This article was published in "ACCESS" a regional holistic resource.
June 1996

Do the archetypes dance in your lives, or do they fight?
Are you inwardly free or outwardly in control?

Once the Magician has found his space and is the mastermind behind everything that connects us to life, the performance can come alive as the Superstar bursts into an array of fire that sends energy flying everywhere. The dance of nature comes alive as the Enchantress unveils her secrets and Mother Nature does her duties.

Together these four archetypes give us our essential ingredients to be what it takes to be alive in this world. This group is called the Primary group that gives us our mind, body, spirit and soul, for without this we could not begin our journey. These dynamics create the magic that we are, firing up the web that brings about the cycles of life connecting eight more archetypes that come alive and reign over our existence as we journey through lifes trials and tests, so that we can become the best we can be.

Every species that exists is faced with survival and therefore is pushed through certain tests to become emancipated. For us, eight archetypes contribute to the spontaneity and passion of life with the wisdom and control to our class structure to maintain order and work creatively, keeping a wonderland of magic alive in our lives.

To do this, each one of us is faced with the challenge to evolve in the journey that we take during our lifetime, overcoming the negative and flowing with the positive, trusting our instincts and not getting caught up in our needs, desires or fears.

Each one of the archetypes represents an aspect of our personality and comes alive by being fed by an other. How we feed these archetypes is how we are as a person, how we show up in the world. Depending on which archetype is feeding which other determines whether we are a winner or a loser, or are just simply stuck.

The eight archetypes break down into two basic groups of opposite polarities. Each group has a masculine polarity and a feminine polarity. A polarity is fulfilled as a pure energy, when the energy flow with connecting archetypes is right. Otherwise a conflict can trigger a negative flow if the wrong archetype takes over. No one archetype is better than another, they all have the main ingredients that are essential to our being. Each one has negative and positive sides depending on the flow of energy.

Fool and Sage: These represent our spontaneity and wisdom, joy and peace. Our freedom to be alive and our ability to be objective and have understanding.

Old Woman and Actress: These manifest our ability to have order, balance and control and also our ability to be expressive, alive with passion.

Warrior and Patriarch: These two personify our will and pride, our strength and convictions as well as our knowledge, credibility and honor.

Mother and Child: These two embody our being and our dreams, the sense of connection and imagination of whatever a person wishes or wants. Each polarity works with the polarity of the other group to fulfill the balance of energy. If the energy is to be balanced, it would be the masculine polarity of one group with the feminine polarity of the other. In the Warriors journey for instance, he takes the passion of the actress and with his convictions and strength, goes on his mission where he gets his orders and guidance from the Old Woman energy giving him control and balance in his strategy. Thus he can achieve his goals, growing wiser and more knowledgeable on his journey towards becoming a great ruler and a Patriarch.

The Childs journey includes the abandonment and freedom of the Fool, giving imagination to be a free creative spirit. The Sage provides space in which to surrender to calmness and detachment, to discover ones own being and person as one becomes truly connected and a Mother to life itself.

When these groups interconnect in harmony, the Primary group is alive, transformation and magic are possible in our lives. The archetypal names are symbolic of the basic essences that the archetypes represent. These archetypal symbols have been used throughout human history in stories, tales and mythologies of all cultures. How they have connected and existed has been a matter of intuition and instinct which will always continue to be part of human nature. Each archetype carries many meanings and names as it relates to the other archetypes within the connective web. This interwoven pattern of energy that potentially completes the journeys of all the archetypes.

The mythological tale of Parsival in search of the Holy Grail. Taken from twelfth century courtly literature, is about the polarity of the Warrior - Patriarch fulfillment. Parsival becomes a great knight (Warrior) and falls in love with Blanche Fleur. He also has a glimpse of the Grail Castle, which sends his passion on a long journey after the Holy Grail which is watched over by the Grail King. Parsival journeys for years, going through many trials. Eventually he pulls himself together and visits a hermit where he makes his confession. Only after that, is he sent forthwith to the Grail Castle to discover the Holy Grail. Once a person has discovered the Holy Grail and drunk from it, he may discover the Grail King and come to know all there is to know.

The story of Amor (Eros) and Psyche in Greek mythology is about the fulfillment of the Mother/Child polarity. Psyche is the third daughter of the King and Queen. She is beautiful innocent and pure. She is taken to be sacrificed on Death Mountain and is saved by Eros (Amor), a god who falls in love with her. When she discovers that he is a god, Eros disappears. Psyche is then put through a series of very difficult tasks with which she is fortunately helped. Upon completion of the final task she falls into a deep sleep and is saved by Eros. He takes her to Olympus and talks to Zeus. They decide to make her into a goddess, she marries Eros and they have a child whom they call Pleasure, or more appropriately, Joy.

Once the Mother has given birth, she has become complete. She is the Queen, the Goddess to life itself, giving birth to joy.

Discovering the polarities of the twelve archetypes, seeing them placed around a circle like a clock face, and learning to understand their meanings, can be an enlightening experience. This knowledge can assist in our understanding and valuing the meaning of life itself.

One archetype cannot exist without another. Energy cannot exist without the atom, and the atom cannot exist without space. Thus the web of life is interconnected. The archetypes are like the energy within the atom, which is a microcosm of our whole nature and purpose of being, which is connected to the foundation of all and everything.

We think that we are advancing as we approach the next millenium. Life is getting so fast that we might just burst out into the stars and go back to where we came. Our outer lives have advanced, modern technology provides us with useful tools for outer growth and conveniences. These will not make us grow inwardly, and will probably provide us with more inner struggles unless we look back into ourselves for answers. Our inner beings have been with us since the evolution of our world, and will stay until the world is no more. Our inner being is the root of our existence, the archetypal time clock. If our minds are expanding, we have the potential to having a greater understanding of the life forces and the ability to become balanced beings who see the whole picture.

As our minds expand into the outer world, we become like the world wide web, because every person in the world can access the same information. Our inner selves are similar, a web of polarities represented by archetypes that connect us to the one cosmic body, the source of our origin. Ultimately we must unify our internal and external webs in order to become a harmonious whole and a harmonious world.

Bran Collingwood has been an artist on the North Coast for twelve years.
Originally from England, where he studied archetypes from the age of fifteen,
he has continued to research the greater patterns that they weave in life.

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Copyright © 1997 Bran Collingwood