But what happens when the stories we choose to live by lead us down dark and treacherous paths? The Netflix series “The Last Airbender" offers a compelling example of this question through the character of Admiral Zhao and his unrelenting pursuit of becoming a legend by slaying the Moon Spirit.
Carl Jung's concept of the archetype of the Self is a complex idea of embodied consciousness, symbolizing unity between body, mind, and soul. It directs us to explore and integrate the various parts of our psyche while maintaining a homeostatic balance, and serves as a guiding force on the journey of individuation.
According to Jung the collective unconscious is a reservoir of shared, universal experiences and symbolic imagery that all humans inherit, regardless of upbringing. In a metaphorical sense, one can see archetypes as source codes, signifying the deep and fundamental patterns that underlie human consciousness and our interconnectedness with the natural world.
The circle is a powerful and widely recognized symbol that represents wholeness, unity, and the eternal cyclical nature of life. It signifies the interconnection and interdependence of all things, associated with infinity, harmony, and balance. Circles also hold symbolism of protection, completeness, and the rhythmic patterns of nature. Furthermore, circles represent community, equality, and spirituality in various traditions.
Myths and stories throughout the ages and across the world tell tales of heroes and heroines who survive the ordeals of impossible tasks given to them or perhaps having to fight dragons, but hopefully coming home with the treasure. The hero’s journey is a dynamic process that can serve as a conceptual metaphor for understanding individual development where each major transitionary life event serves as a call to step into an initiatory experience.
The mother’s impact on her children can be enlivening or deadening as reflected in the positive and negative mother complexes. Awareness of how mother images live within is us integral to becoming more conscious.
Our own relationship with our father figures repeats in many other relationships, especially in the form of a father complex, whether negative or positive. The complex is based on the specific conditioning or programming we received as children though the real interactions with a father figure. This may compel us to search for father figures all our life, sometimes ruthlessly competing for their attention.
Jung’s archetype of the Self is the central archetype in our psyche, the ‘imago Dei’ and source of life energy. Jung said “It might equally be called ‘the God within us.’ The beginnings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be striving toward it.”
The way of the warrior is not one of wanton destruction, but of judicious use of violence in appropriate situations. “Proper aggressiveness in the right circumstances… (which the warrior) knows through clarity of thinking, through discernment”...
“Man ‘possesses’ many things which he has never acquired but has inherited from his ancestors. He is not born as a tabula rasa, he is merely born unconscious. But he brings with him systems that are organized and ready to function in a specifically human way, and these he owes to millions of years of human development.”(
Jung referred to the Dark Night as the ‘night sea journey’ or ‘nekyia’, believing that our sorrow and suffering serve the individuation journey. As an archetypal pattern or process it involves a basic restructuring of the psyche, transforming our individual or collective values and attitudes.
With In times of national distress or international threats, such as the Covid19 pandemic, we looked to our leaders to embody the Archetype of the Father. We trust them to make good decisions to ensure our survival and future, as is expected of the Father as protector.
Known as “the remover of obstacles” the Hindu god Ganesha is highly recognizable with his elephant head and human body. As an image of the divine child, Ganesha embodies the promise for enlightenment, self-realization and spiritual wholeness through the integration of opposites. Ganesha represents the unification of cosmic forces: god and goddess, eternal and temporal, infinite and finite, spirit and body, conscious and unconscious.
The Divine Child represents the emergence of a new, enlivening idea or energy which constitute a renewal and expansion in consciousness...
The archetype of the child and the various aspects of the 'child’ as an inner image are symbolic of the possibilities of life. Jung says that the image of the child “represents the strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself.” (CW 9i, Para 289). The archetypal image of the child is a symbol of Soul residing in each of us and which has the capacity to lead us to wholeness.
Deep authentic human connection (including the inner relationship) is represented, not by the “love-struck” Romeo and Juliet, but rather by the primordial lovers symbolized in the cosmic dance of Shiva (divine masculine principle) and Shakti (divine feminine principle) from Hinduism.
As one of the most complex and powerful goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Hathor represents the divine feminine principle in synergy with the masculine. In her benevolent aspect Hathor is the personification of love, but in her destructive alter ego, she switches into the leonine goddess, Sekhmet...