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 | "Choosing an Archetype" | |
"Myths are the mental supports of rites; rites, the physical enactment of myths" Joseph Campbell |
| Rituals are those procedures that give form and structure to our lives. They give meaning and depth at both the individual and social levels. I first began to realise the extent of their beneficial affect when living alone. It began with a can of beans. At that time, I was working as a hard-hat diver, carrying out coastal salvage and repair work. Due to the run of the tides along the coast, I was working all hours of the day and night. It was dismal, cold, demanding, often dangerous work. The people who held my contract were a bunch of planks, wanting everything done the day before yesterday, but never on time with their payments. At the end of each dive I would sit in solitary isolation while my attendants stripped off my gear. I was unable to help as the tight cuffs of the dive suit had clamped down on my wrists, cutting back circulation, leaving my hands swollen and numb from three hours in the icy water. Wrapped in blankets, I would trudge along the shore to my houseboat, to there sit in misery while circulation returned. Tired and hungry, I would look in the cupboards to find whatever was the quickest and easiest food to prepare. Hence the can of beans. |
| As my spoon scraped the bottom of the can, I saw that I had stopped caring for myself, that I was sliding back down the evolutionary tree. From then on, I began a new routine. I devised a ritual for myself. I took on the mythical aspects of the Immaculate Warrior. Each day, before going to the float, I would lay the dining table with my best service ware. Clean table cloth, candles ... the works. Then it was the preparing of vegetables; food taken out to defrost, pots set to hand by the stove.Once a change of clothes were laid out, I was ready for the next dive. |
| Each night, I made a point of humming a tune as I walked home, thinking of the good work that I had done, thinking of the tasty meal that I would soon have. After setting the pots to cook, I made for the shower, standing under the hot, sparkling water until I had thawed out. As I dressed for dinner, I would enjoy listening to my choice of music. As with all changes to basic lifestyle, the ripples moved outwards. I started to socialise again, bought a new wardrobe of clothes, came back to life. Saved by the ritual only because I was able to step outside of myself and look back in. I saw that, previously, I had adopted the the behaviour patterns of the archetype of the Wounded Hero. A pernicious role that one can drift into when they are struggling to do their best, but feel uncared for. An essential point to make note of, is that it does not pay to adopt the guise of a single archetype to inhabit as if that were the only garb in your mind's wardrobe. Easy mood swings during the course of the day, are a natural part of a healthy life-style. The attitudes of the Warrior, may well be the best to adopt when faced with an arduous chore that is not to your liking, but The Healer brings a more suitable frame of mind when putting your children to bed, or caring for another. |
| Rituals play an important part in all aspects of our lives, and it is essential that we live them, rather than follow the deeply worn paths of habit. Habits dull us, rituals enliven us. It is of equal importance that we make conscious choices as to the mantle we will don as our own. All rituals serve the purpose of eliciting and managing a suitable level of emotional response. Society uses them for the purposes of controlling its individual member as groups. Consider the formalised rituals of courtship, the ritualised ceremonies of our courts, of dining out, of the practices of many organisations such as the Army, et al. Those are externally motivated rituals, but the ones that hold interest for us are those that take us into another dimension, space, plane, ... whatever, and bring us back. The name we call that other area is immaterial. They are different labels to describe the same thing. To quarrel over semantics is foolish behaviour. As silly as Britain and America making a diplomatic issue over the 'correct' pronunciation of tomato. One person may say that they go into their subconscious for the purpose of meeting their true nature. Another person may say that they go to another spiritual plane for guidance. People are different, we see things from different viewpoints. We use the symbolism of our viewpoint to describe our journey. All that counts are purpose, and results. These, not the labels, are the criteria. The work is for the purpose of improving our lives by improving ourselves. We are questing for the best in ourselves. |
| This is a good time to define the difference between playing a role, and enacting a ritual. Adopting a role is play acting. One pretends to be what one is not, making it up as you go along. Rituals require forethought. They are laid out in the mind, and accepted there; becoming inner directed. They are not an artificial guise, but a way of life. As previously stated, our culture imprints its wishes upon us when we are still at an impressionable age. Likewise we are endowed with the tribal myths along with our language and birthday presents. Coming so early in our lives, this imprinting has great influence upon our future development. Historically, its purpose was to induct the young into the ways that would fit them into the mores of the tribe. To induce them to accept the responsibilities that came with the benefits of belonging. A secondary cause of the collapsing structure of our current civilisation is that we no longer have our tribal myths that lead us into civilised manners of conducting ourselves. The mythic symbols have been usurped by the advertisers serving the multinationals. The new icons are devoted solely to demand and greed. |
At an early stage of our life, our behaviour patterns can closely resemble the inhered structuring patterns of less complex life-forms. We, however, are not hardwired as they are. Birds build their nests by following the methods used by their forbears; and their offspring will continue that unchanging design. They do not have choices. We do. Apart from those of the antiquated religious organisations that have lost touch with their inner meaning, and our chauvinistic support of favoured football teams, we have no myths or rituals to follow. Our choice is whether we run with the Lemmings in their headlong rush into the sea, or strike out for the high ground.
It is time for us renew our myths. To reinvent the mythic rituals that expand our lives. The diagram on the left is life seen from the viewpoint of the 'taboo-ists'. It implies that their restrictive taboos are not only protection from known dangers, but act as warning lights against the great unknown which is surrounded by even greater dangers. That is their viewpoint. An expanded viewpoint discovers that much of the 'unknown' territory is not unknown at all, that more open-minded explorers have revealed large tracts of it. As for it being surrounded by a boundary of greater dangers ... that is nothing but supposition by the Taboo-ists, whose restricted outlook has never permitted them to go there. |
