The Archetypes of Ry

I'd been talking on the phone to LD, and she was supposed to be sleeping beside me, having negotiated her way into a night in mama's bed, but really she was just faking it, listening to my conversation. The minute I hung up and prepared to sleep, my eyes closing as I thankfully began to relax, she popped up from her pillow all bright and chipper, insisting I tell her everything about whatever I'd been talking about.

The more I assured her that archetype meditations were a little bit subtle, complex, and probably better for adults as a result, the more steely her resolve became that I had to explain it to her. In detail. Right now. Or else. "Or else" I wouldn't get any sleep was obviously the first reality, so I decided to explain it to her as best I could, since in theory, about 60 seconds of this was likely to put her in a moderate theta snore anyway.

First I told her about creating one's "sacred space". Then I talked about adding the cave and the left- right- left- sequence and she says, "I can't even keep right and left straight in real life mom, I'll never keep it straight in a world in my head!" I realized this was probably true and I said well, you can just do these in your sacred space if you want. I prefer to have a little place just for them but you don't have to." (I've had it work, so, I guess it can.)

Then I told her about inner guide. She said she wanted to meet hers. She INSISTED. So she sat up and I had her breathe deeply a few times and then I walked her through creating that sacred space (hers: a garden setting, surrounded by water vapor like is around waterfalls, that is every color of the rainbow). Then I told her to go ahead and ask for her inner guide. Bear in mind here we are NOT religious...

Ry: He looks kinda like jesus.
Me: Some men do I suppose. Does that feel right?
Ry: I asked him his true form, and I suddenly saw really clearly this pink flamingo, like a picture shown me, then it vanished.
Me: So... your IG is a guy who looks like Jesus but also can be a Pink Flamingo...
Ry: Apparently. Do I talk to, um, Jesus?
Me: Call him IG. I suspect you associate that role with Jesus and that might be why he looks like that for you. Sure, talk to him.

Then I told her about meeting archetypes, and working with them to heal or fix or interact or whatever. I tried to explain how unique every instance is and how there were simply no limits to what could BE an archetype, nor to what an archetype could BE when you meet them. I explained the trading some energy-construct, and that being intuitive as well, and attempting to merge if it felt possible. I attempted to make clear that what an arch behaves like and looks like is not so much about that energy as about "her relationship with that energy" and as that improved, the arch would improve. I told her most primary archs were good relationships already. (She then revealed to me that she has always had a deep and abiding fascination and love for the planet Pluto, she has no idea why. I swear, sometimes kids say the oddest things at unexpected times.)

She insisted on being able to meet one. I told her the planets, astrology signs and all tarot symbols were "the primaries" and we could start with her "Sun" as that is usually a really positive, powerful arch. So we walked through the process -- I only provided a couple words of guidance here and there, and when she felt like it, she would tell me what came before. Her sun was a golden eagle, really big, very gold in color but a real bird. She petted it and said it was super soft. It gave her a boot (she laughed at how bizarre that was) and put it in her solar plexus (that confused her as she thought maybe she should put it on until then). She said she felt around inside for what to give it, and she tried to describe something that was metal, gold mostly but then silver on top; I didn't really understand the shape. She felt she should put it inside the head, around the forehead/eyes, of the eagle. She attempted to merge with it. She said she only felt the smallest thing, not the 'rush' I talked about, but she kept giggling, and she said, "I feel so happy inside! My mouth keeps smiling and I can't make it stop! I just feel so excited and happy!" so I figure it worked just fine.

Did I mention that I was praying furiously through this for help in helping her and not screwing it up and it going well for her.

She insisted, a little bit later when I thought she was asleep, on doing another one. I sleepily, wearily agreed, since she was kind of hyper and wide awake then and I thought it might mellow her out. I told her we should stick to the primaries for now, so she asked for her Moon. It was a small squirrel-like creature, but with a ferret-like face, and instead of brown it was a pure silverish color. She liked it and was petting it --

-- when she says, "Um... can... can something bad happen in these? Something come in that you didn't invite?"

This was SO not a good sign. I also realized suddenly that if I said 'no that can't happen' she would pretend it wasn't for me, even if it was, so it was important I let her drive, not me.

"In your inner space you are working with yourself," I said. "Anything there, from IG to your archetypes to anything else, is a part of you. There may be some energetic parts of you that you don't talk to much, or don't have a very good relationship with. I'm not sure I've ever had an archmed interrupted by something I didn't invite, but nothing's impossible."

But then I remembered. I actually HAD had this happen, a few times but all the same creature, but the first time, I was wary and frightened of it and felt it was stalking me and dangerous. It had happened the first time when I was at The Monroe Institute back in January 2000, and it was memorable because it was --

"--a black panther," she says. "It wants to eat me. I'm kind of afraid of it."

Now I ask you, what are the odds that SHE would encounter the SAME symbol I did in the same way with the same 'interference in an archmed' approach when I had not told her about this?

"Ask IG about it," I recommended.

"He showed me a picture of my foot, and then a picture of -- well -- it's too confusing," she said.

"It's a part of you, in any case," I concluded.

"You can ask IG to make it go away if you want," I said, "But it would be better to work with it. If you feel that it is not loving that just means you have a problem with that energy in some way, and if you can resolve that, your relationship with the panther will change. If it's stalking you that means it feels powerfully that it needs to interact with you. IG is all-powerful in there baby, and nothing can really hurt you in there--it's your world, and all mental."

"It ate my head!" she said, sounding a little weirded out and a little pissed. "I keep trying to be nice to it and it keeps trying to eat my head!"

"I think it's saying it wants to try merging with you," I theorized.

"No, it's saying it wants to EAT ME," she snapped, annoyed.

At this point I'm thinking fast. I really didn't know what the hell to do or say but I don't want her to be scared of this stuff.

"Well I bet it's really bummed out," I laughed a little, "To discover that it can't hurt you in there! You have the never-ending re-appearing head!" She giggled a little.

"My moon-squirrel-thing was running away," she said. "It felt there was something bad." I pshawed as best I could. "That's your concept of prey and its size," I assured her. "Your moon is incredibly powerful. Why don't you ask it to take a different form that wouldn't react like that to the panther?"

I got this total picture in my head. Not long ago we saw 'The Golden Compass' and the picture was similar to one of the giant polar bears in the movie, except this one was totally silver. Just as the image flashed away and my logical mind started to think, "Idea based on the recent movie we--"

"--it's a silver polar bear!" she exclaimed. "WOW."

"Have it hang with you," I said, "If the panther gets too out of line your moon and IG can help."

I walked her through an archmed with the panther. I told her that I felt it was probably a guide, not an archetype, but that the process would be good anyway, to get some exchange of energy. She didn't have any trouble with the visual, or with the trade of energy-objects. She said it gave her a sort of tube, made of gold, a couple feet long, that had tons of gold-light filaments coming out of each end, and it put it vertically in her so it went from (my words now) kundalini to solar plexus. She gave it something similar but silver and without the filaments and some other detail. I told her if she could merge with it she wouldn't need to worry about it going for her again because once it was part of her it would no longer be outside her to have to 'deal with' its teeth. So she managed to merge with it, and seemed to feel better. She said she didn't really feel anything in the merge but that she did feel they'd managed to do it.

Then we went back and finished the work with her moon. She said she thought she liked the silver polar bear better, so she worked with that. I can't remember the energy object trade. She attempted a merge. She said that it worked, that she felt something. She said, "It was stronger than I felt with the sun, but what I felt with the sun lasted a couple seconds longer."

She didn't seem to have any trouble making a sacred space.
She didn't seem to have any trouble meeting her inner guide promptly.
She didn't seem to have any trouble seeing him.
She didn't seem to have any trouble hearing him.
She didn't seem to have any trouble meeting, seeing, hearing, archetypes.
Or trading the energy objects. Or even merging with them.

I was 29 years old when I learned this, to the head-banging resistance of my left brain, and it took me like WEEKS of doing these meditations a few times a day before I could do all that.

I told her that. She giggled. "You're retarded, mom! But I love you anyway," she assured me, as she snuggled into me. "Well you're awesome with this," I told her in return. "Gifted, psychic--amazing. If you do these regularly you could be way happy and pretty powerful by the time you were 18. You should have your blackbelt by then too. Boy you'll be a Xena to reckon with!" She laughed and snuggled more and finally, thank goodness, fell asleep, her soft lips against my shoulder and her even breathing giving her sleep away.

I can't imagine learning to work with archetypes at the age of 11. It was mind blowing when I really got into them at nearly 30.

She woke up briefly later and I cannot remember how it came up but I said, "...because when you change your relationship with an archetype, the world changes." She wanted to know more, and I told her we should sleep, and it was kind of complicated to explain, but she insisted.

"You know how sometimes when we dream, sometimes we are another person in another world?" I asked. "Basically just a normal person somewhere else?" She said yeah. I said, "Well, THIS world, with you and me, this is a dream too. Every world is a dream. When you are in the world, though, it is totally real to you of course. It only seems like a dream when you are in a different dream looking back at it."

She said she understood and that didn't seem very complicated to her.

(...Maybe because she's 11. Meanwhile, adults struggle a lifetime to get a handle on the concept...)

"Well, dreams are like taking all the energies inside you, but experiencing them as if they are outside you," I said. "So you can work with them. Like light shining through a stained glass window, you see the colors on the wall. But if you changed that window, changed the design or colors, the wall would change. Well the wall is like the world around us, and the stained glass window is like what's inside you, the energies and how you relate to them. Am I making sense?"

She assured me I was, with that tone like, "What, you think I'm an idiot?" in her voice.

"OK," I continued. "So when you want to change the wall--the world--you change what's inside you--the colored glass. When we work with archetypes, we are changing what's inside us. So of course the world around us -- people, situations, etc. -- are going to change in relation to that. This is the point of archetype meditations. We are letting our imagination help us create dream symbols, even though we're wide awake, so that we can work with those energies, and change the patterns inside us."

She suddenly sat up, looking astonished.

"So THAT's what it means!" she exclaimed.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
LIFE IS BUT A DREAM!

"Exactly," I said, as if this was some court-level evidence that proved my point. "That rhyme is basically saying, 'Take it easy, don't stress, enjoy your life, because it's all a dream, and it's YOUR dream to enjoy'."

She accepted that like it somehow answered EVERYTHING, and went back to sleep.

I wish *I* had gotten more sleep last night . . .

PJ