Blog Post 4
Hero’s Journey II
In summation I knew that if Hero decides to enter the “Bone Forest” he has to wage a psycho-spiritual battle, an inner battle. Hero’s possible future self is sitting under the tree. This painting just like the first painting and the drawing told me that this is a place of transformation, but in this painting the evolved hero becomes an illuminated spirit.
In 2017 I entered Andrew Camargo’s* School of Modern Soul Science, (SoMSS), https://alchemyofshamanicinitiation.securechkout.com/and learned a lot more about Jung and Shamanism, and about Rudolf Steiner’s Soul Science
As a result my paintings took on a new meaning for me. As I mentioned in my Blog Post 3 if we look at the hero’s myth from an esoteric viewpoint Hero can be seen as a Shamanic initiate “who is called to take a journey into the Lower World and endure dismemberment”; his Ego has to break down in order to “clear the way to awaken his higher bodies properly and to receive the true seed of his Divine Ego.” *
He needs to allow his “pre-initiated ego to die, and be reborn into a true healthy ego” * This is where Trickster comes in … reveal[ing] what Hero has been suppressing, his fear of the unknown. (Or in Jungian terms he needs to go deeply into his unconscious, into his psyche in order to bring his shadows, in this case his repressed fears and shame, into his consciousness, where he can face them.) Then he can meet the challenge and answer the call to his Shamanic Initiation. He can enter the Lower World and allow his Ego’s dismemberment and rebirth to take place. Then once his uninitiated ego dies and is reborn into a true, healthy ego, this true ego can illuminate his astral body in his soul . His Astral body then becomes his Spirit-Self.
“Jung called this the ‘Self’, but the ‘Self’ only points the way symbolically to the formation of the Spirit-Self”. However, “the Spirit-Self is just at a germ stage; [ and as I mentioned previously] it’s meant to continue developing over many incarnations… in the physical realm…We can only manifest a portion of it.. [to] “become a true Shaman.” *
The “Hero’s Journey” is just the beginning of Hero’s path on the way to becoming a Shaman, someone who “can act as an intermediary between the natural and the supernatural world.” https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shaman, and bring back vital information, healing to the community.
In 2007 I didn’t know about this spiritual process, I did think that the illuminated spirit sitting under the tree represented a future evolved spiritual part of the hero. I was delighted to learn that it was his Spirit-Self that had been shown to me, ten years prior to my learning about it. I also knew that Death itself was in a sense a catalyst in the process of death and reincarnation, but didn’t know that Trickster also played a part in inner work. I discovered that he “acts like a mirror reflecting our shadows to us from our unconscious”.* It might also trip us up when we get inflated, reminding us that we’re not as perfect as we might think we are. In this way he motivates us to work on ourselves.
Trickster’s spiritual form revealed
Symbol of transformation: death and rebirth of ego
My artistic and psycho-spiritual “Hero’s Journey” continues as I allow myself to collaborate with spirit, with my psyche during my creative process and my conscious and unconscious work together. Andrew Camargo calls this spirit “the mercurial spirit” because he is ever changing. He says that “he is the guiding spirit archetype of the unconscious; he has a trickster nature…[he can be] an ally we can learn from… He is the Universal spirit, trickster organ in the astral body.” He also says that he “is always present when you’re dealing with the spirit world”. *
In a sense, I am the Hero who has entered the “Bone Forest”, am learning to conquer my fear of the unknown. I was afraid as Hero is, but now through years of inner work I am much less afraid that I won’t be capable of accomplishing what I feel compelled to do. And whenever I find myself afraid l no longer secretly call myself a coward, but ask for help.
During my creative process I realize now that I’ve been unconsciously asking for help from the spirit world, and assistance had been seeping into my art as it was given to me, drop by drop. I realize that the reason I wasn’t given more aid, was because I wasn’t ready to receive more. I didn’t see my imagination as a portal to the spirit world and with my disbelief in the existence of spirit I blocked to some degree the entrance. As my belief in spirits and in the spirit world increased during the last seven years, these teaching spirits have even taken over and actually “projected” whole drawings or large parts of drawings and paintings onto paper or canvas. So in a sense I’ve become a vessel into which spirit pours spiritual knowledge which I can then share with others. That, I believe, is my purpose for being an artist, not only to enjoy what I create, but to share how I feel and what I witness. Now I eagerly face the paper or canvas, waiting for the unknown to reveal itself to me, for spirit to guide my hand.
An Alchemical Vessel of Transformation
* Andrew Camargo
