kingdom.

For all four archetypes in their study, Moore & Gillette have created a pyramid shaped diagram showing the mature expression at the peak and two dysfunctional - bi-polar like expressions at the base.

The king in his fullness incorporates all four archetypes in their mature expression. He is King, but also Magician, Warrior and Lover. Aragorn in Lord of the Rings is the embodiment of this fullness as is clear to see.

That being said, there is no such thing as a wholly sorted King; for even the best are always only human and subject to human frailty.

Myth, Legend and fairy tale show us all these aspects writ large.

Health of the King

There is a very ancient idea, touched upon earlier, that - the land and the king are one. Our notions of Sovereignty – in a deeply spiritual sense are rooted in such ideas. When the king is healthy & fertile - so is the land. When he is sick - the same holds true. He is a personification of the values and of the dominant principals within the collective as a whole.

Order & Blessing

For the kingdom to flourish and thrive he must create and maintain order, dispense blessings and be fertile, ensuring the continuation of his line. He must know and protect his boundaries, be fair in judgement and support his people through continual acknowledgement of their talents and contribution to the whole. In this way he will create a stable and healthy community within which all souls feel valued. Crucially, he must possess humility.

He holds audience, primarily, not to be seen, but to see, admire, and delight in his subjects, to reward them and to bestow honours upon them.”
Moore & Gillette -

He must be able to put himself to the side as it were - to act for the collective good, always remembering the temporary nature of his position and the transitory nature of the rank he serves, as is most beautifully expressed in The Lion King film.

Mufasa: A king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, Simba, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new king.

The Wounded King / The Shadow King

When these values are not embodied, the king may slip into the grip of the archetypes shadow, the extreme of this manifesting as the tyrant as shown in Moore & Gilette' s diagramn - or he may become weak as we see in Tolkien’s King of Rohan, who falls tragically under the spell of an evil trickster. Then the kingdom will fall to ruin.

In the figure of Théoden, Rohan's King we see a once fine man, fallen prey to the poisonous and disempowering council of his advisor - transparently nick-named Worm Tongue; whilst in the character of the Denethor, steward of Gondor we see a man seduced by his own grandiosity & sense of entitlement - a king who has lost touch with his people - with the heart & soul of the Kingdom he serves - and whilst he pursues his own interest, he loses his moral compass - evil penetrates his boarders and the people are unprotected.

In the end both Kings die. But unlike the King of Rohan, who is spectacularly released from his enchantment by Gandalf and given the opportunity to redeem himself in one final battle - Denethor the steward is driven by his madness to take his own life. These two Kings - one fallen, one corrupted, are worthy of a study in their own right and perfectly exemplify Moore & Gillette's bi-polar end of the King archetype pyramid.

Tolkien's work is a tour de force of the masculine psyche, yet European fairy tales and medieval legend too abound with examples of all three archetypal expressions of the King and his shadow.

The King in Sleeping Beauty

The king in the Sleeping Beauty, for instance is clearly the cause of all the troubles in his domain. Believing himself above the law he blatantly ignores protocol and does not invite the Thirteenth fairy to his daughter’s Christening Party, reflecting his disregard for what she represents.

When the tale begins the king and queen are longing for a child but after seven years of marriage there is no sign. This reflects a generalised lack of fertility within the kingdom – a state of stuckness. The old values are maintained, clung to even and renewal prevented.

It takes a slimy green frog to emerge from the depths – to nudge things in the right direction – he is clearly a messenger from the unconscious - from the soul if you like - a voice that only the Queen can hear - and sufficiently potent for her to take matters into her own hands. It seems superficially in many renderings of the tale that the lack is with this Queen - yet the picture as a whole suggests otherwise.

Yet even after the birth of the Princess, the King continues as before - recklessly ignoring the words of the thirteenth fairy who has arrived unbidden and placed a curse on his beloved child. She will prick her finger on a spindle on her 15th birthday - as well we all know. But the king is all done with fairies and wishes and curses and not believing in this superstitious nonsense has all the spindles destroyed. Job done as they say – or so he naïvely believes. But fate will have its way, as we know, resulting in the entire palace, with his beautiful daughter at its heart being plunged into darkness, into sleep and deep unconsciousness - for One Hundred Years.

Brair Rose: Burne-Jones

The Wounded King at the heart of the Grail Quest

In the Quest for the Holy Grail - a similar theme is present. We are told at the start that the land has dried up and turned to waste - the mysterious castle of the Rich Fisherman has vanished - and paths to the Courts of Joy therein are lost beyond recall.

In Camelot the wizard Merlin cries out that a king lays terribly wounded at the heart of that place - and will never be cured until a knight - foremost amongst those seated at the round table has done mighty deeds of alms, of bounty and of nobility - and only when he has asked, what one does and whom one serves with the Grail, will the King be cured and the enchantments fall which are at present in the land of Britain.

Quest for the Holy Grail (tapestry)
Burne-Jones & William Morris

But of the many brave knights who took up willingly this most high and holy challenge, three alone were destined to succeed and these were Sir Galahad, Sir Bors & Sir Percival, the perfect fool, whose story we shall take up briefly here.

Quest for the Holy Grail - Arthur Hughes

The story tells that it was to him that a pathway to the lost castle was first revealed and that soon after he arrived at a small chapel within where the wounded king cried out in his torment. And there he witnessed a mysterious procession during which a bleeding spear and carved stone dish were carried through the interior of that place, led by a damsel of pure and matchless beauty who bore the Holy Grail itself, veiled beneath a cloth of silk. And the light that shone forth from that vessel was so bright that even the stars in the night sky were put out by it.

The Grail Maiden: Arthur Rackham

But Sir Percival remained silent and straightaway the castle and all its inhabitants vanished and the young knight found himself all alone once more in the desolate wastes of forest where very soon after, the beautiful damsel who had borne the Holy Grail appeared to him. Though her countenance and her form were much changed and it seemed to our hero that all the weight of time had come suddenly upon her and she rebuked him saying that his failure to ask the essential question has much prolonged the agony of the Wounded King who can now neither die nor find relief from his torment. Nor can the wasteland or her own lost beauty ever be restored until that question is finally asked.

But what is the question that will release the king from his torment, what is the nature of the terrible wound that afflicts him and how has it come about?
His health is paramount as we have seen, reflecting the vitality of the entire kingdom. In several versions of the legend we are introduced to him as the - rich fisherman. A sad, wounded figure hunched over his rod in the vain hope of catching a fish from the stagnant waters that surround him.

The legend tells of a moral failure - a disregarding of ‘the voices of the wells’ of a 'raping of the muses' who served the draft of inspiration from holy wells and anointed kings of the realm. This king however seems has gone it alone so to speak, without reference or acknowledgement of the greater mysteries of life, like all the corrupted and fallen kings we have seen. Like them he is split off from the deep feminine aspects of the psyche - from his own sacred centre as it were...and cut off from this regenerative and creative force - life in its fullness cannot be sustained.

The consequence for the Grail King is the chronic genital wound he suffers and the infertility that has followed. He has stagnated, like the pools in which he fishes in vain, doomed in his agony to repeat the same old ritual every night of being carried to the hall where the Grail is present, but never ever being able to partake of its mystery of its healing.

As individuals too we can all from time to time become like the Fisher-King - when our zest for life is lost, when we lose connection with our own internal Sacred Space & its regenerative force. Then we no longer care for our own internal kingdom, for our own bodies even. Our worlds become flat and colourless. We have lost the paths to own Courts of Joy, our own soul's replenishment.

Until of course - in fairy-tale speak - a young knight of great destiny - that part of ourselves - arrives to ask the pivotal question - the question that will turn it all around.

But he is young, he is naive - overawed by the moment, inexperienced when he first arrives as we have seen. He has not long left home we are told, and the domain of his mother. He still wears her home spun vest. It is she who has told him always to be polite and not ask too many questions. He has great aspirations to be a worthy knight but has still to prove himself. His failure at the Grail Castle reflects all these things. He was simply not ready, not mature enough.

Well for seven years thereafter Sir Percival wandered the forest, seeking endlessly to retrace his steps. And trial and tribulation met him at every turn and all his good intentions were tested to the hilt in otherworldly adventures too numerous to mention here – but let it be understood that often times he was brought to the brink - and that which was light appeared darkly to him and that which was dark shed out abundant light and in this way he was put severely to the test and helped and hindered according to his need, until finally, when the seven years were passed and gone there dawned a wisdom in his heart and he was enabled to arrive at the dwelling of a hermit who presented him with a golden key, a silken cloak embroidered with the image of a golden dove….and directed him to the mysterious castle, which surprisingly was very close by.

Now no one knows exactly how he proceeded from that place - some say it was by way of a perilously narrow bridge that appeared then before him - yet others proclaim that magically, the great golden wings upon his cloak quickened and stirred to life and he at once borne upward and onward to the castle of the grail ahead.
And there a place is already prepared for him at a great round table, where sit the seekers and the keepers of the Grail, from all the centuries of the quest including Sir Galahad and Sir Bors from Camelot and elves and fairy folk too and men and women strangely clad, from times still yet to come.

And all there feasted together as one company and each had a tale of wonder to impart - then the young Sir Percival, with the knights of his own time was led to the small chapel within, where still the wounded king cried out in his torment and he witnessed again the magnificent procession of the Holy Grail, the mysterious bleeding spear and carved stone dish - and when at last he asked
What one does and whom one serves with the Grail, it was immediately given into his hands and he understood that he must offer it to the wounded and long suffering king. And as he placed the holy vessel to the parched lips of that man, he was at once completely healed, and wasteland burst forth into a glorious flowering of spring.

Now the legend tells that afterwards, the three knights of the Grail were spirited away on the Ship of Solomon, to the High City of Sarras where a final mass of the quest was celebrated midst a great company of angels. And at that time it was given unto Sir Galahad to bear the hallow of the sword to the high alter of that place followed by Sir Bors with that of the Spear.

Grail Quest: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

But she who proceeded them all and who bore the Holy Grail itself, unveiled at last to the heavens, was the once dis-honoured maiden, whose beauty was now so restored that all who looked upon her imagined a glorious rising of the sun.... and unto her it was given to offer up the Holy Vessel - whereupon a wonderous being of light appeared from within saying.

"My Knights & my servants & my true children,
Who are come out of mortal life into spiritual life.
I will no longer hide from you.
But you shall see a part of my secrets & my hidden things,
Now hold: and receive the high meat you have so long desired."

The Quest & Achievement of the Holy Grail Edwin Austin Abbey

Then he took he himself the Holy Vessel & came to Galahad, who kneeled down & there received his Saviour. And after him, so received all his fellows. Then He took He Himself the Holy Vessel & vanished.
Now it is said that then Sir Galahad expired 'in an odour of sanctity' whilst Sir Bors returned to Camelot with stories of the great quest - but Sir Percival - the perfect fool - remained at the Castle of the Grail - until the next hero of the quest, arrives to take his place.
Quest for the Grail - adapted: Anne Maria Clarke 1994

Renewal of the King

The notion of the periodic renewal of the King is deeply enshrined in myth - and for good reason, for by such means the health, fertility and good governance of the kingdom is assured. Like the Prince who will eventually arrive to awaken the Sleeping Beauty – Sir Percival is destined from the start to affect the great transformation and become the new king himself. His success signals a new beginning - spring has come again, the land & its people thrive once more. The old, outmoded paradigm has been laid to rest - the time of singing & dancing has returned - life is sweet - for the paths to the Courts of Joy are revealed once more.

The Attainment of the Holy Grail (tapestry)
Burne-Jones & William Morris

The earliest version of the Grail Quest, notwithstanding earlier Celtic renditions concerning a Sacred Cauldron & Wonder Working Spring - was set down by the French writer Chrétien de Troyes in the 12 th century. The themes some say, came up into northern Europe on the lips of Spanish troubadours whose tales were infused with Moorish magic and alchemical mystery .....be that as it may ... for we can never be sure - but we do know that Chrétien de Troyes never completed his tale - and left it hanging mid-air so to speak - at the dwelling of the Hermit, just when Sir Percival is a stone’s throw away from the Grail Castle - just at the moment when we are almost there .....just down the path, round the corner and over the draw-bridge - the hermit tells him.....and he sets off. And there the legend ends! And we never know!

Several authors over the centuries have added their - Continuations - and brought the tale to a dramatic & powerful climax. And yet there is something so powerful about leaving it undone. The hope created by the missing ending of course is that we might take it on for ourselves - that we too will go forth whenever the need arises - and one day arrive at this point - and take the road ahead that leads to our transformation - ask the pivotal question - and in so doing - lift the enchantments that are at present in ourselves & in our lands.

It is one of the prime mistakes of many interpreters of mythological symbols to read them as references - not to the mysteries of the human spirit - but to actual or imagined historical events....such as a newspaper reporter might have witnessed. Whereas it is one of the glories of the Grail Tradition, that in the handling of religious themes, it retranslates them from the language of imagined facts into a mythological idiom; so that they may be experienced, not as time-conditioned, but as timeless; telling not of miracles long past, but of miracles potential within ourselves, here, now, and forever.
Joseph Campbell: Hero with a Thousand Faces

Anne Maria Clarke
x x x

References
Chrétien de Troyes's Old French verse romance,
the Conte del Graal ('Story of the Grail'), or Perceval, of c.1180
Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal (early 13th century)
Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur (late 15th century)
Healing the Wounded King: Soul Work and the Quest for the Grail: 1997
John Matthews
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine 1992
Robert L. Moore, Douglas Gillette
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology
Robert A. Johnson
The Hero with A Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
Joseph Campbell

Hold the Light/blog published regularly @ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth Legend & Fairy tale: The Masculine Psyche: Rites of Passage

6/28/2020

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King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine
part one

This is the title of Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette’s seminal book, published in 1992 to rave reviews, and still used today as an important source in contemporary discourse on the masculine psyche. In it they explore four major archetypes - King Warrior, Magician & Lover in both their optimal and dysfunctional expressions and ask, as we did earlier in this series
- whether the absence in our modern world of the rites of passage rituals they explore has resulted in many generations of menfolk, having become somehow stuck in a kind of arrested development from which they struggle to emerge into what might be deemed their optimal maturity? And might this also might be true of our culture as a whole?

Right now, astrologers are telling us that the planets are aligned in extremely powerful ways - not experienced for six & a half thousand years...since the beginnings of the gradual transition from the ancient lunar, matrilineal societies toward the solar, patriarchal world of today. As we saw last time, the resulting consciousness has enabled great things, great strides forward and yet there is such a sense that all is far from well. For millennia it seems our world has been characterised by war and by violence against a multitude of 'enemies' and even against the planet itself.

We have not looked at ourselves 'in the round,' as it were, and are facing potentially catastrophic consequences - yet maybe as the astrologers say, the time has come for our collective psyche to transform, to undergo a huge initiation that will enable the emergence of a more humane and responsible world? So what follows is not just about boys & growing up but about modernity and our culture too.

As Jung prophesied, an epochal shift is taking place in the contemporary psyche, a reconciliation between the two great polarities, a union of opposites: a hieros gamos (sacred marriage) between the long-dominant but now alienated masculine and the long-suppressed but now ascending feminine.
The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View
Richard Tarnas

As we saw last time, science itself - over the last hundred years has set the scene for this reunion, returning consciousness to the core of it's purely mechanistic notions - but in order for this new paradigm to be embraced says Tarnas,

....the masculine must undergo a sacrifice, an ego death.
The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View
Richard Tarnas

This is precisely what occurs in rites of passage ceremonies of tribal & indigenous societies where there is a marked, ritualistic transition from boy to manhood. The boy is taken from the home of the mother, sometimes in the middle of the night by tribal elders - mature men, in the company of the Shaman of the tribe. Often the boy is taken to a cave or to the depths of the forest and there undergoes initiatory experiences from which he will return changed. Then he will inhabit his own dwelling. He will still love his mother of course but he will now be his own man with responsibilities which will go beyond his own personal needs & that of his family to incorporate a wider collective & spiritual dimension.

But what happened exactly - in the depths of the night - and why was it deemed so essential to the needs of the tribe? Would the boy not have achieved his manhood anyway - without such dramatic intervention?

Not so easily says Moore in his earlier book, The Archetype of Initiation: Sacred Space, Ritual Process, and Personal Transformation - and for the modern boy, this is even harder. Sure, he concedes, there are certain pseudo initiation ceremonies that take place in the modern world but these are normally found in certain dysfunctional groups like prisons, boarding schools and gangs from which the boy does not emerge as a man but rather in servitude to the narrow ideals of such groups. The military too has certain initiatory rites yet whilst these are successful in creating warriors - says Tom Vander-Linden - they are not so successful in bringing men home, so to speak, when the battle is done.

Sacred Space, Liminalty & the Presense of the Ritual Elder

What makes the tribal initiation more successful is that it is always conducted by the Shaman, the elder or wise man of the tribe, like the Magician in myth & fairy-tale, someone of an entirely different calibre than the boarding school, gang or military leader.

The Magician or Shaman stands between worlds as it were - at the crossroads - the threshold - and he leads the adolescent temporarily away from what Jung calls - the Spirit of the Times - the ordinary, everyday world discussed by Joseph Campbell - into the Spirit of the Depths - the non-ordinary realm where the initiatory experience is constellated.

Anthropologists call this space the liminal realm, a term related to the Latin word for threshold - limen, first introduced by ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his book -Les rites de passage, The Rites of Passage (1909) referring to the middle phase of a threefold initiation rite.

The first phase of liminality is characterised by extreme disorientation. One’s previous structures are literally dis-membered and one experiences a kind of death. In such periods of life, frequently experienced in the face of great shock or loss we are like the dying and resurrected gods of myth and religion like the murdered Osiris, cut into fourteen parts and scattered throughout the land, like Tammuz lost in the underworld and Jesus, crucified, buried and descended into hell for three days and nights, mirroring the dark of the moon as we have seen throughout. These are the great mythic and religious characters in which the initiate's own experience finds its reflection.

The presence of the Shaman, of the Magician is crucial. He has been where the boy must go - to this place where everything he thought he was comes into question. Where, like the goddess Inanna, he is stripped of all his outer clothing, the vestments if you like of his identity - his sense of himself and this can be a truly terrifying experience.

He has entered the alchemical vessel as it were - and must be dissolved & reformed, as the base metal within is made into gold, the emblem of the new, evolved consciousness. Without the Shaman however, the spiritual alchemist, the boy may be ripped to shreds & emerge either mad or not at all and be forever held in a state of perpetual becoming which is never achieved.

These are perilous times indeed, for the disorientation, the death and fragmentation of the former self is real and must - as a rite - be conducted within a safe space with secure boundaries. Only then can the experience of the tomb be transformed into that of the womb, where the new self is seeded, incubated and reborn.

It is deep space - inner space - sacred space - as defined & distinguished from profane space by anthropologist Mircea Eliade in his renowned book, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion.

Sacred space connects us with a deep regenerative core...., he explains

Profane space...has no fixed point or centre from which to gain orientation. Profane space has no axis mundi, no cosmic tree or pillar leading to the heavens. This is the experience of modernity. People unable to locate a centre.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion

And it’s this key idea - this notion of the regenerative power of sacred space that makes it so potent, in the fullest sense of the word.

Building on Eliade's work and that of Arnold van Gennep, anthropologist Victor Turner expanded the notion of liminality to include what he termed liminoid experience.

Both refer to non-ordinary states but unlike Liminal experience, the liminoid is experienced within the context of modernity. It occurs outside the boundaries of the delineated sacred rite and without the presence of a ritual elder.

Such states maybe experienced at festivals, concerts, on vacation, pilgrimage, or in the face of a collective or personal crisis - periods of time when one slips out of ordinary, structured time and space and feels unexpectedly bonded with others sharing the same experience - or when great cracks suddenly open up in life in response to sudden change. These experiences, says Turner can be profoundly spiritual, opening doors we never knew were there, bringing us to the thresholds of potential transformation and growth and can be extremely nourishing to the soul, yet their effects are often transitory, he says - and are unlikely to lead to the lasting transformation facilitated by the liminal rite.

Liminoid experiences can be dangerous too, adds Moore. For without guidance one can get stuck, so to speak. This can happen in a grieving process for example - when one does not know how to leave grieving state - or in response to any kind of post-traumatic shock that lingers overlong - forever raw when approached. It can be true for drug users too - whose initial highs devolve into addiction from which they cannot find their way back.

In the absence of a ritual elder - or at the hands of an inexperienced one - the developmental potential of the experience is never fully realised.

Truly liminal space, truly transformative space, truly sacred space in the sense that tribal peoples used it for transformations - always has ritual leaders.
Moore - The Archetype of Initiation

This is partly because the archetypes encountered can be so incredibly powerful - that a lone individual can be psychically and potentially irrevocably shattered. No one can control these encounters - the authentic shaman/magician knows this very well. It is vital says Moore, for such a person to remain in both worlds as it were - stewarding the boundary - entering in - but never fully - never to the point of immersion - which is the prerogative of the initiate for the duration.

This movement through liminal space, from disorientation to integration is the journey toward individuation referred to in Depth Psychology. Here, the therapist becomes the Shaman/magician & the clearly delineated therapeutic process becomes the vessel, the sacred ritualistic space.

Within these safe and stewarded boundaries, ancient & modern, though we may be broken we often come closer than ever before to what is numinous. So close, say Moore & Gillette - we are glowing. For after dismemberment - after the limbo - after the emptiness that may follow - one may break through - to an encounter with the mystical.

In the mythological journey, as described by Campbell, this is where the hero meets the Goddess, so to speak & drinks the draft of paradise from her sacred vessel.
So many exquisite tales exist recounting these enchanted encounters experienced at the heart of the inner world are told across the globe. They are the deeply mystic and sublime experiences spoken of in many traditions.

From such heights it can be difficult to find the will return. Most initiates are humbled by such experience - whilst others can struggle with inflation - yet again, this is where the skill of the Shaman can be so critical. Moore says we should be respectful of clients who struggle in these ways to come down as it were. Their experience is so true, so real, more real than anything may or might ever be again - and yet - it is the role of the Shaman, the magician, therapist, healer to make sure of their safe return to earth, as mortals, not gods. And this is absolutely key.

For in the end the real hero, as all the best of our stories tell us in no uncertain terms, is the person who achieves humility: who transcends any lingering infantile grandiosity - who learns to bend the knee if you like, to take off his shoes and prostrate himself in acknowledgement of forces greater and beyond himself. Finally, the initiate must surrender, he must become a servant - never a master - a servant to a mystery more profound than can ever be fully known. This says the authors is what mature masculinity looks like.

Yes, he has touched and been touched by the sublime - yet the success of the initiation the mythic quest turns on this ability to come down and to come home, to bring his new found maturity - the boon, as Joseph Campbell says, the treasure, to bear upon the world as it is in the cold light of day - the Monday morning if you like, after the high of the weekend.

At the end of any liminal rite, ancient or modern - the initiates are told quite abruptly - the rite has ended - come back to yourselves, blow out your candles, snuff out the incense – withdraw from the sacred space - and re-join the everyday world - until the next time - or whenever the need arises but for now, go forth into the ordinary world.

And for the young boy, now a man - go back to your village, back to your new dwelling place - remembering all you have come to know - in such ways as to benefit each and every member of the tribe, of the whole.

Anne Maria Clarke
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly @ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

References
Mircea Eliade The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion 1959
Victor Turner The Ritual Process
Arnold van Gennep Les rites de passage, The Rites of Passage
Moore https://www.amazon.com/Archetype-Init...
Moore & Gilette https://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy-tale for Times of Transformation & Healing: The Masculine Psyche: Healing the Wounded King

6/21/2020

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Coming Soon

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: The Fall of Eve

6/4/2020

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Our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.
Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth p. 99

Culture is the set of stories we tell ourselves. But how did we come to tell it this way, especially in the Judaeo/Christian world? And does it serve us to continue to do so? Are we approaching a whole new paradigm with a whole new set of assumptions about the nature of our reality & a new story, where Eve & her descendants might at last be restored to their original divinity & invited back to the Garden once again?

Huge questions clearly - yet in times of great change, isn't it incumbent upon us all to look back over our history - to uncover the reasons why we might find ourselves where we are today? While the world briefly pauses we have time to do just that. But how far back do we have to go to start unravelling the collective mind-set that has somehow got us here? Much further than poor Eve it seems.
Many years ago, during the 1980's, two Jungian analysts, Anne Baring & Jules Cashford asked themselves these same questions & joined forces to research & write the much acclaimed & classic book, Myth of the Goddess. I remember a friend lending me her copy when it came out in 1991 - & my eyes were literally on stalks!
They wanted to trace the history of the Feminine Archetype historically & mythologically to see how such a fall from grace had come about. How had we come to pour such scorn on Eve & her descendants and how had we become so separated & estranged from Nature? They found a wealth of material to show it had not always been so.

THE LUNAR ERA (prior to 2000 BC)

From as long ago as 40,000 BC, the Great Mother was an image that connected the tiny human self to the greater dimension in which it was embedded. The self was, so to speak, contained within the matrix of the cosmic and Earth Mother, like a child in the womb. The consciousness of this time was largely unconscious and instinctive - what the philosopher Owen Barfield called Original Participation.It was a totally different way of perceiving and relating to life than the one we have now. We lived within the life of the Great Mother who was the Earth and the Cosmos. There was no clear differentiation between ourselves and the ensouled life that surrounded us. Everything had meaning; everything was numinous and alive.
Anne Baring - The Lunar Era - Chatres Presention - www.annebaring.com

People then believed we entered space/time through a portal in the stars - through the great gateway of the Milky Way - and by that way too did we return to the unseen realms at the end of our days. Our lives were envisioned as a great circle - or cycle of life - death & regeneration. The archetype most associated with this era was the Moon whose celestial body and eternal procession through the night sky, from dark, to light, to dark, gave orientation and meaning to life.

In the field of archaeology the Lithuanian Marija Gimbutas showed that up until the Bronze Age these early societies, which stretched across vast swathes of Old Europe were peaceful, matrilineal & revered a Great Mother Deity.

Cucuteniene goddess council

The primordial deity for our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors was female, reflecting the sovereignty of motherhood. In fact, there are no images that have been found of a Father God throughout the prehistoric record. Paleolithic and Neolithic symbols and images cluster around a self-generating Goddess and her basic functions as Giver-of-Life, Wielder-of-Death, and as Regeneratrix.

The multiple categories, functions, and symbols used by prehistoric peoples to express the Great Mystery are all aspects of the unbroken unity of one deity, a Goddess who is ultimately Nature herself.
Marija Gimbutas:The Civilization of the Goddess (1991),

Goddess with a Thousand Faces

THE SOLAR ERA & THE SEPARATION FROM NATURE
(2000 BC to 2000 AD)

The Myth of the Goddess records the gradual diminishment of this way of life - of the transformation of deity from Goddess to God and of a great split between mind & spirit on the one hand - which came to be associated with the God - and nature & matter on the other, which became the sole signature of the goddess.

Mythologically the great turning point came at the start of the Babylonian Empire. A new creation myth emerged that enshrined the new attitude. It tells of Marduk, the young Solar God, who kills Tiamat, the once beloved Mother Goddess. He shoots an arrow into her mouth which tears through her body, splitting open her belly and her heart. He then throws her to the ground and triumphantly cuts her in half – creating the sky from one half of her and the earth from the other.

Hence forth the earth was divested of spirit - no longer divine – no longer sacred - just matter - bereft of sentience. It effectively separated humanity from nature, from instinct and led the way for the development of an individuated phase of maturation, rather like an adolescent moves toward independence, away from the mother and her domain.

With this myth the cyclical time of the goddess culture ends; linear time begins; death becomes final and terrifying. With this myth creation has a beginning and will have an end. The conflict between light and darkness, good and evil is constellated and this imagery pervades the Old Testament and other mythologies, in India (The Mahabharata) as well as the Near East. The myth sets the paradigm of duality and opposition between spirit and nature, light and darkness for the next 4000 years. This paradigm still controls our own modern culture with its emphasis on the conquest of nature, of space, of our enemies.
www.annebaring.com

The repression & substitution of the Lunar mythology here is the earliest example of what might be called priestly politics, whereby the mythology of an earlier age and culture is gradually inverted, so that the divinities of the previous era become demons and the divinities of the new are exulted to positions of supremacy.

The expulsion of Eve from the Garden reflects this trend - deeply established by the time the biblical story was set down. As in the Babylonian myth, Eve is divested of her original divinity. Everything switches around. Whilst she is still given the title, Mother of all Living which directly connects her to the Canaanite goddess Asherah - God now becomes the sole creator. Eve is brought into being by him - created from Adam's Rib.

The serpent, also associated with her name & venerated for thousands of years in the ancient world as a symbol of renewal, now becomes the source of temptation, a transgressor of God's law. As punishment it will forfeit its traditional upright posture and thereafter crawl on its belly and eat only dust.

Eve will bring forth her children in sorrow whereas before goddesses gave birth painlessly. God becomes the sole proprietor of the Garden, overturning many centuries of Goddess veneration in Sacred Groves.

By the fourth century AD the western world had lost all its goddesses.

Early Christianity too, which at its inception embraced women as healers, teachers and even Apostles of Christ was streamlined by the same priestly politics as above, most notably reflected by the Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, under whose auspices entire books were removed from the gospels, the Holy Spirit of the Trinity was deemed male instead of female as it had first been conceived; potentially empowering wisdoms were cut from the remaining texts and the key women who surrounded Jesus were diminished morally or edited into insignificance.
Deviance from the new creed was punishable by death but thankfully many of the early gospels were hidden and have since come to light, revealing a very different Christianity than the one we know.

Council of Nicaea in 325 AD

There is little doubt however, that over these last 4000 years of Solar Consciousness - we have made incredible strides forward, particularly during the Classical period, in the Islamic Golden Age - the European Renaissance and from the Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment of the 16th & 17th centuries onwards. We have freed ourselves from the 'variable' of spirit in matters of science. We have taken the eloquent ideas of Descartes, Newton and Darwin and appropriated them to our purposes to create a mechanistic, dualistic, world view in which scientific inquiry can proceed unhindered. We have developed huge capacity for reflection, for objectivity, for standing back from our reality - to review and to understand the nature of our universe. We have lifted ourselves up and freed ourselves from the confines Lunar Era. In so many ways this has been a tremendous, heroic achievement - we have gained much - but we have done so at great cost - and in a way that is ultimately limited & flawed.

.... the evolution of the Western mind has been founded on the repression of the feminine - on the repression of undifferentiated unitary consciousness, of the participation mystique with nature: a progressive denial of the anima mundi, of the soul of the world, of the community of being, of the all-pervading, of mystery and ambiguity, of imagination, emotion, instinct, body, nature, woman - of all that which the masculine has projectively identified as "other."
But this separation necessarily calls forth a longing for a reunion with that which has been lost -
from the Epilogue, The Passion of the Western Mind, by Richard Tarnas

It is a longing expressed by artists for many hundreds of years. These beautiful pre- renaissance paintings depicting the Coronation of the Virgin anticipate such a moment of reunification, although not then, nor now enshrined in creed. Though the Virgin Mother, distant granddaughter of Eve was finally 'admitted' to Heaven, so to speak, as decreed by Papal Edict in 1954 - she is still of course not regarded as Divine. Although she is clearly so in the hearts & minds of these 14th & 15th century artists, as well as in those of the millions today who readily entertain the notion. Though it is still a kind of heresy to admit it.

Coronation of the Virgin - Fra Angelico
Date between 1440 and 1442

Our world today sits on the edge of a precipice. There are those who hold fast to the assumptions of the past - to the dominant paradigm - and those who long for the change Richard Tarnas speaks of. It is hard to imagine how such a change might come to pass - how this marriage of the Lunar & Solar aspects of the soul will manifest in terms of shifts in human consciousness.

Virgin Crown Agnolo Gaddi c.1370

In the ancient world of the Bronze Age, all the goddesses had a lover, a divine masculine counterpart with whom a Sacred Marriage was seasonally enacted and through which the land and all its people were seasonally renewed. There was Ishtar & Tammuz, Inanna & Dumuzi, Isis & Osiris, Aphrodite & Adonis, Cybele & Attis. In essence their marriage was a union of opposites, of man and woman, spirit and nature, heaven and earth, golden sun and silver moon, yin and yang, head and heart, a ritualistic re-enactment of the reconciliation of polarity, a symbolic representation of the sacred whole.

The new gods of the Solar Era, went it alone, so to speak, divorcing their previous lovers & bringing the world into being through their word. It couldn't have been more different!

The Alchemical Wedding

Jung tells us that where the values of an ancient culture are overlaid by those of another, the despised values do not, as we used to think, vanish and cease to be. They fall rather into the unconscious of the race where they continue to influence the conscious psyche. Unable to find expression within the dominant culture the archetypes run underground so to speak, carried in disguise, as they were in the secret, esoteric Gnostic and Nicene texts of early Christianity; into the mystery schools of medieval Europe, into Alchemy, and into our deepest dreams & stories like the Quest for the Holy Grail that tell of a terrible Wasteland, where nothing can grow & no one can live, and into stories like the Sleeping beauty who slumbers at the heart of a forgotten kingdom waiting, waiting, waiting to be re-awakened - and brought to consciousness once more.

The theme is universal as we have seen throughout. Something precious is lost, searched for, and finally found. Only then can the kingdom thrive. It is no coincidence that our heroes are so frequently called to discover a lost, female figure. The tales alert us the missing dimension in both the personal and collective life - and show us what needs to be done to restore a healthy balance.

Jung’s hypothesis of the collective unconscious – a realm of the psyche shared by us all – suggests that ‘nothing is ever lost’ and moreover, that which seems lost must be found if we are to function at our highest capacity.

STELLA AGE - RE-UNIFICAION OF THE SACRED WHOLE

Looking at our culture today, we seem a million miles away from such a mystical re-union - and yet the truth is - science itself - the bastion of the rational mind - of Newtonian Assumptions - has itself undergone a profound transformation in the last hundred years.

There has been a quiet revolution in Quantum Theory that brings the entire paradigm into question. Consciousness now is understood as the prime causal reality not matter. Atoms are waves of possibility before every they achieve form. It is no longer possible to separate observer and observed - as quantum theory shows how each affect one another. The long-established certainties of the Solar Era now look shaky.

Consciousness comes first; it is the ground of all being. Everything else, including matter, is a possibility of consciousness.
Amit Goswami - The Self Aware Universe

The implications are vast, leading to the notion - long held by the ancients and never abandoned by indigenous peoples or in aspects of Eastern Philosophy - that we all inhabit a unified cosmic field - that we are all connected in the deepest, deepest sense and that there is no such thing as inanimate matter.

There is the most beautiful myth, Indra’s Net, often times quoted by the Dalia Lama, and referred to by Anne Baring in many of her inspiring talks. It tells of a holographic cosmos - the interconnectedness of all things & of the non-local consciousness reflected in the new scientific paradigm of non - duality. What a different world it would be if we could bare to accept it.

Indra’s Net:
All is One, One is All,
'In Lak’ech - I am you: you are me'

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite.

The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mututal intercausality.”
~ Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra

What t a long story this has been - of epochs and eras - of different core assumptions, beliefs and values - from the realm of the feminine, the Lunar Era, the Moon, her Goddess’s and the veneration of nature, to the masculine consciousness of the Solar Era, the Sun God, the separation from nature, the rise of rationality, science and the individuated self - and onward toward a Stella Age, as the alchemists might say - & the reunification of these long estranged opposites revealed to us in the image of the Sacred Marriage - & reflected in the discoveries of Quantum Physics over the last hundred years.

It is easy to see where Eve fits in to this long tale and why in a sense she ate the fateful apple.

The great tragedy has been that the myth was and still is taken literally. Viewed symbolically its meaning is quite different. Then the eating of the apple can be seen as an initiation into a new consciousness - a solar consciousness as it were - & awareness of our separation from the Divine and original unity. Without Eve there could have been no onward story, no journey into the realms of free will, of choice. The achievement of this consciousness inevitably involves loss of the original paradisiacal, Golden Age state - a tragedy in the senses discussed, especially when told from the patriarchal perspective come down to us - and yet - from what we now understand from people returning from Near Death Experiences - souls are incredibly keen to come to earth for these very experiences, for the opportunity to evolve. Yes, it is a fall - in a sense - but one that is chosen. It is not a sin - and this is the crucial difference - in doctrine - in storytelling - in perspective.

Trailing clouds of glory, sang the mystic poet Wordsworth, from some far-off heavenly abode.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
William Wordsworth

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin suggests that our journey to the Earth is an honour not a punishment - and one that is greatly prized.

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

Many highly evolved souls, we hear - are now choosing to come to the planet at this particular time to assist in the collective evolution. There have always been such souls of course, the mystics, luminaries & enlightened ones like the Buddha & Jesus, come to help us raise our planetary vibration so to speak. Over the centuries Christian religious practice has become almost exclusively devotional and yet at the start it was much more initiatory. Christ was showing us a way, like Buddha - a way to achieve Christ consciousness - a way to rise up & return to the Garden, to Paradise, where our stories began.

Looked at from these perspectives, Eve can be re-framed in her ancient role - as a great facilitator of human experience - as Mother of All Living in it's original, pre-Biblical sense. Then we might see the story - as Eric Fromm has suggested, not as a 'fall', but as an awakening and the beginning of our rise.

Transfiguration, by Fra Angelico
1395–1455

Yet however the myth is understood, the fact remains that it has most commonly been taken literally and as such has brought immense suffering to woman throughout the entire Solar Era - suffering that continues to this day. It is impossible to justify a single moment of it. It is the harsh truth, a terrifying price to pay & still to continue to pay.

But at last the time has come to return to greater awareness, to gather up the parts of ourselves lost & devalued along the way - and to arrive home changed and humbled by long experience.

Joseph Campbell famously tells us that our myths are public dreams, dreams are public myths. And of course the basic pattern of mythology is cyclical - it tells the story, without exception in its true form, of Paradise Lost, searched for and finally regained.

Maybe these are the times in which we might finally remember, as Anne Baring suggests,

... that we are not fallen, sinful creatures, banished from the Garden of Eden to this planet. On the contrary, we are cosmic beings, carrying divinity – the pearl of great price – at the core of our being.
Anne Baring talk at Brahma Kumaris Retreat Centre June 2017

Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the 2020 Covid 19 Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale in Times of Uncertainty & Transformation: 30: The Moon Boat

5/13/2020

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THE MOON BOAT
It is repeatedly recorded that when the moon sent a deluge upon the earth she also provided a means of salvation – a boat that carried her children to a new world where they could live redeemed lives. The boat that she provided was an ark, a crescent moon boat and in this her people were carried to the sun, the place of warmth and light.

The arrival of this boat, this crescent shaped vessel of light is of great significance for, says Harding, 'instead of being engulfed by the water’s of the moon, the initiate can embark in her boat and so become one of her company. It is a poetic and religious symbol with which we are very familiar. The salvation being found by taking a new attitude toward the powers of the instinct.’
Esther Harding from Women’s Mysteries

Many years ago, I wrote a book called - The Dark Moon. It was then that I started to use my middle names Anne Maria for anonymity because the book concerned a tragedy that had occurred in our family. I had been working in the field of myth, legend and fairy-tale for many years by then - and as I fell into the abyss, I held on to the tales and to their potentially redemptive symbolism & particularly to that of the moon symbolism and the tales associated with her cycles.

Several years before I had the dream described in the previous section on Initiation. Precognitively it somehow seemed to distill & encapsulate the whole dis-orienting & painful experience that lay before me - of dying to my former self - the necessary process we are told - that must occur if transformation is to be achieved.

At such times we like the ancients before us have only our faith to sustain us yet we are promised that the darkness is itself transformative, for it is within this hidden realm, this dark phase of the moon, this deep underworld which is both tomb and womb, that that the process of regeneration mysteriously takes place; and through it the future is established and given new form.

But it is a dangerous, perilous phase on both a personal and collective level and the outcomes are far from certain. The three nights of darkness when the moon cannot be seen is a symbolic period of time – like the Hundred Years in Sleeping Beauty’s fairy-tale. It will take as much or as little time as it needs.

The arrival of the Moon Boat, when finally it emerges is the first chink of light – of hope - so longed for by the ancients - and appearing at certain latitudes quite literally in the shape of a silvery boat - floating across the night sky.

Muslims all over the world still await its first appearance at the end of Ramadan - for only then can the month of fasting end & their Eid celebrations truly begin.

The Moonboat, like the Ark is a recurring archytypal symbol, protecting Noah & his pairs of animals during the Great Flood of Genesis, and Gilgamesh before him in the ancient Sumerian myth.

On a collective & personal level the Flood represents being overwhelmed by the unconscious - and the ark or moon boat, the means of rescue from such forces. Their arrival also denotes the beginnings of the ability to observe the tumultuous terrain from the safety of one’s vessel - and ideally in the company of one able to help integrate our experiences.

I remember vividly visiting the Valley of the Kings on Luxor's West Bank many years ago and being shown such a painted boat at the entrance to a tomb embarking upon its perilous night sea journey between life and death. Our animated guide drew our attention to the depths surrounding the flimsy vessel and to formidable looking characters all around it.

Enemies! he cried out to us with great with urgency.
Enemies all around!

In the Egyptian pantheon it is often Nephthys - the sister goddess of Isis who guides such vessels through these dangerous waters on their way to their afterlife resting places.

It is a crucial role sometimes played by a therapist in everyday life - or a Shaman in indigenous societies. They themselves create similar safe spaces with secure boundaries – sacred spaces if you like – vessels of a sort – like the Moon boat, that lifts us up above the deep waters of life’s experience and holds us safe – arriving when most needed - & allowing us to view the inhospitable terrain in a completely new way.

The ‘boat’ protects us in a ritualistic sense- gives us perspective - sometimes for the first time. We can look back then in safety - we can understand what we didn’t understand before. We can begin to ask questions.

What was it that caused the shadow to fall & overwhelm us so?

And to answer we can look right back to the beginning – to where the tale began. And as our understanding grows, so too metaphorically does the light of the waxing moon - for the cycle turns on and ever on and she becomes fat & full in the night sky and returns once more to the start - as can we - and from here we can go on – differently - more consciously- more aligned with our souls.

When finally, I awoke from my own dream long ago, I fancied for a moment that I was still lying in that boat. But then I found I was in the comfort of my own bed. The old woman who had come to me was gone, but I knew she had been there.

And years later looking back I remembered – even in the midst of falling apart – and though part of me was lost - another part of me was waiting, hoping, praying - yet also knowing that her light would return & she would scoop me up out of the deep, dark depths and carry me home once more.

Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Covid 19 Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

The Dark Moon - www.archivepublishing.co.uk
A journey through darkness toward healing and forgiveness
edited by Hazel Marshall

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale 29:YouTube: Introduction to Hold the Light/blog

5/9/2020

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The path begins at our bleakest moment. If we are lucky we will hear the call and instead of collapsing we will set off in quest of the first chink of light and onward into the unknown, searching and gathering with each step we take. It will not be easy. This is the quest of heroes & heroines, the brave and courageous … the ones who have gone before and returned with their great stories so that we, through contemplation, might be guided through our own dark night of soul.

Hold the Light/blog - Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation started 3/18/20 in response to the covid 19 world-wide pandemic.

Video music ABOVE THE CLOUDS courtesy Turbo Sol

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Covid 19 Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: 28 Initiation

5/8/2020

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I think we are moving through a crucial stage of transition between one age & another. We are faced with a huge opportunity for evolutionary advance. Something is trying to come through to us from the Cosmos, something that is asking for our attention & is offering us help.
Ann Baring: Dream of the Cosmos lecture

The mythological quest, as described by Joseph Campbell has three main parts - departure - initiation - & return. Over these past weeks we have reviewed a great number of tales focusing primarily upon the early stages of such journeys. We have seen how frequently they begin unexpectedly - that often the hero or heroine is reluctant to set forth &/or is held back by fear of the unknown. We have looked at obstacles & trails along the way - at inner & outer foes to be faced, as well as the blessing of friends & magical helpers who mysteriously appear to help, guide & shelter us along our way. And we have seen how the characters grow - often exponentially!

In those early weeks of lockdown on planet earth we were perhaps ourselves in shock, mirroring the trajectory of these tales. We longed maybe for things to get back to normal as soon as possible. But now we have grown accustomed to this 'new normal,' even though we may have encountered loss, illness & hardship & our lives are unrecognisable from what they were before.

I remember the quotes from the Hobbit at the outset of Hold the Light - of Bilbo asking Gandalf if he could promise he would come back if he accepted the invitation to the adventure. And Gandalf famously replying that he could promise no such thing - and that even if Bilbo did ever come back - he wouldn’t be the same Hobbit who left.

When young boys were taken from their villages out into the forest in cultures where Rights of Passage Initiatory Rituals were honoured - they returned as men.

Something happened out there, away from the familiarity & safety of home, some major shift in consciousness was brought about, the kind alluded to maybe by Ann Baring at the start. We would not be missing the mark to say that we are experiencing a collective Rights of Passage Initiation right now. And therein lays the great potential.

It is interesting for a moment to play with the idea that our entire culture, in terms of its maturity is not dissimilar to that of an adolescent boy who somehow needs to be temporarily removed, to be taken out into the forest so to speak, by the wise old shaman of the tribe & put through his paces - in order to bring him to his senses as a potentially responsible grown up.

In myth, legend & fairy-tale there is always such a time, when the potential hero or heroine undergoes experiences which bring about similar shifts in consciousness.

There is a famous story about Jung delving into the depths of his dreams - of going through an ancient door in the floor and down a deep stairwell, only to find another door and another stair, and another door and another stair until finally he came to a place, a great living, pulsating store house of what we might call our common lore, a place of deep knowing shared by the whole of humanity – the place where all dreams come from ...to peoples from all over the earth and across all periods of time. Here all the wisdom of the ages resides, past, present and future - and is connected in its mystery to the entire creation.

When we too step through the floor, or have the ground pulled out from beneath our feet, we are brought into deeper contact with these aspects of consciousness, aspects that are seeking our attention, seeking integration. It may be incredibly disorienting, painful, terrifying in fact - & it may last a very long time - One Hundred Years maybe, before we find our feet - but like the boys who return from initiation in the forest, or like Bilbo from his adventure, we will never be the same again - if we manage to come through. We will be different & enriched in very significant ways. Yet it seems the way is through dying to our former selves in a deeply alchemical sense, of letting go of all of our ideas & constructs of who we once were. And from this there is no escape.

Mythologically this unsettling time corresponds to phase of the Dark Moon of Lunar Mythology, of the Night Sea Journey, the Three Days of Darkness after Christ’s crucifixion, when he descended into the underworld & harrowed hell.

Yet always such times – and this is the great promise - though they may seem interminable – always, always, always precede transformation - and in story, the finding of the symbolic treasure. The tales may yet have some way to run - the characters may not yet be fully out of the woods so to speak - and yet the pivotal point has been reached, the turning point, the beginning of the return journey! Hallelujah!

This is the path of heroines & heroes, the brave & the courageous who have gone before. The symbolism is akin to that of the initiatory rituals of the ancient mystery schools and of the Christian sacraments - immersion into water at Baptism, the shaving of hair upon taking holy orders – the sacrament of reconciliation at death's door - outward signs denoting spiritual evolution –- transitions from one phase of maturity to another. But always - it is what is happening on the inside – the inner reality that counts.

Over the next months I want to pick up on the stories left purposefully undone in the first parts of this series - stories like that of Inanna in the depths of Underworld, the Wounded Kings & Wasteland of The Grail Quest, Dante in his Inferno, Isis searching, searching for Osiris, Demeter for Persephone, the Sleeping Beauty & her court surrounded by its hedge of impenetrable thorn. All are stories that reveal the mechanics of initiation & transformation. I want to introduce new, additional, yet related symbols & tales too like The Fall of Eve, The Moon Boat, the rise of the Solar Myth, the forgotten Goddesses, the Divine Feminine, the Sacred Alchemical Wedding & Divine Child! Phew!

But for now, I would like to end with a dream I had before a particularly life changing transition of my own, a tragedy from which I eventually emerged & began to heal. The unconscious has a way of preparing the ground for us it seems - like the tales, providing a framework to hold on to - when
our world's fall apart - and our rational minds fail utterly to apprehend the significance of the moment.

Edvard Munch 1896 Oslo Museum

Long ago I left my home. I heard a calling from deep within the ocean. I ran to the shoreline and waded into the sea. At first I felt the sand beneath my feet - but it soon disappeared, and I was carried along by strong currents far from the shore. And I looked back and saw my home – and the lights flickering at the window & I knew my husband and children were sleeping there – unaware that I had gone.

Then the currents began to swirl & I was pulled down, down, down. And I began changing, rapidly losing my form. And I knew I could never ever return. And I became a fish with shiny scales – but even this strange form soon began to change and I was nothing save a grain of sand - then even this dissolved and was one with the salty sea.

I do not know how long I remained this way, nor how long it had taken to become so. What I can say is that eventually I began to regain form – first as a grain of sand, then as a fish with shiny scales as before – then a woman, naked and alone.

High above me there came a light & I pulled myself up toward it and eventually emerged from the ocean. In the distance I saw a boat of shining white light with an old, old woman, with long plaited hair sitting on board. And the boat as it drew near seemed as if it were the crescent moon and I believed it to be so. The old woman then reached out and hoisted me out of the water – and I knew she would take me home.

Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: 27: Lead us not into Temptation

5/1/2020

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One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
J.R.R Tolkien: Lord of the Rings

The first book of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – ends with the breaking of the Fellowship & with them all going off in different directions. What began as a strong, determined group faulters before it has hardly begun. Gandalf, Pippin, Merry, Legolas & Gimli set off with Boromir & Aragorn whilst Frodo steals away with only his faithful Sam beside him – resolved to carry the Ring alone to Mordor. Not far down the road there will be further separations too as well we know. So how had it come to this, after the great strength & unity expressed at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell? How does any group, once strong & bonded begin so to unravel?

Tolkien gives simple yet profound insight into such questions. The wise stay back from temptation - the over bold rush forward - as we see with Boromir from the very start - only the innocent may safely forge ahead and even then at great cost and risk to themselves.

“You will meet many foes, some open, and some disguised; and you may find friends along your way when you least look for it.”
Elrond to the Fellowship at Rivendell

Like the Ring itself, that for the most part appears completely benign - used
for years by Bilbo in the Hobbit for convenient disappearances when in sticky spots & later as a party trick - changes its nature at the start of Lord of the Rings. Little sign until then of its sinister power - although the hints were always there. Yet in the Lord of the Rings we see straightaway what we are dealing with, for when Gandalf throws it on the fire at Bag End - the eerily mysterious inscription is immediately visible - and the party trinket is unmasked as the deadliest of foes.

We learn early on that Gandalf refuses to take it up - this is partly because his status as wizard & guide - sets him somewhat outside the drama, like Virgil in Dante's Divina Comedia. Elrond too & the elves of Rivendell keep their distance. Galadriel is offered it freely by Frodo when the company reach Lothlórien - & she takes it for a moment. She herself is a Ring Bearer you see, like Elrond. Both know that their Rings will diminish in power if Frodo succeeds in his quest & then all the elves will have to depart Middle Earth & return to the West.

So there is a moment of severe temptation. A moment of imagining a different outcome - where she might be the one to wield the mighty power and thus remain in Middle Earth.

In place of a Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.
….and there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
'I pass the test', she said.
'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'

Of the lesser characters we see straightaway – before ever the fellowship depart Rivendell that Boromir is tempted. He wants to use for good. To defend his lands & peoples who have long since lived in the shadow of Mordor. He cannot understand why the others cannot see this. To him it is a madness to destroy so powerful a weapon. He does not hear the warnings of the Elders & later along the road, he secretly approaches Frodo to get him to see sense. Boromir speaks gently at first but is soon overtaken by the same passion that gripped him at Rivendell & he tries to overpower Frodo take the Ring for himself.
And Frodo knows for sure then that he must go alone.

Yet others of the company remain true throughout including Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli, who is more aware than most of the dangers of pressing ahead too recklessly with one's ventures, for his peoples' have grave experience - when out of greed for glittering gems - they delved too deep into the mountain & awakened the terrible Balrog from deep beneath the earth.

It was in within such caves that that Bilbo first found the Ring, momentarily mislaid by Gollum, who resided there in the shadows. He too had once been a Hobbit & in his character Tolkien shows us most starkly, the trajectory of those souls who kid themselves they can wield the Ring.

As soon as he sees it, like all the rest, he is lost - & like the orcs who had long ago been Elves,little by little lost himself - his warmth & finally his soul. In the end Sméagol is hardly a Hobbit at all - but more as we might imagine a heroin or crack addict might be or an alcoholic in the last days of addition. He has become Gollum and as such is almost beyond the reach of redemption.

Interestingly, Peter Jackson prepared a scene, not included in the final edit of Lord of the Rings film- where we would have been shown what Frodo might have become had he fallen further into the grip of & allure of the Ring.

No one is immune from temptation, not even Sam – who suffers momentary delusions of grandeur when he briefly carries the Ring in Mordor – yet thankfully his vanity stretches only as far as imagining himself as the creator of wonderous gardens.

There is a fine line isn’t there between confidence & self-actualisation on the one hand & inflation or hubris, as the Greeks might say on the other. It is an ever-present danger – this balancing act between reaching our potential as the heroes & heroines of our own lives - & letting our successes go to our heads. Those of us that stand too far back from the line as it were, are what we might call weak. Then others will surely step over us filling the vacuum, claiming space & power that could or should have been ours.

Yet if we step across that line - even if only fractionally - we are likewise lost – but in an entirely different way. The fallen kings of the Two Towers exemplify this dynamic perfectly - one too weak, the other over bold. They are worthy of study in their own right & we will touch upon their tales in a later chapter - but for now it is enough to note that the shape of our world's reflect our choices - good & bad & on a moment to moment basis.

And in the end even Frodo, even this dear, simple soul of the Shire falls & fails at the last hurdle - in the very last moment of the Quest - as well we all might do. Who knows what the final outcome might have been if Gollum had not shown himself then & seized the ring from Frodo - biting it off his finger in the process & finally bringing him to his senses. But it was much too late - & for a moment Gollum is tragically & wildly triumphant - but then he loses his footing - & clutching his precious - stumbles, falls & is swallowed up by Mordor's flames.

Sam then comes forth to the brink to claim his friend & together they flee the crumbling mountain.

Yet though Frodo faltered at the very last - still the quest is achieved & by & by - the Eagles (whom we have met before) & who are always somehow mysteriously in the wings of Tolkien's tales - swoop down with Gandalf to rescue & carry them back to Rivendell.

Why does Tolkien write it in this way?
Why does the hero fail - & yet succeed - but differently than we might expect? And what is it in Tolkien's philosophy that creates such an ending - and is it ultimately satisfactory?

That we are all flawed is a given - heroes & heroines maybe - yet mortal too and yet it is the very fact of our mortality that renders our heroism - in so far as we may achieve it - given the severity of temptation that only a God like Christ might endure & come through - all the more miraculous! And this is what Tolkien celebrates. For let us be in no doubt - when Frodo reaches the edge of the Cracks of Doom, he is as close as any mortal can be to the power of darkness & all that this implies - & mortal folk can only go so far. It is what distinguishes them from gods.

Tolkien's ending too allows Gollum to live out his obsession to the end & in so doing show us all where such additions lead - as well as adding an unexpected twist in allowing this saddest & most tragic of creatures to ultimately destroy the Ring & set them all free.

Tolkien has provided us all with cautionary tales - he has shown what might become of us - & the many ways we might fall & the cost to ourselves & to our fellows.

Yet without Frodo & Sam & all the other flawed creatures who risked life & limb to bring about the destruction - the ending could never have been achieved. Like them - we may fail at the last. We may not achieve our final goal & yet this in itself does not undue our legacy, it does not diminish us utterly. No, it only reminds us we are human - & returns us to humility - & this in part - is the point of the journey!

Much love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis @
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke
Tolkien's Legendarium Transpersonal Weekend @ Rock Bank UK has been postponed until Spring 2021
Provisional Bookings
www.rockbank.co.uk
hazel@rockbank.co.uk

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: The Fall of Atlantis

4/25/2020

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The Atlantean world crumbled because it wavered from the law. It forgot that Nature was the ruler of all things, and in attempting to survive unnaturally it was destroyed.
Manly P Hall: Ancient Wisdom

History tells a linear tale; mythology is cyclical in nature, universally beginning at a high point like Paradise or in a Golden Age, an age of innocence as Blake might say, or one of a highly evolved & uncorrupted consciousness. The myriad tales that follow trace the devolution from & return to such realms or states of consciousness.

History tells it the other way around - from a different beginning - and the stories that follow concern the evolution towards the attainment of consciousness in a Darwinian sense.

The resulting paradigms appear at odds - diametrically opposed – inhabiting either ends of a stark polarity. Yet both ways of looking have their importance in different ways. They do not cancel one another out.

Carl Jung, the swiss psychiatrist who brought to the western imagination the notion of the collective unconscious speaks of a Two Million Year Old being - an aspect of consciousness residing within us all - a deep racial memory if you like - containing the whole of human history & and pre - history - the full story - the all and everything, the majority of which has sadly been forgotten & lost in the mists of time.

Yet when we delve into this shared collective unconscious we find remnants of such stories, fragments of dreams so to speak, that still recall wonderous beginnings & great civilisations and also tales of how they fell from grace and - in the Myth of Atlantis - brought upon themselves a cataclysmic deluge that swept over the earth, engulfing & destroying all in it's wake.

Tolkien himself was for many years disturbed by such a dream which he speaks of in his letter to Christopher Bretherton.

"This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands.
--Letter to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964

The story is said to have always fascinated him causing him to weave its dark image into his haunting tale - The Fall of Númenor, part of the Silmarillion & The Lost Tales.

'This legend, myth or dim memory of some ancient history,' he writes - as if he too in some way struggles with the ideal categorisation. And when Jung speaks of the two million year old being residing in us all - is he speaking in purely historical terms or is he, in delving deep into the unconscious, stepping through a portal, like Tolkien routinely did, into the magical realms of Once Upon a Time and there glimpsing the great ahistorical archetypes & patterns of the collective psyche?

It may well be so that in some mysterious way history & legend mingle & merge & certainly as we have said, peoples from across the globe & over many centuries have told stories of a great distant flood in their different unique ways, from the ancient Sumerian account of Gilgamesh inscribed on excavated stone tablets from the Bronze Age, through to the biblical tale of Noah, the ark & the epic inundation told in Genesis.

Such deeply rooted tales speak to us profoundly on a multiplicity of levels
elucidating truths to be pondered and understood and heeded.

Falling from Grace - a storytelling

Now the story tells that from far, far away - maybe even from the stars - maybe even from the distant constellations of the Pleiades’ & Sirius - those bright clusters toward which the pyramids direct their gaze - Beings of Pure Light once came to the earth.

It is said they were over twelve feet tall, that their skin was golden hued and translucent. They had little need of food - spheres of bright light surrounded them - & like Tolkien's elves, they lived for hundreds & hundreds of years.

Highly skilled in poetry and song and in matters of deep learning, they were matriarchal in nature, seeking harmony not power & they had no thought or feeling toward war or competition - and they used their gifts wisely to build great temples and places of learning and beauty.

They are said to have resonated at a high frequency and could not always be apprehended in the third dimensional sphere, again like Tolkien's elves who ofttimes passed through the forest unseen by men & hobbits & dwarves.

They had a great love & understanding of crystals with which they worked to create beautiful temples, as well employing them for healing, when the need arose - and as a major source of power for their cities, all of which were crowned with crystalline power domes & the capital Poseida it is said, had the most beautiful emerald dome whose rays embraced the entire realm.

This was the Golden Age of Atlantis - a hallowed time - and for many thousands of years the people prospered and grew, and their influence spread far beyond their borders to distant lands across the seas. Good relations were made, and trade flourished - but little by little, as they came more & more into their human form, their consciousness slowly devolved onto a denser frequency, and as this happened many previously high beings fell into the realms of duality.

Thereafter they no longer lived for hundreds of years, their need for food & sustenance increased & their priorities shifted away from the pursuit of Beauty toward material gain, toward power and eventually to violence & war.

And those over whom this shadow had fallen sought to subdue their neighbours and to bring them under their control as slaves. And it is said then that the secrets of the sacred crystals were stolen from those who remained true and that they were gradually subverted, eventually being utilised to create terrible weapons that laid waste their enemies lands, terrorised their peoples & brought vast numbers under their dominion.

Some say the corrupted Atlanteans eventually became like Tolkien’s orcs – once fair and pure souls – now withered & warlike & totally estranged from the light.

Plato's Story

The Ancient Greeks too had a version of the story, first come down to us through Plato, who told it in relation to his own pantheon.
*****
Poseidon, Lord of the Ocean long ago fell in love with a mortal girl and together they had many sons. And he made a home for them on a beautiful island and he called it Atlantis & when the sons were grown he divided that land into ten parts and gave each son dominion over one part before returning to his home beneath the waves.

But there was one law he set in stone before he left that forbade them on pain of death - ever to make war with one another. For many years all went well - for you see they were the sons of a god and therefore not fully mortal - but as time passed they forgot themselves - :

“…and when the divine portion began to fade away, … and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.”
(Plato, Critias)― Plato,

It was Zeus, god of the gods who first saw what was happening to this once honourable race – and he had gone to Poseidon and told him - and when Poseidon came & saw for himself he wept, for his love for his sons and for the fair isles of Atlantis was great indeed - but they had transgressed the law and Poseidon – though his heart ached - had to uphold it. And so it was that he then stirred up the seas with his great trident – causing huge waves to form and to swirl about the islands – and the sky darkened above and the people cried out amidst the chaos– and the waves grew higher and higher and stronger and stronger – and they engulfed the beautiful islands - destroying all in their wake – and the people were drowned and pulled down into depths of the sea. And thereafter no one knew their story nor of the wonders they had created – save in dreams strange imaginings.

What we see in Poseidon’s dramatic intervention – we see also in other flood stories of antiquity. At this very same moment, when evil has risen to its upmost ascendency, the gods intervene. In Genesis God causes a great wind & storm to stir & rain to fall & floods to submerge the land. It is the same in the Gilgamesh story and in Tolkien’s Downfall of Númenor.

Rare moments indeed – brimming with meaning & significance. Free will is sacred within all these pantheons of course– and yet it seems there are times when humankind goes too far – attracting if you like, the wrathful interventions of the divine – in order maybe - that the great cosmic harmony is not disturbed. Complex notions all and beyond the scope of this short piece yet suffice to say, the tales clearly tell – that there are absolute boundaries that cannot be violated nor gone beyond and that there are cataclysmic consequences for those who attempt to do so.

For such peoples, the story ends abruptly here as they are drowned & pulled down into the depths – maybe to come again to earth one day – to try again, maybe not. Yet for others, those who somehow escape or are miraculously saved from the divine wrath, the great journey continues – and it is their story that we will take up by and by.

Tolkien tells his friend that only after he had written about his dream of the great flood did he ceased to be troubled by it.

I don't think I have had it since I wrote the 'Downfall of Nùmenor.'
Letter to W. H. Auden , 7 June 1955
It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about it. It always ends by surrender....
Letter to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964

Sometimes the unconscious speaks to us of matters of a purely personal nature - yet sometimes - and there is a wealth of evidence to support this - it speaks of matters of immense collective significance. Tolkien's dream seems clearly along these lines. And In setting it down for us - in giving it form, in the shape of the of Nùmenor tale, he has re-presented it - in his own unique way - for our collective attention.

All these tales - ancient & modern alike - were conceived & set down long before our current climate crisis came to the fore and yet seem as pertinent now as they ever were. It is salutary to consider that civilisations do not last forever but rise & fall in their cycles. Pondering the fragments of these long-lost tales can be most enlightening - for above all they show us the moral conditions that may bring about the fall of civilisations - and these things are crucial for all of us.

much love
Anne Maria
x x x

The Arc of Salvation
William Blake

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis @
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy-tale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation: 25: Tolkien: The Music of the Ainulindalë

4/20/2020

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“In the Deeps of Time and in the midst of innumerable stars”
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Silmilrillion

All mythologies begin with a creation story of sorts and the tale of the making of Arda, home of elves & men is set forth for us at the start of Tolkien's Silmarillion.

Difficult to know and difficult to describe - The Silmarillion is an acquired taste - like dark chocolate, I heard someone say. Yet it is Tolkien’s great work - a book, though unfinished and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977 - that he regarded as the true source and font from which everything he subsequently wrote issued forth.

I do not remember a time when I was not building it...
Tolkien:Letter 131 to Milton Waldman (~1951)

...he tells Waldman in the letter re-printed at the start of the book.

Before ever he conceived of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings – when he was just a young Oxford student – alone in the trenches of World War 1 – the war to end all wars it was said – & by whose end he would lose all but one of his friends – he had set his pen to paper and dreamed up the most extra- ordinary creation story & companion of tales, complete with their own languages, that he had started as a child.

The intensity of his creative experiences during in those first years have elsewhere been likened to those described by Carl Jung in his Red Book. Both men it seems lived life close to an edge for a few years - closer we might say and deeper than most of us ever come to the extremes of human experience without toppling over - and both confess to spending the rest of their lives attempting to integrate the flood of material encountered at that time.

Tolkien reveals to us throughout the vast legendarium that subsequently came about, a profound understanding of beauty, goodness, evil & human pride & of how such weakness can ultimately lead to tyranny & destruction.

In studying his own creation myth we can see clearly the introduction of the opposing tendencies of light of darkness. We see how they are woven into the very fabric of creation from the start - setting the scene for the aeons of struggles ahead that eventually culminate in the victory at the end of Lord of the Rings.

“ In the beginning there was Eru, the One,
who in Arda is called Ilúvatar;
and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones,
that were the offspring of his thought,
and they were with him before aught else was made.
And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.”
J.R.R.Tolkien: The Silmirillion

Well for a long time the Ainur sang by themselves - each alone - finding their own voice and afterwards they listened to one another so that they might understand each others part - and Ilúvatar was greatly pleased.

Then he said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.'

And they began to sing as instructed and to create a beautiful music, singing together in both unison & harmony and Ilúvatar was once more pleased.

But then Malkor, who was the greatest of the Ainur began to sing more loudly than the others and he introduced the first discord into the song - and others of the Ainur were shocked & dismayed. Some them ceased to sing at all whilst some found themselves drawn into the dissonance introduced. And for a while Ilúvatar harkened, the story tells, before bringing the music to a halt.

He then created a second theme and it was more beautiful and more powerful than before - but again Malkor rose up in his defiance and once more overpowered many more of those that had held faith with Ilúvatar's creation - & the music staggered and faultered in its progression, falling into inevitable disharmony & choas.
Then Ilúvatar rose up his right hand - and a third theme commenced amidst the confusion.
It began quietly we are told and it was,

... soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance.
The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came....whilst the other... was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes.

What an extra-ordinary image – this endless braying of trumpets on just a few notes. Loud and brash – like people one sometimes meets – who somehow manage to subvert and re-direct everything and everyone toward serving their own narrow ends. And this is never pleasurable. Such people have no finesse. Bullies in a way – yet often with no consciousness of their dis-empowering effects. On the contrary – they are often leaders, dangerous leaders – (or comical - if enough people dare to call them out like in the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes.) They are full of great self– belief – used to a lifetime of filling all the available space – so to speak – of overshadowing - not actually realising the great potential of others or worse still secretly wishing to supress it as we see here.

Tolkien gives luminous insight into this whole dynamic – that we all see playing out in groups from playground to board room. The Ainur when they begin seem only aware of their own part, their expression of the theme propounded by Ilúvatar. They only gradually become aware of other strains - and through deep listening and profound contemplation come to understand and to sing in unison, and in beautiful harmony too.

This ability to really listen – to sense another energetically, deeply – is the essence of a good choir and a characteristic of fully functioning groups wherever they might be. A successful leader, like Tolkien’s Aragorn is highly attuned to his companions – high & low. Not so with Malkor, for his will is to dominate & undue, to subvert Ilúvatar’s creation and set it to his own ends.

He is an extreme manifestation of this tendency to subvert & out-shine. He is the most powerful of the Ainur Tolkien tells, but he is flawed from the get go and has often we hear, roamed the void – impatient with Ilúvatar, seeking the Flame Imperishable for himself – the very flame Ilúvatar wields in order to create life.

Ultimately however Malkor is no match for Ilúvatar and as this third theme progresses Malkor's most powerful, violent & triumphant notes are overtaken by Ilúvatar’s and woven into his own beautiful music so that it is abundantly clear that no music may progress to it's conclusion that does not have its source in the light. And finally then Ilúvatar ...

raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Ilúvatar, the Music ceased.

What none of them know then - even Malkor, is that their music has
has gone out into the void and that a world has been created from it.

About ten years ago I had the most illuminating dream. I was being shown around a hospital, far in the future – the wards were arranged as normal in oblong shaped rooms with rows of beds of either side. Someone asked me to follow and led me to a narrow passage-way – not visible to the naked eye that ran behind the rows of beds – and there I was shown the underlying psychological & spiritual conditions that underpinned each person’s illness. The healing protocol – I was told - was simply vibration.

I was then taken back to the ward where I saw that a small frequency box had been placed in the centre emitting sound waves. Peoples energetic fields were being re -calibrated. They were being brought back into harmony – into health.

Ancient civilisations are said to have practiced sound healing and today many alternative health practitioners offer therapy along these lines. Not as powerful most probably as the curative interventions being realised in the dream – but who knows.

Though not at all recognised by conventional medicine, the power of vibration is undeniable. A few years later I went to see Masuri Emoto, the Japanese scientist who famously conducted experiments on the effects of thought on matter – and on water in particular. His photographs of frozen water crystals subjected to a range of postive & negative programming are incredible & highly significant too given the body is mainly composed of water.

Beyond the realm of the mainstream of course - like those who say we are entering a new phase of awakening – a raising of our planetary vibration. Babies being born are said to have slightly more activated DNA (making use of more of what conventional science calls our junk DNA.) Seems odd though doesn’t it – almost re-enactments of Tolkien’s tale – with this new elevation of consciousness, of vibrational frequency – on the one side, whilst on the other – the darker forces of 5G and its possible negative electro -magnetic frequencies being bombarded through our bodies.

Alternative US health professionals with huge followings have come out straight and pointed out the worrying correlation between the first big roll out of 5G in areas like Lombardy in Italy, New York City and Wuhan of course – which have been the worst hit. There is said to be a clear historical correlation too between points of increased global electrification over the last hundred years and the outbreak of health pandemics. Interesting to ponder!

Nikola Tesla famously said,

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

All form we are told proceeds from the void - from the unity or singularity of the first dimension - into vibration – waves of potential - of consciousness - that mysteriously morph into particles of matter as we see demonstrated in the realm of quantum physics - a whole new paradigm - with a non - materialist base - gradually emerging into our understanding and yet clearly understood by our predecessors in the ancient world.

It is said that in order to know himself God moved beyond oneness - and brought the universe into being. In sacred geometry this first movement beyond the incorporeal realm of infinite potentiality is represented as the progression from the single point or dot at the core of the circle outwards to the creation of its radius and onward through a sequence of increasingly complex tessellations and magnifications.

This first geometric progression however is the most significant - for in drawing a circle around itself - spirit it seems - reaches out into the third dimensional world in its first move toward becoming matter.

As Lao Tzu explained:

The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot
Ten Thousand Things.

Passage: Anne Maria Clarke: Heavenly Creations

The utterance of the OM, the mystic syllable and most sacred mantra in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism is said to carry the life force of prana
And of course, the great creation myth of the bible begins thus,

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

What Tolkien would have made of such things it is impossible to tell yet we are of course free to draw the correspondences. He was a devout catholic of course; and he was a great mythographer too, perhaps more aware than any of us of the deep nature of such matters.

Whatever the case may be, it seems that whilst residing on this plain of duality, as Tolkien hints at the end of his Lord of the Rings – there will always be a battle between opposing forces – opposing themes in our collective song.

Only when such polarity is transcended will our ultimate Happy Ending finally be achieved and only then will the music of creation be sung as first intended.

Water carries the deepest memory of the uncorrupted song, he writes - the elves always knew this & longed for it & wove fragments of its memory into their singing - but only at the end of days, Tolkien tells us will ...

...the themes of Ilúvatar .. be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
Tolkien: Silmarillion

Much love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis @
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
Tolkien's Legendarium Transpersonal Weekend @ Rock Bank UK has been postponed until Spring 2021
Provisional Bookings
www.rockbank.co.uk
hazel@rockbank.co.uk

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy tale: 24: Sacred Space

4/16/2020

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"Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion."
- Barry Lopez

There are great stories, mythic stories, epic legends and tales of much renown – the ones we all know, share and partake of – yet there are personal stories too – of our own lives- our own joys and sorrows – often these mirror the greater stories, like that of Nature herself and her eternal cycles.

We live next to a wood and this morning I got up really early, opened the window, put an extra blanket on our bed & listened to the Spring Dawn Chorus. Just beyond the house, at the side of the main garden, there’s a circle of young oaks. Ten years ago, when we first came here they were all terribly overgrown and choked up with brambles. My husband has long since cleared the area and has been looking after them ever since. He has sown grass seed and put an old rickety garden bench there that used to be in the main garden and arranged a row of semi - broken plant pots containing all the things that are out of season or that need his special attention as it were - his plant hospital. There are bird feeders too and an old wood stove.

No one ever goes there, and he’s claimed it in a way - to share with all the wildlife - pheasants, hedgehogs, squirrels, muntjak deer and countless visiting birds. It’s his sanctuary. His retreat. His sacred space. Every night after work he spends time there, even in the depths of winter – in the pitch dark or moonlight. Now he is home for the foreseeable because of the virus he is there so much more & loving it.

There must be so many men right now and women too, those privileged with gardens and outdoor space - but other types as well who have cherished indoor pursuits who - in spite of the threat - have truly returned to their elements, doing what they really want to do - even if that's just spending precious time with children and other loved ones after years of hard graft in various occupations and dog eat dog competitive environments, high or low. To these people - the lockdown is a gift.

Many years ago, when we first met – I asked my husband what he would really like to do – if there were no constraints – and he said he would like to look after a wood. Against all the odds and without really looking or even trying to create such a thing - that dream came true…..unexpectedly & straight out of the blue as it were.

Last week we planted a apple tree sapling - thinking ahead to possible future lockdown scenarios - maybe even long after we are gone. Or for a different world that might just follow after this great adventure we are all sharing right now. It was just a little stick of a thing when we brought it home but now has several beautiful white/pink blossoms. Nature is thriving right as we have repeatedly observed and alongside the tragic count of those who have died comes new evidence of the incredible beneficial effects on pollution levels. Kindness too is at an all-time high as are acts of great heroism. None of us know how this story will unfold and how our parts will one day be told by generations looking back.

Sipping my tea in the wood I wondered, as millions across the world most probably are, about what kind of a world we might create as a result of this shared adventure. Will we return to a more local way of life - cutting back on travel - maybe growing more of our own food wherever possible. Will our values, priorities and consciousness be changed as always happens to storybook heroes and heroines of course - or will we just go back to how it was before?

John O Donohue, the Irish mystic says maybe, we have all....

“..... travelled too fast over false ground;
and maybe
"the soul has come to take us back."
Jonh O Donohue

To thrust us all unbidden into this great retreat from our show must go on – and business as usual mentality and - unless we are key workers - grounded us until further notice.

There are no accidents in the universe, the wise ones have always told us – everything happens for a reason – its just we can’t quite fully see what that might be. Yet it seems pretty clear that for many – it’s a time to reassess – to go within – to do the things we always wanted to do – and turn a bad thing inside out and upside down & thrive like never before - to find our sacred spaces – wherever they might be – and when we do, maybe we will find part of ourselves already there waiting. As Campbell says,

Your sacred place is where you find yourself again & again – and if you find it – use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.
Joseph Campbell

Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis @
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy-tale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation: 23: Easter Meditations: Ressurrection of the Light

4/12/2020

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Giotto di Bondone, Resurrection 1304-06, fresco, Cappella Scrovegni, Padua
(Resurrectio: Noli me tangere )

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Mathew 28: King James Version

In all the great myths we have glimpsed over these past weeks – there is this motif of healing and renewal. For all reflect the same deeply rooted pattern that we see recurring endlessly throughout the cosmos and within nature herself. A sacred cycle of birth, death and renewal.

When Christ defies death and rises from his tomb he personifies this great truth and shifts it dimensionally – elevates it to a higher octave – he is born again - yet not as before – he is become luminous – a light body – here and not here, like Giotto's Angels depicted coming momentarily into form - into view - yet incorporeal in their essence.

His wounds are visible & yet he is transcendent of them – which is the hope of course for all of us in dying and moving beyond the material world.
There are such beautiful stories about Alzheimer sufferers becoming completely lucid in the last moments before death – their sufferings connected only to their bodies it seems– never to their souls.

The resurrection, is like the Mass in a way, like baptism, confirmation, marriage, and the taking of holy vows - sacraments – all reflecting transitions – from one part of life to another – yet also – potentially - transitions from one state of consciousness to another - they are mysteries – to be pondered yet never fully known.
Times were they were more directly referred to as initiations – a language closer to the ancient world and to myth.
When the hero or heroine return from the underworld – they return from periods of deep initiation – and they come back utterly changed.
The point of the adventure, the trail, the test – the falling away of the known world – and all the rest is precisely this.
Oftentimes it feels like part of us is dying – and in many ways this is true. For the hard truth is - we must die in order to be renewed. This is the essence of transformation – of shifting energetically to a new consciousness.

It is said that after his crucifixion Jesus descended into the underworld and that there was a great harrowing of Hell - whilst on earth darkness descended.

Symbolically this corresponds to the phase of the Dark Moon that the ancients, called - The Land of No return – for at such times no one knew if the light would ever return.
And so it must have been especially for Mary the Mother and Mary Magdalene and all those who loved Jesus.
And so it had been for Demeter, whose daughter was lost beneath the world – and countless other grieving goddesses whose pitiful cries of lament for their lost loved ones came to populate mythology from the third millennium BC. They are known as the Sorrowing Mothers of the world.

In dying & being re-born Christ and his beloveds – his enemies too - partake of this ancient mystery – rooted as we have seen in nature herself – in the psyche and in the sacred cycle of life.

It is a story created and re-created across time – since people first used language. And always it is told that the great ones will return to the earth at Springtime, when the crescent moon is in the sky - mirroring the re-birth & renewal of the land after the darkness of winter.

I slept, sings Solomon’s bride,
but my heart is awakened.
Listen; it is the voice of my lover calling:
The winter is past & the rain is over & gone;
Flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.
Song of Solomon 2:10-12

This is when Jesus returns to us - all but briefly – with all the symbolism of spring and of love. He comes back to show us we are told – the crown of his teaching – the mystical element and reality of the soul in its eternity and perfection.
"I am the way," he tells us – not just to adore and to worship but ultimately – also to become!
The words are open to interpretation of course. We can take them literally, or symbolically. And maybe both are true. In the end it's up to us.

So we come to the end of our meditations and to the end of the Easter story…one so beautifully and poignantly portrayed for us in Giotto di Bondone’s exquisite fresco cycle. Some of these works, like the Lamentation - featured on Good Friday – are said to be the greatest paintings of the Middle Ages.

The sacred art of the Byzantine period which preceded Giotto had a solemn and holy beauty of its own, but was two-dimensional, immobile, and largely symbolic, writes Madeleine Stebbins.
Giotto initiated a more natural, emotionally expressive human style, which was — it seems — inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, Giotto being a third order Franciscan himself.
Looking at the Lamentation: Madeleine Stebbins

St.Francis had brought a whole new Humanism to the interpretation of the Gospels which greatly impacted Giotto who carried it over and rendered it so tenderly in these works.

Over the week they have seeped into my soul. Last night I dreamed I was resting within the paintings – in all the blue – the blue of Heaven as we said at the start – and I was still and quiet and peaceful. When I woke I tried to think which painting it was – but couldn’t recall - yet the feeling of deep peace & of the blue remained.

Buona Pasque as they say in Italy,
Happy Easter
much love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis @
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog

These meditations for Easter Week are based on the exquisite 14th century fresco cycle by Giotto di Bondone, from The Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (Italy), that so beautifully elucidate the story as it unfolds.

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy-tale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation:22: Easter Meditations: The Day of Agony

4/10/2020

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The Crucifixtion of Christ by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305
(La Crocifissione di Cristo)

Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:
Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
John.19 King James Version

After his arrest Jesus had been brought before Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest and late into the night - against all legal protocol – he had been tried, found guilty and sent onward to Pontius Pilate for sentencing. Deep down Pilot knew Jesus was innocent. This we can deduce from the gospels. He understood he was deemed a threat to the priest-hood and this is why they had orchestrated the case against him.

Jesus had told them openly when asked,

“Are you the Messiah, the Son of the living God?”
“You have said so, he replies.
But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven.”
Matthew 26:64

Giotto: Scrovegni Chapel, Padua: Christ before Caiaphas
(Cristo davanti a Caifa 1304)

And the high priest had torn his robes then and on charges of blasphemy sent Jesus to Pilate for sentencing. And when Pilate asked again the same question.

Are you the King of the Jews? he replied,
“You say that I am a king.”

Pilate pressed him to say more and asked Jesus if he was aware he had power to either free or condemn him. And Jesus knew yet remained silent and Pilate greatly marvelled at his composure.

Now, as well you know, there was a tradition at the time of Passover for certain criminals to be released. A mocking crowd had followed Jesus from the house of Caiaphas - a crowd stirred by the priesthood in their disdain. This crowd now waited and watched beyond the walls of Herod’s House where Pilate resided over the festival. And they were a crowd totally unlike that which had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem just a few days before - and they were baying for his conviction - and secretly amongst had been Peter – whose story we shall take up briefly here – for as they had waited for news near the house of Caiaphas, a girl had recognised him and come forth and said.

"This man also was with him."
But he denied it, saying,
“Woman, I do not know him.”
Then another recognised him & called her friends and said aloud –
"This is one of them.
He was with Jesus...,"
Matthew 26:69-75 NEW King James Version

and again he denied it was so. And they insisted and he swore he did not know him and invoked God to be his judge. And the cock crowed and each time he remembered Jesus saying he would deny him – and he wept – knowing his life was saved but his soul was lost, and he went away then but the crowd, now baying for blood went on.

Now, there was a criminal named Barabbas who was then brought forward and Pilate, having found no fault with Jesus cried out,

Who shall I give you today?,
“Whom do you want me to release to you?
Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”
Mathew 27: 17 King James Version

And the crowd cried,
Barabbas! Barabbas!
“What then shall I do with Jesus?” asked Pilate,
What evil hath he done?
Crucify him! Crucify him!
Matthew 27:23 King James Version

They called back as one voice.

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.
Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
Mathew 27: 24 King James Version

He released Barabbas then and delivered Jesus to the crowd.
And so it was. And Jesus was given over to be scourged & stripped of his clothes & driven onward to Calvary bearing his cross. A crown of twisted thorns was thrust upon his head, and all along the way he was mocked and jeered and spat at as a common criminal might be.

And the heavy cross was placed upon his shoulder and a mock purple cloak. And the people - fickle as they were - and so permeable to corruption cried out and laughed and spat as he staggered on.

GIOTTO: ROAD TO CALVARY. /nFresco detail from Scrovegni Chapel, 1304-06
(Andata al Calvario)

And when at last while the day was still young he came to the place where the story was to end, and he was mounted and nailed upon his cross - and it was lifted up midst two common robbers. And soldiers kept guard throughout - for he was to be an example - and they threw lots for his clothing.
Then at noontide - a great shadow fell suddenly over the earth and the Veil of the Temple was torn in two. And one of the centurions there beside him cried,
Truly this is the son of god!

And Jesus called out for the last time - in the words of the psalms.

My god! My god! Why hast thou forsaken me?

And calling so, he drew his last breath and died.

Joseph of Arimathea then went to Pilate to ask if he might take the body for burial and he agreed, and then Jesus was lifted down from his cross and placed into the arms of Mary the Mother and Mary Magdalene.

And all wept in their sorrow - even the angels in the skies above.

Lamentation by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305c.1306
Lamento (Il Compianto di Cristo)

Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy tale: 24: Sacred Space

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Giotto di Bondone, Resurrection 1304-06, fresco, Cappella Scrovegni, Padua
(Resurrectio: Noli me tangere )

Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairy-tale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation:22: Easter Meditations: The Day of Agony

The Crucifixtion of Christ by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305
(La Crocifissione di Cristo)

Anne Maria Clarke is a writer, teacher and storyteller of myths, legends and fairy - stories.

Archives

The Transformation of Achilles' Rage

Queen of Heaven

Healing the Wounded King

Health of the King

Order & Blessing

The Wounded King / The Shadow King

The King in Sleeping Beauty

The Wounded King at the heart of the Grail Quest

Renewal of the King

Falling from Grace - a storytelling

Plato's Story

Giotto di Bondone, Resurrection 1304-06, fresco, Cappella Scrovegni, Padua(Resurrectio: Noli me tangere )

The Crucifixtion of Christ by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305(La Crocifissione di Cristo)

Anne Maria Clarke is a writer, teacher and storyteller of myths, legends and fairy - stories.

Archives

Giotto di Bondone, Resurrection 1304-06, fresco, Cappella Scrovegni, Padua
(Resurrectio: Noli me tangere )

The Crucifixtion of Christ by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305
(La Crocifissione di Cristo)