Recently, I had an interesting discussion with an old and dear friend of mine who wished to understand what I meant when I spoke of words such as psychic, soul, spirit ‘and anything else which might be described as being beyond sensory perception – or beyond scientific understanding.’ He was reluctant to accept anything beyond the ken of the five senses, although accepted that ‘a highly intuitive sixth sense’ might exist, but still qualified that with:
‘how do we know that this is not simply a combination of all our senses working together in perfect harmony, allied to our experience and an innate ability to `read’ situations, circumstances and people? Or perhaps an innate ability to read ourselves? [aka Jung], or to delude ourselves [aka Freud]?
He wondered if the term ‘spirituality’, as used in certain contexts, might sometimes be equated with mindfulness or self-awareness.[1] This question led me to explore and examine my own belief system and how that relates to my current dissertation research for the MA in Ecology and Spirituality offered jointly by the Schumacher College and the Lampeter campus of the University of Wales, Trinity St David.
To share how I perceive these trickster terms, I chose the work of Jung to use as a starting point.
I particularly appreciate his work because when I was questioning the meaning of my life, in my 20’s, I turned first to the practice of Yoga (and I was lucky, in that my teacher did not see it as merely healthy postures but understood it more on a meta-physical level, so I learnt to recognise and appreciate phenomena such as the positive effect on the body, mind, and emotional well-being which chanting, breath work, and bringing the attention to subtle messages my body was giving out, had), and then to Jung’s psychology to read more about what I was experiencing to try to understand it. The journey is ongoing (for I do not believe we ever stop learning and developing our wisdom and knowledge as new information and insights come to us) but that initial taking me to the place where I am now, took some 20 years. I practised a substantial amount of body-centred enquiry work (including dance therapies, such as 5 Rhythms) which involves listening to the subtle messages of the body and learning how to release stuck/repressed emotions physically, through the body and is followed by sharing of experiences in small groups. I also attended several years of lectures given by Julian David; already an old man then, he had been a student of Jung and lives in my part of Devon. I wrote notebooks and files of papers full of the process, describing my inner journey, so it could be said that I have delved deep into my psyche – my inner life/world.
Although I am not a scientist, I do appreciate the value of observation and I am very much an experiential type of person. I try out new theories on myself first, and I do not have any sense that the only thing that exists is what our 5 senses tell us. I will start with the 6th sense. From an early age, like Jung, I knew there was more than 1 voice in my head. I had 2. As a young girl and woman, I used to worry that I did not know which one was right, to which I should listen. Soon after delving into books and experiences that deal with such things I was able to recognise my intuition as being incredibly strong and well developed and that it often disagreed with my taught sense (the things my parents and education had told me were right) and it was different from my instinctive belly (gut reactions) that was more geared towards food and sex, and flight or fight sensations.
Peter Levine explains the fight/ flight/ freeze phenomena of the instinctive, reptilian and ancient part of our brain, as follows;[2] when animals encounter what they perceive as a threat, they react in one of the 3 ways; they stay and fight, they run away, or they freeze, and then return to normal when danger is past, shaking or trembling out the frozen posture they adopted in order not to feel pain, if they were in danger of becoming prey. Humans have somehow learnt to get stuck in one or more of these patterns, especially freeze, and this is what we call trauma, or unprocessed emotions related to a threatening situation.
Returning to our set of intangible notions, my friend asked how spirituality is different from mindfulness. For me, mindfulness is a simple technique to teach us how to switch off that taught sense (the one that relies on old information from our childhood, which may, or may not be, relevant, useful, or even appropriate for us in our 21st century life). Beneath mindfulness, when we are quiet and silent inside, is spaciousness. That sense of space (which can be perceived in many different ways, depending on what lurking fears, unmet needs, and unfulfilled desires we discover there, and therefore individual for each one of us) is what some might call spirituality. I define it (if definition is indeed possible or even desirable) as the empty quiet space within us that is the same as the empty quiet space all around us. It is full of potential; what might happen next, what has already happened and can be triggered into recall, and an awareness of the sensations of the body, and, if we are sensitive, of the feelings and intentions of those around us.
Jung wrote about the collective unconscious where everything that humans have ever experienced is stored. To my mind it is only unconscious in part and the more aware we become of how the inner workings of human functions the more it becomes obvious that much of how we act and react in the world is due to impulses that are not personally ours but belong to the transpersonal, i.e. the bigger wide space outside of us that is the same as the space inside us. Thus, we can act badly, or react without thinking of consequence, because either the reptilian brain is triggered (by fear or desire) and we have not learnt to have control over it, or because we have somehow tapped into an archetypal energy from the unconscious (i.e. from the past, the collective memory).
A good example of this is from my time living in an intentional community, where all feelings and relationships are amped up to full volume because of the intensity of living in close proximity to others, like a giant-sized marriage or family experience. In weekly meetings certain energies would always arise:
– Bossy Boots, Drama Queen, Silent & Broody, Shy and Retiring, Bolshie, Control Freak, Boredom Incarnate, Mr/s Reasonable. Mr/s Emotional, Present but Absent, Conspicuous by Absence,
…you get the picture. Usually, these were associated with the same characters week after week. However, if a few of the community members were absent, the archetypes or roles would still be there, they had simply shifted to another person. If only one person was missing we sometimes experienced the blessed relief of not having all the archetypes playing out (or up) in our meeting room. This, and many workshops attended during my time working for the Transition Network charity, which had to contend with the same issue, led me to realise that the collective or transpersonal is always around us.[3] We cannot escape from the influence of these ‘godlike’ energies unless we are very conscious of what is at play in every interaction. The roles are not personal, though we tend to project them onto someone who consistently reacts in a similar way to stimulus. Any one of us can, and do, play out any role given the right set of circumstances.
Let’s turn now to self-awareness, and examine if it can be said to be what we mean when we speak of spirituality. A self-aware person is aware of all those factors above that are at play, both inside him/her and amongst s/he and others in the outer world, and can consciously choose not to act up, or out, but rather tune into their felt sensations -hot /cold , comfortable/uncomfortable, threatened/safe, and then turn to what some transpersonal psychologists call The Witness, the part of us who is aware of everything that is happening and chooses not to react, but to respond to what is needed in the moment for the greater good of everyone concerned, (which can sometimes mean to simply withdraw from a situation until better equipped to deal with it). It might be simpler to say that a self-aware person is conscious of the spaciousness within him/her and of how it is connected to that same space in others and on the outside. Self -awareness, then, might describe a state of being where a person accepts what I am defining as spirituality.
To summarise what I find inside myself; awareness of an empty, impersonal (in that it is concerned with more than just my needs) space within me that mirrors what is outside of me, full of potentiality and memory, a body-mind with an ancient range of strategies to meet its needs, and intuition. These together make up what is extra to the human as well as the ego which happily trips about thinking it is in charge because it gets to make the decisions. The most interesting one to me is intuition. If I was to call the empty space spirit (for want of a better word) then I might call intuition the voice of my soul.
Personally, I perceive my spirit as masculine (and what Jung would call my animus, the masculine element within the female or the feminine male) and my soul as feminine. I perceive soul as the element within our inner world who has some connection to that outer space and therefore, like a messenger, can give me advanced warning of what is coming. Soul and Spirit are just labels, yet to me they are good ones. They represent my inner masculine and feminine qualities, the ones that, if I am lucky and can stay conscious, will enable me to make good decisions, based not only on my body-mind’s needs (and not its demands and phobias!) and my ego’s judgement (based on taught patterns from childhood and society) but also to realise a future vision that I could help manifest in the world, as well as protecting me and ensuring that I am able to follow any dreams I have safely, and in a way that is of benefit to others, and to the natural world.
Have I defined spirituality? I don’t know. Is it related to self-awareness? It certainly needs some in order to navigate the complexity of the inner workings of myself, and what of Love? Most often it is the heart that tells me if an action is right. We are so much more complex than modern science can even begin to describe, though for sure the branch of science that Rupert Sheldrake advocates begins to step in the right direction.[4]
My friend refers to himself as nilhist and an atheist nowadays. I confess I barely understand what nilhism means from the inside, though I certainly know atheism; my teenage years were spent thus. In the end I found it to be an empty enquiry and Yoga heralded the change. I traversed Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism to come to a point of peace with religion and spirituality, understanding that they all say the same thing. The difference perhaps being that religion (Latin: re – ligio – to re- connect) is dogmatic, has established a set of beliefs by which spirituality can be understood, and a set of rules to be followed that advocate right living, whereas the only constant element of spirituality is its continual state of flux or change and our potential ability, if we are conscious if it, is to respond appropriately in any given moment.
My discussion partner also expressed an inability ‘to “connect” with a “Divine” in which [he does] not believe’. I started with my own attempt to define this word; a sense of the numinous, a felt sense of being part an interconnected intangible presence that hovers just out of reach of the 5 senses which helps me to feel fulfilled and at peace. I then realised that my words were ambiguous and open to interpretation. As a teacher trainer I ever have to examine my words, check my explanations for clarity and simplicity. To be at one with nature was where I arrived. A huge amorphous mass of Love where each tiny particle of existence is part of us and we of it, a belonging, a sense of Home.
When you say you do not believe, what exactly do you not believe in? I asked. The universal orgasmic response to a stunning sunset, the touching tenderness of an animal’s trust in you, the erotic scent of a summer bloom? Perhaps the most tragic and yet vivid of the nineteenth century Dorset writers, the Powys brothers, Llewyllyn, wrote extensively of such matters. Progeny of a clergyman, he and his siblings , each in their own unique style, sought to find meaning outside of orthodoxy. Llewyllyn found, loved and worshipped nature and the senses. I discovered Llewyllyn Powys thanks to this very friend. It seemed that I had arrived at a point of shared understanding.
I came now to the role of the enchantress. This was proving to be a problematic term for me as I developed my proposal for my dissertation. My supervisor said she didn’t exist and I was then called upon to justify my choice. Toni Wolff, analysand and mistress of Jung, named four aspects of the feminine: `Amazon’, `Mother’, `Hetaira’ and `Medial’ in her publication; ‘The Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche’.
I chose to substitute ‘medial’ for enchantress because this is the term Woolfe uses for women (or the anima in certain men, and for me, an aspect of the anima in all men) who are connected to the inner world (in Woolfe’s times, that might have meant a medium, for example). To clarify, I see the elements of the feminine (within woman and man) as lover, mother, queen and enchantress, with an animus who is Dionysus-like, a green man figure (or Gwydion in the 4th branch of the Welsh Mabinogi, the tale of Math, Lleu and Blodeuwedd), and an essential virgin/maiden/whole in herself quality that is changeless. [For the masculine I consider the archetypes of son, lover, warrior, king, with an anima who is all powerful, like fate (e.g. Arianhod in the Welsh myth already quoted) and an essential wiseman wizard father, a Merlin, that is always accessible (Math in the myth).
I am interested in the enchantress as an archetype. Yes, it is an abstract energy, but no more so than Love, and most of us have no problem in admitting the existence of that!
Basically, I argue that as we have been involved in a singularly paternal myth for a couple of thousand years we have lost a piece of our inner make up, our inner pantheon if you like, and that it is the piece that ensures our connection to nature; the enchantress. Hence, without her, we see forest destruction, species extinction, and denial of the cause and effect when planning large scale construction and fuel supply projects.
She, in women and feminine oriented men as an active role, and in men and masculine orientated women as an inner guide, has been demonised; she is Circe the seductress who leads men to their doom and makes them forget their sense of self, she is the witch of Hansel and Gretel who devours childlike innocence, she is the temptress who leads Merlin to his doom…. or is she?
I argue that for every role there is a balanced state and an overblown out of kilter state as well as a repressed vindictive state. The enchantress, when allowed to sing freely, teaches the masculine how to connect, how to love, how to see the magic in the tiniest of moments and creatures. If overblown and given too much power it can inflate a woman (or a man’s anima) and make her seductress, seeking worship and adoration for herself alone. If repressed the enchantress becomes bitter and damage the very things it is her role to teach us to protect.
Modern examples of the enchantress energy at work is when Julia Roberts enchants Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman” into treating his business take-over bids with humanity (I must thank my partner for spotting this one) and in the voice of certain female singers whose lyrics and voice touch hearts. Boe Huntress, who used to be known as Rebecca Mayes, sang the Transition anthem “Turn the Lights Out” in this vein.
To reconnect to the enchantress I turned to Celtic mythology, Irish first, because their stories are less corrupted, were written down earlier, and then to the true British myths, those of the Welsh, written in the original language of the Britons (still spoken today in N Wales, and by my partner, so I am fortunate indeed). The Irish myths made sense of the Welsh tales and over the past months we have been deciphering them. The myth of Math and Blodeuwedd (the 4th branch of the Mabinogi), we have discovered, would have been a Bronze Age myth to tell of the changing seasons – a growing cycle myth. Of course, it was written down by Christian clerics so there is work to be done to peel back the layers, but it is not so hard. Blodeuwedd is the start of summer, the first moon of May and later she is Samhain; as the growing season finishes on the full moon she flies off as a hunting owl into the night sky. Lleu is the sun returning to power at the equinox, and weakening again after the height of midsummer, at Lughnasadh.
Later, in the Iron Age, tales of heroes were part of the storyteller’s repertoire, and the role of the feminine in the hero’s journey recognised. Throughout the Irish Otherworld tales preserved in the Echtrai and the Immrama, and in fragments in the Mabinogi we find the hero’s journey progressed by his meeting with an Otherworld woman; the enchantress. His contact with her ensures he matures, understands love, becomes responsible, and finally recognises his eldership and when it is time to pass on his knowledge.
Over time humans made sense of their inner lives, which developed as we did and became ever more complex, until simple explanations of the way the stars influenced our procuring of food, became goddesses and heroes, became archetypes that functioned unconsciously as we were told to follow one God (of whom Math, the winter king, the wise man of the man’s psyche, is a representation), and abandon the goddess (Arianhod – the weaver of fate) and finally, became characters in children’s bedtime fairy stories.
To return to an enchanted state, to be connected to nature and one another again in love we have to take the return journey, and that entails making the archetypes conscious again, for until we do they will sabotage our every attempt to transition our outer world to its healthy balanced state, for they are not understood. Once returned to the inner pantheon, and recognised in constellations in the sky above us, the energies that affect us all each turning of the annual 13 moons, can be respected and with that they will begin to show us the right way of living; in tune with the seasons and we will no longer need to carry distorted versions of “the gods” within us, projecting their shadow onto others, but rather can be godlike and fulfil our destinies; as true guardians of the world in which we live.
I suggest that recognising the wisdom held in the Iron Age tales is a vital step in the direction of reclaiming our sovereignty, i.e. our consciousness of our own psyches and reverence for the interrelated nature of our connection with all beings. Reclaiming the enchantress within us, and between us in our relationships, enables us to reclaim our enchantment with nature, individually and collectively. Until we can make that connection as a society our efforts to protect our environment and the life which depends on it will be compromised.
[1] https://www.academia.edu/11509946/Spirituality_is_more_than_part_of_the_healing_process_it_is_both_the_result_and_our_birthright A paper written for the MA in Philosophy offered by what was then known as the University of Lampeter, Trinity St David – The Body from Eastern and Western Perspectives in 2009.
[2] Levine. P., Waking the Tiger
Ariadne Bowden 