allanhunter.net Blog

Sometimes it feels as if everything gives a lurch to one side.  After a summer spent on various writing projects the Fall has come to greet me with many claims on my time.  Three sets of friends’ marriages seem to be splitting up, and the phone has been given a thorough work out.  But then as the angst subsides I do a quick check and notice that there are two weddings balancing them out.  One was last week, and a lot of fun, the other is tomorrow. 

Inevitably this sort of thing shoves a few questions at us: How can we make sense of these sudden bursts of change?  Why are they all happening now? 

Perhaps we can’t ever make sense in the way we’d like and the demand is simply that we stay focused on the good that can be found in all things.  Of the three painful splits two are, I feel, likely to lead in the end to a more authentic life for each person concerned.  ‘Authentic’ may not be comfortable and may even be stressful in some fairly obvious ways, and yet  …..  remaining inauthentic carries its own heavy price, too.

There’s happiness waiting in these upheavals, somewhere, if we can wait for it to emerge.

One of the things I enjoy most about having become aware of the archetypal system as it exists in our world is that, once you see it, it pops up everywhere.  Not that it wasn’t there before, it’s just that we so rarely take the time to notice it. 

I was talking the other day about Oprah’s new school for girls in South Africa, marveling about how she chose to empower these impoverished and unregarded young women, choosing to educate them to become the new leaders in their society - and to redress the imbalance in sex-roles in that country.  The person I was talking with muttered something about how we needed schools in the US just as much.

And that set me thinking.  If Oprah had taken her millions to the school district of some deserving corner of the US and attempted the same thing, how far do you think she’d have got?  I wonder.

Instead she chose to take her money to a place where the people have almost nothing, where the help was really going to make a huge difference right away because the need was desperate.  It can’t have been easy to manage, yet Opah took her vision and asked those South African educators to help her make it work.  She made decisions and directed and above all she listened - just as a Monarch is supposed to do in balancing the compassionate with the decisive.

The immediate contrast that came to mind was with our President, who landed on the deck of that aircraft carrier in 2003 and waved at the cameras as he stood under the ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign.  Everyone now knows that he wanted to look the the conquering hero - but that he had no vision for Iraq, nor for the future.  He just wanted to look good.  That’s the pseudo-Monarch.

In contrast Oprah had a real plan; she consulted with people on the ground; she developed and altered the plan as needed; and she put in the reserach, the effort and the follow up funds too. That’s what the Monarch does best - gets everyone to work well together. Oh, and Oprah wanted to do something to promote peace in a peaceful way.  Did I mention that?

We still need more and better schools in the US, of course.  Could it be that Oprah decided not to put her money here because she noticed one important thing?  After all, we already have the money for schools right now, right here.  But we’re not using it for schools, we’re using it for war. 

So, as we think about the up-coming elections, which sort of Monarch are you going to support?

writing about archetypes is one thing, but it’s also helpful to reflect on how one is living them, too.

Take this blog, for example.  I came to it as a perfect Innocent, trusting the instructions and when things went wrong I assumed it was all my fault.  It wasn’t.  It turns out the Server was having a bad week. I then became an Orphan, slipping at times into the helpless Orphan (”Just tell me what to do!  Tell me!!”).  Not much future in that. So it became necessary to find my own way, one pace at a time - I had to become a Pilgrim, in fact.

I’m not a Warrior-Lover yet.  I certainly believe in the usefulness of the ideas I’m attempting to communicate - but I haven’t taken on this blog as a full-time cause.  Partly that has to do with having a job, writing books, and so on. With luck, though, I’ll probably be able to get these words out in a way that may help and guide others.  As a description of what a Monarch does that’s not bad.  But the real goal is that others should be able to make more of their lives as a result of all this.  That’s when the Magic will occur.

It’s a lot to ask.  Especially since right now I’m still struggling to get pictures and words to appear together….

Another speeding Pilgrim, perhaps?