THE GREEN KNIGHT AS TRICKSTER: Soul is Made by Death and Sex

This paper was written for Makita Brottman's class, European Traditions, at Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2010.

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THE GREEN KNIGHT AS TRICKSTER: 

Soul is Made by Death and Sex

SYNOPSIS OF THE STORY

(If you know the story, you may skip to the paragraph, A Lens By Which to View the Story)

The story commences in King Arthur's Camelot on New Year's Day. After the ritual of Mass had been sung and presents exchanged, the feast was about to begin. All was in perfect courtly order:

Then they washed and sat at that stately table,

The noblest nearest their lord, and his queen,

Guenevere the gay, seated in their midst...

Arranged around that priceless table...

Gawain the good sat beside Guenevere,

and Agravaine of the hard hands on her other side,

Both Arthur's nephews, faithful knights

And Bishop Bawdune at the king's right

And Urian's son Ywain with him.

This central table sat high in luxury

And around them the lesser knights in rows.

~ Sir Gawain, Raffel 50-52

Suddenly a large Green Knight armed with an axe rode into the hall on a green horse, asking for someone from the round table to strike his exposed neck with his green axe. But there was a condition to this request--that the Green Knight would return the blow to the neck of his challenger one year later if he were able. Sir Gawain, the youngest of Arthur's knights and nephew to the king, accepts the challenge. The Green Knight kneels and Gawain cuts off the giant's head with a single stroke. Everyone thought the bizarre game was over, but then the headless body of the Green Knight rises, retrieves his severed head, reminds Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel in a year and rides away on his green charger.

Nearly one agonizing year later Gawain sets off on his horse Gringolet to locate the Green Chapel and fulfill his pact with the Green Knight. None of the other knights expect Gawain to return from certain death. His difficult journey takes him deep into the wilderness mountains to the borderlands of northern Wales:

And he rode through England, Sir Gawain, on God's

Behalf, though the ride was hardly a happy one.

He was often alone, at night, in places

Where the path ahead of him could please no one.

Only his horse rode with him, through woods

And hills, and the only voice he heard

Was God's, until he reached the north of Wales.

~ Sir Gawain, Raffel 70

After the long journey Gawain enters a beautiful castle where he is heartily welcomed by Bertilak, the lord of the castle, and his beautiful wife. Gawain tells them he cannot stay long due to his New Year's appointment at the Green Chapel. Bertilak explains that the Green Chapel is less than two miles away and proposes that Gawain remain in the luxury of their castle for Christmas festivities. Bertilak then suggests a holiday game to Gawain: Bertilak would go hunting over the next three days, giving Gawain whatever he bagged on the condition that Gawain give him whatever he might acquire during his restful days at the castle. Gawain accepts. Early the next morning, after Bertilak left for his first hunt, the gorgeous Lady Bertilak visits Gawain's bedroom to seduce him. Despite her best efforts, Gawain surrenders nothing but one little kiss. When Bertilak returns he gives Gawain the deer he had killed and the still chaste knight responds by returning the lady's kiss to Bertilak. On the second day the lady comes to Gawain's bedroom again, but he resists once more, giving her two innocent kisses. On his return from the second hunt Bertilak exchanges a lifeless wild boar for the two kisses. The seductive lady arrives again on the third morning, but this time Gawain accepts a green silk girdle which the lady promises will keep him from all physical harm. They exchange three kisses. That evening, Bertilak returns with a fox which he trades for the three kisses--but Gawain secretly keeps the green girdle which he believes will protect him from death.

Finally Gawain leaves for the Green Chapel wearing the girdle and finds the Green Knight sharpening his axe. As agreed, Gawain kneels to receive his death blow. On the first halted swing, Gawain flinches and the Green Knight belittles him for his weakness before death. The Green Knight swings again, but intentionally misses--Gawain does not flinch. He swings a third time, leaving a harmless nick and scar on Gawain's neck. The Green Knight then reveals himself to be the gracious host, Bertilak, lord of the castle, explaining that the entire adventure was a game arranged through the magical manipulations of Morgan le Fay, Arthur's malicious sister. Gawain is ashamed of secretly taking the girdle and of flinching like a coward. But the Green Knight commends his bravery and Gawain returns to Camelot wearing the girdle in shame as a token of his failure to fully follow the rules of the game. It is decreed that the Knights of the Round Table wear the green sash of human imperfection in recognition of Gawain's adventure.

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A LENS BY WHICH TO VIEW THE STORY

In his 1975 Terry Lectures, the founder of Archetypal Psychology, James Hillman, spoke of "psychologizing" as a way of "seeing through" the literalness of any image portrayed to the mind:

"Psychologizing goes on whenever reflection takes place in terms other than those presented. It suspects an interior, not evident intention; it searches for a hidden clockwork, a ghost in the machine, an etymological root, something more than meets the eye; or it sees with another eye.[i] It goes on whenever we move to a deeper level...We see through the logical by means of the imaginal...look at conscious events and intentions from the unconscious, from below. Look at the daylight world from the night side, from fantasy and it's archai." (Re-Visioning 135, 139)

Hillman suggests that we do not focus on explaining a story by asking what it means, but rather focus on exploring the original patterning images behind the story by asking, "Who [which Archetype] are you and what do you want me to know?" (Re-Visioning 138-139; Healing Fiction 93). In order for the images to enter into psychic life, or for the word to be made flesh, we must realize that "...the Who refers to a living archetypal figure within the complex, the dream, the symptom...(Re-Visioning 139)", and I would add, or within the story. This means that the mythical tale of the Green Knight, to be of value to an individual psyche, must be seen through. In other words, the literal narrative armor must be pierced with the lance of insightful investigation. "With slow suspicion or sudden insight we move through the apparent to the less apparent. We use metaphors of light--a little flicker, a slow dawning, a lightning flash--as things become clarified (Re-Visioning 140)."

After much reflection and patient consultation with the committee of archetypal personas in this Arthurian story, I found the Trickster image[ii] calling to me over and over. I now turn to that reflective exploration process.

TRICKSTERS ROLE: TO DISSOLVE AND REARRANGE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL ORDER

As many Arthurian scholars have recognized, Camelot and the Round Table symbolize order and wholeness. Joseph Campbell writes, "The Round Table stands...for the social order of the period..." (Creative Mythology 454).[iii] We see this organizing motif in Raffel's translation as he describes the hierarchical court gathering for the New Year's celebration:

Arranged around that priceless table...

Gawain...The good sat beside Guenevere,

and Agravaine of the hard hands on her other side,

Both Arthur's nephews, faithful knights

And Bishop Bawdune at the king's right

And Urian's son Ywain with him.

This central table sat high in luxury

And around them the lesser knights in rows.

~ Sir Gawain, Raffel 50-52

The old year had passed and the new year was arriving. Each character had his or her assigned place at the round table. Psychologically, this may refer to the neatly ordered self or society. Most humans assume that the new year will continue much in the same fashion as the old year. Life does not work that way.

One of the central roles of all tricksters in the world's mythologies is to disturb the social and personal order with a view to expanding the shape of existence itself. The Green Knight plays[iv] just such a character in this story. Robert Pelton writes about the symbolic role of tricksters in myths from many cultures, using the West African Yoruban example of Eshu:

"Eshu is agile: he is moving always to challenge, break open and enlarge every possible structure and relationship... the world comes into being and life achieves wholeness through conflict, disorder, and even death, as well as through obedience, harmony, and birth… life itself is a continuous threshold through which man ceaselessly passes from dissolution to order…" (The Trickster 161, 205).

Some versions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight suggest that Arthur's court had become complacent, sated, fat and static.[v] There was a need for something or someone unusual to enter the static circle, shattering it that it might open out beyond its sluggish complacency. What better symbol than decapitation, of losing one's head, losing one's mind or changing one's mind, to portray a socio-personal transformation?[vi]

TRICKSTERS: TRANSFORMATION THROUGH DEATH AND DESIRE

All ancient trickster myths and folktales center on creating mayhem that aims at transformation toward a new social or personal order. Sexual desire and death[vii] are often the most frequent and effective means the trickster uses to produce the various destabilizations that precede the new orders.

"If he [trickster]...causes pain and death to enter the world, spoiling primordial bliss, his quarrel is not with the divine order as such, but with a false human image of the sacred, one that cannot encompass suffering, disorder, and the ultimate mess of death...Thus it is that so often the trickster's actions make death part of human life...In this metaphysics the trickster is...an exemplar of wit in action, the most practical joke of all as he pulls the chair out from under the system to keep it moving...In the trickster's myths this energy appears as a passion for intercourse that likes like lust...Freud knew what this force was and how it alone could wrest life out of death's grasp, and his word, Eros, describes well the trickster's seizure of life." (The Trickster 282-83).

Gnostic and Jungian scholar Stephen Hoeller believes that the Green Knight represents "the greenish[viii] color of the corpse after death" (Arthurian Legendry, lecture 301104). Green is also known to have signified witchcraft, devilry and evil for its association with the faeries and spirits of early English folklore. In the Celtic tradition green clothing was avoided because of its superstitious association with misfortune and death.[ix] Alice Buchanan contends that the color green is incorrectly attributed to the Green Knight as a mistranslation of the Irish word 'glas' which could mean either gray or green. She believes gray is a better translation, signifying the pallid color of death.[x]

The color green was also traditionally used to symbolize nature, fertility and rebirth.[xi] Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von-Franz write that green is the "colour of vegetation and, in a wider sense, of life" (The Grail Legend 165).

I don't believe we have to choose between life and death--the Green Knight can symbolize both. The trickster archetype cannot be collapsed into a single category since his/her intention is often to create dualities in order to synthesize a new union of opposites.[xii] The Green Knight may represent death and resurrection, beheading and "re-heading".

In addition, given the 14th century Celtic context where this story was composed, it is very possible that it is an amalgam of traditional Christian theology and old British Paganism, unapologetically weaving together death, resurrection and fertility themes.[xiii] However, death is not the only tactic used by the trickster to foment social and personal dissolution. Sexual desire was also a common ploy.

Erdoes and Ortiz write about the Native American Tricksters sexual deviance:

"Of all the characters in myths and legends told around the world through the centuries...it's the trickster who provides the real spark in the action...always ready to lure someone else's wife into bed, always trying to get something for nothing, shifting shapes and even sex, getting caught in the act, ever scheming, never remorseful." (American Indian 12)

Robert Pelton also writes about the provocative sexuality of the African trickster, Legba:

Legba can roam as he chooses...to bring men to their destiny...never ceasing to widen their path for them...He is always ready for intercourse...the master of sexuality...and his penis, symbolizing...a life-giving transformation, that life itself is a continuous threshold through which man ceaselessly passes from dissolution to order..." (Trickster 119, 124) [xiv]

These images are reminiscent of the Greek Hermes with his phallic pointer swaying like a dancing compass needle at transformative thresholds and intersections. There is also the deconstructive-reconstructive erect lingam of Lord Shiva.[xv] Schopenhauer and Freud make it clear that the sexual drives wreak havoc on an otherwise orderly, sane existence.[xvi]

It would be a mistake to take these sexual images too literally, seeing them only as revealing Gawain's failure and weakness. By "psychologizing," or seeing through the literalness of sex, lust and desire, we find that these images can also signify the energies of introspection concerning ones convictions about Ultimate Concerns. In Plato's Symposium, Eros or Desire is seen by Socrates and Diotima as the basic energy of longing for union with Eternal Beauty Itself.[xvii] All shadowy objects of lust and desire reveal a personal value system, the character-to-date of the soul in a state of unsolicited craving.[xviii] These revelations are important as they shine a light on the true state of the soul.

The seductions of Bertilak's alluring wife reveal to Gawain his earthiness, allowing an opportunity to explore his own high psycho-spiritual theories and convictions. By accepting the Queen's intimate green girdle,[xix] Gawain realizes that his spiritual quest and manly courage were not as strong as he had originally assumed.

In all of the various trickster stories, including the Green Knight, there is the idea of personal and social boundaries forming, dissolving and reforming. Edinger writes, "Many myths depict the original state of man as a state of roundness, wholeness, perfection, or paradise" (Ego and Archetype 8). The original roundedness must break open in order that new creative ideas and materials may enter in. Sometimes, the circular image of a great spiral[xx] is utilized--symbolizing the dynamic movement inward, then outward, ever expanding beyond the former circle in a vital cosmos. Just because something begins in wholeness does not mean that it will remain in that condition.

DESIRE, DEATH AND THE LIMINAL MARKS

After his encounter with the Lady Bertilak and the Knight, there were two enduring effects on Gawain's body--the green sash and his scarred neck. These may be imagined as liminal wounds demarking Gawain's newly discovered psychic residences between desire and self control, and between death and life. Prior to this he may have thought himself beyond such contradictory poles. The permanent neck wound was etched between his head and his body, a common symbol for the above and below, the spiritual and the material. [xxi] Gawain would live the rest of his life reminded that he was always just a few inches from death at any given moment.

The green belt around his waist was a voluntary liminal reminder of always residing at the crossroads of lust, desire and avaricious greed waiting to take him off of his purposeful spiritual course. Prior to his three days in bed, being caressed and romanced by the gorgeous Lady Bertilak, he would have likely thought himself invincible to lust. Now the sexy sash reminded him daily that the distance between his head and penis was not so great. He was just one choice away from abandoning his knightly code and call. This was such an impressive and important educational reminder that his fellow knights also wore the sash after Gawain's return to Camelot.

THE KING AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: I AM AND I AM NOT

There has been a lot of discussion about the role of the Green Knight as both the benevolent king Bertilak and the agent of terror and death. In these "contradictory" images, I see the paradoxical nature of reality itself, what Pelton calls an attribute of the trickster's "doubleness of reality at every level" (The Trickster 209).[xxii] This character seems to be both good and evil, sacred and mundane. Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von-Franz comment, "In ecclesiastical symbolism green is a color of the Holy Ghost...and in the language of the mystics it is the universal color of divinity" (The Grail Legend 165). The Green Knight/Bertilak is both the trickster-devil and comforting God. It would appear that we see not only the combinative ideas of Paganism and Christianity in this story, but also of good and evil working together for a greater purpose. Perhaps this had something to do with the historical situation of an outbreak of the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt, and internecine wars. [xxiii] Maybe the author was trying to reassure the readers of Nietzsche's oft quoted maxim, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT SEEN IN THE STORY

Whether intended or not, the order of the deer, the boar and the fox are perfect symbols for the idea of psycho-spiritual stages and processes--the regal deer being a symbol of the orderly Arthurian court, the wild boar signifying Gawain's disintegrative trek through the wilderness, and the fox as a common representative of tricksters[xxiv] portraying the pathologizing[xxv] and reorganizing affects of desire and death under Bertilak and his wife. These images seem to intimate the four stages of spiritual growth suggested by Erick Erickson,[xxvi] M. Scott Peck,[xxvii] Robert Pelton[xxviii] and my own work on stages of consciousness.[xxix]

PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS STORY

In 2003, my son Jason was sent to Iraq with the Stryker Brigade's 181st Infantry based at Fort Lewis, Washington. My most vivid memory of that time was a daily sense of angst at the prospect of my young son's death on the battlefield. It was as though the Green Knight had charged into my otherwise ordered, round-table life and challenged me to a game of decapitation. I was allowed the first blow. I took the green axe of time and waited. Eighteen months later my son came home alive and well. Jason returned for a second deployment, and returned unharmed. I had beheaded Death, yet Death always rose again and kept making appointments with me.

In 2007 Jason was on his third deployment--this time to Afghanistan. At 10:30 P.M. on July 13, 2008, an Army chaplain knocked on my door to inform me that my precious twenty-five year old boy had been killed at the Battle of Wanat. This controversial battle is still in the news.[xxx] Part of the storm surrounding this particular skirmish was the fact that the young men who died there knew they were facing almost certain slaughter. A few days before the tragedy, many of them made telephone calls, sent emails or wrote letters telling family and friends that they were entering into a suicide mission. Here is a part of the last letter my son wrote a few days before he was killed:

TO MY FAMILY

I feel my days are numbered, so I want to say all this while I still can. I pray to God no-one will ever have to read this, but as death is all around me, if it falls upon me, you will understand my recent feelings on this madness we call life...Never have I felt as strong as I do about what I am doing here in Afghanistan as the right thing for me to be doing, and as understood and accepted by God. As a result of that, death is easier to accept....Know that you all are the reason I am here to give my life, for that is nothing to me. My love for every-one of you is what drives me and brings me comfort under stressful situations. Carise and Jesse [Jason's sister and husband], let your child know of me, and that even though I was never able to see him grow up, I love him more than he could imagine.

My son was dead. Death invited me to its green chapel. For the next several months I rode off toward the borderland of Death, into the mountainous wilderness. I know Gawain's experience:

And he rode through England...

though the ride was hardly a happy one.

He was often alone, at night, in places

Where the path ahead of him could please no one.

Only his horse rode with him, through woods

And hills, and the only voice he heard

Was God's, until he reached the north of Wales.

~ Sir Gawain, Raffel 70

This was the wilderness experienced by Jesus, Dante, Bilbo Baggins and all other mythological adventurers who face self-dissolution mediated by trickster-as-death. For such appointments, one has to "ride through England," "through the valley of the shadow of death" (Psalm 23)--there is no "going around" for soul-making, it must be gone through. Like Gawain, "often alone at night, in places and on paths that could please no one," I too heard only the voice of "God," and sometimes that voice was not present. It was a descent into Hell, into the Underworld, into the depths. It was a prolonged encounter with Death, and Desire.

Desire came to me in the seductive guise of escapism, whispering, "Go unconscious, come to bed with me; you are depressed and need pharmaceuticals, diversions, anything to avoid the unhappy places and lonely nights. Go comfortably numb." You see, I have been in recovery for ten years and this was my particular seductress. I repeatedly said to Desire, "No," but then I would indulge in a few innocent kisses in the form of over-the-counter sleep aids. On one occasion, I gave her two kisses, doubling up on the "innocent" non-prescription sleep aids for about one month. There was a short period where I tripled the doses, wrapping myself in her green girdle to deliver me from Death. It was a partial failure, but I stopped and willingly went to Death's green chapel on the border lands of my soul. It was Death's turn to take a swing at my vulnerable neck. This took place in dreams, visions, reflections, memories--too numerous to recount here.

In Sophocles' play, Oedipus at Colonus, the Chorus calls the chapel-grove of the Ocean-Lord Poseidon," the green depths." It was in that green ocean chapel where Theseus was sacrificing an oxen at Poseidon's altar (Sophocles 373). The Greek tragedians often call Poseidon's numinous depths, "green". This image gave meaning to my own entrance into the Green Chapel of Death--a submersion into the overshadowing and re-vivifying deep waters of the unconscious. After her life threatening brain injury, Ginette Paris observed:

"Dangerous voyages...seem to open to us a treasure chest of endless surprises: the unconscious...When the unconscious opens, it disturbs every routine and life takes on a surprising quality. Madam Death insists that surrender be absolute." (Wisdom xii)

I heard Death sharpening his axe, a symbol of separation and decapitation--the loss of not only some "one" or some "thing," but of the former ego-self. Early that first morning after I learned of my son's death, a voice spoke to me through my intermittent sleep, "You will never be the same man you were yesterday." The old round table was broken, the old ego-self was wounded, making room for some new order. Death did not take my physical life, but it excised a part of my soul. My neck was nicked, and the old life bled out of me. For the past two years I have had innumerable experiences which have expanded my heart, deepened my psyche and changed my life. Like Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord, I received many hard won blessings, but I walk with a limp. I bear the educational scars of Death, "For a man may hide an injury to his soul/But he'll never be rid of it, it's fastened forever" (Sir Gawain, Raffel 124).

I have since returned to "Camelot," my world. Through the brokenness, I have changed and those around me have noticed it. Some people have actually donned their own "green sash" as I have shared my meeting with Desire and Death. I have met with the Green Trickster in his chapel, he has taken several swings at my neck and broken "open and enlarged every possible structure and relationship... through conflict, disorder, and even death..." as I passed through "dissolution to order" (The Trickster 161, 205). HONY SOYT QUI MAL PENCE [Shame to him who finds evil here] (Sir Gawain, Raffel 125).

End

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FOOTNOTES:

[i] The Greek word for "idea," (eidon), refers not only to the object but a way of seeing. In other words, an idea is not just comething to be observed or considered, but is a means by which we observe things. Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 141.

[ii] Robert Pelton rightly warns about reducing the tricksters many meanings to only one, "...be it Prometheanism, protognosticism, psychic growth, or symbolic exhaustion." (The Trickster in West Africa, p. 12).

[iii] Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz write, "As a 'round thing' the Round Table expresses totality. The circle is indeed described as the most complete of all forms." The Grail Legend, p. 386.

[iv] The word "play" is used here intentionally since the word "game" is used over and over in this story. The trickster plays games, hence the name trickster.

[v] This is the attitude portrayed in the movie, Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, starring Sean Connery as the Green Knight.

[vi] Some Christian interpreters "...see it as a story of the apocalyptic fall of a civilisation, in Gawain's case, Camelot. In this interpretation, Sir Gawain is like Noah, separated from his society and warned by the Green Knight (who is seen as God's representative) of the coming doom of Camelot." from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. "In his depiction of Camelot, the poet reveals a concern for his society, whose inevitable fall will bring about the ultimate destruction intended by God. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight#Gawain_as_medieval_romance)

[vii] In the ancient Gnostic literature, Death and Desire were seen as two Archons or personified obstacles that blocked the psyche's ascent to the Pleroma or Fullness of God. We find this in the 2nd century A.D. Gospel of Mary:10) And Desire said to the ascending soul, “I did not see you coming down from the Higher Realm, but now I see you ascending. You were never ‘up there’. Your true nature is material. Why do you lie since you belong to me?” 11) The soul answered and said, “Well, I saw you and now know that you are not my true nature. I wouldn’t expect you to see me or recognize my True Heavenly Nature. I served you as a garment and you did not know me.” 12) When it said this, it (the soul) went away rejoicing greatly. 18) When the soul had overcome...it went upwards and saw the fourth Obstacle, which had seven voices. 19) The first form is Darkness, the second Desire, the third Ignorance, the fourth is the Terror of Death, the fifth is the Kingdom of the Flesh, the sixth is the foolish Wisdom of Flesh, the seventh is the Wrathful Wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath. (Gospel of Mary 10-19)

[viii] "Physically the Green Lion was usually a name for vitriol, or the sulphuric acid created by distilling the green crystals of iron sulphate in a flask. Iron sulphate was formed when iron ores rich in sulphides were left to oxidise in the air, so was readily available to medieval alchemists. The sharp penetrating sulphuric acid could create major chemical changes in many materials even to the extent of dissolving metals like iron, and copper. The Green Lion could also be the nitric acid formed from heating saltpeter or nitre and iron sulphate. Nitric acid when mixed with the acid derived from common salt, hydrochloric acid, produced aqua regia, a greenish tinged liquid that could dissolve even the noble metal gold. The Green Lion devouring the sun is a famous image in alchemy being depicted in many manuscripts and engravings, and can be thought of as aqua regia dissolving the solar gold and forming a solution which could readily tinge metals with gold" http://www.nachtkabarett.com/babalon/topic/1426---Spit-Vitriol-Not-Swallow-Green-Lion

[ix] Actor Bela Lugosi wore green-hued makeup for the role of Dracula in the 1927–28 Broadway stage production, and Boris Karloff's Frankenstein corpse was lime green. A green tinge in the skin is sometimes associated with nausea and sickness. A physically ill person is said to look green around the gills. The color, when combined with gold, is seen as representing the fading of youth. Green is thought to be an unlucky color in British and British-derived cultures,[42] where green cars, wedding dresses, and theater costumes are all the objects of superstition.[43] Spider-Man villains were often colored green to represent a contrast to the hero's red.[44] In some Far East cultures the color green is often used as a symbol of sickness and/or nausea;[45]

[x] In the Death of Curoi, Curoi stands in for Bertilak, and is often called "the man of the gray mantle". Though the words usually used for gray in the Death of Curoi are 'lachtna' or 'odar', roughly meaning milk-colored and shadowy respectively, in later works featuring a green knight, the word 'glas' is used and may have been the basis of misunderstanding. Buchanan, Alice (June, 1932). "The Irish Framework of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". PLMA 47 (No. 2): 315–338. In the 15th-century Saint Wolfgang and the Devil by Michael Pacher, the Devil is green. Poetic contemporaries such as Chaucer also drew connections between the color green and the devil, leading scholars to draw similar connections in readings of the Green Knight. (Robertson, D.W. Jr. "Why the Devil Wears Green". Modern Language Notes. (November 1954) 69.7 pp. 470–472.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight#cite_note-38

[xii] This is the image mandorla, which is the Latin word for "almond," signifying the almond shaped center of two overlapping circles.

[xiii] For an exceptionally researched presentation on the common vernacular of an English Christian-Pagan combination, see Catherine Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit, especially chapter 1 titled, "European Legacies". She examines the art, architecture and literature of the day to demonstrate what she calls Christian-Hermetic spirituality that predeeded and seed the American phenomenon of metaphysical and New Age religions.

[xiv] "The trickster speaks--and embodies--a vivid subtle religious language, through which he links animality and ritual transformation, shapes culture by means of sex and laughter, ties cosmic process to personal history, empowers divination to change boundaries into horizons, and reveals the passages to the sacred embedded in daily life." The Trickster in West Africa, Robert Pelton, p. 4.

[xv] In one Hindu myth, a group of bickering gods fill the heavens with their noise. Lord Shiva, disturbed from his peaceful Himalayan meditation session, shoots his cosmic erection through the atmosphere, scattering the gods like marbles.

[xvi] Introduction to Philosophy

[xvii] Von Franz discusses the alchemical symbols of sizzling Sulphur and other "drive" or "craving" images in the bottom of the heated alembic, signifying the role of libidinal energies which are necessary for the process of transmutation. Alchemy, An Introduction, pp. 126-131.

[xviii] Both the Rig Vedas, Book 10, 129, and Genesis 1-3, make it clear that Desire is the germ or seed of all creative development. The Vedas say, " Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.” Genesis 3 says, "The woman saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she desired the wisdom it would give her.” In the so called Gnostic Gospel of Mary, Mary preaches a sermon to a group of distraught disciples, teaching them that Desire must be moved through before the soul can return to the Pleroma or Fullness of God.

[xix] The green sash worn around Gawain's waist may reveal the ubiquitous amalgam of Pagan nature religion with its divinations and magical cures with traditional English Christianity. Catherine Albanese cites the "combinativeness" of the two systems:

Despite official church censure...."it is possible that some of the country clergy more than tolerated them [benevolent witches or cunning healers]; they may have even been seen as godly parishioners." In one instance...George Clifford [a Medieval writer said], "The Communion cup was stolen: the Churchwardens rode to a wise man, he gave them direction...and certainly they had it again." In fact, one churchwarden was himself a cunning man, and another visited a cunning man to gain some information regarding his landlord's lost horse. (A Republic of Mind 62).

[xx] In Dogon the Dogon cosmogenesis, the High God Amma "sets in motion the spiral of life and ensures its final establishment" by utilizing the disordering and dissolving influences of the trickster Ogo-Yuruga. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa, p. 215. The poet W.B. Yeats used the interlocking spiral as a symbol of existence which simultaneously moves in and out, up and down, side to side in order to describe his images in the poem, The Seond Coming.. http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html

[xxi] See Santeria, Murphy, head (ori) over body. p. 10 Christ and church. Kephalos.

[xxii] In Hebrew mythology, it is often overlooked that King JHWH and the adversarial Shatan are aspects of the same Godhead. (see many references). A simpler way to see this is by remembering that the name JHWH comes from the verb Hayah which means "I am," or "to be". It is the affirmation, or "yes" to life. However, the word Shatan means "to oppose". It is not too far off base to say that Shatan is the counterpart, meaning "I am not," to JHWH's "I am".[xxii] When we can move away from theology and literalism, and hearken back to the phenomenological origins of these mythical characters, we see that the Hebrews were just trying to deal with the daily reality of life as a kind of psycho-spiritual isometrics. Life is always a series of oppositional encounters, and it is from these resistances that emotional and soulful muscle is built.

[xxiii] See Clark, S. L., and Julian N. Wasserman. "The Passing of the Seasons and the Apocalyptic in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". South Central Review. (1986) 3.1 pp. 5–22

[xxiv] Ogo of the Dogon people is portrayed as a fox. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa, pp. 207, 221

[xxv] James Hillman re-visions pathology as "...the psyches autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality and suffering in any aspect of its behavior and to experience and imagine life through this deformed and afflicted perspective." Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 56.

[xxvi] Childhood and Society, pp. 65-72, 269-74.

[xxvii] Scot Peck's book, The Different Drum

[xxviii] Pelton, The Trickster of West Africa, pp. 168, 171.

[xxix] Paper for Approaches to Mythology class, Eros and Psyche, The Bible and Stages of Consciousness.

[xxx] On June 27, 2010, Dateline NBC did an hour long story on this battle, including my son's role in it (http://www.clicker.com/tv/dateline-nbc/A-Father-s-Mission-967259/). One June 23, 2010, I and several family members of the nine deceased soldiers attended a briefing in Atlanta, Georgia to hear the results of an eight month independent investigation by Marine three star Lt. General Natonski. He concluded that three Commanders involved in sending the Platoon, "Chosen Company" of the 173rd Airborne, on that particular mission were guilty of dereliction of duty. Retired four star Army General Campbell exonerated the three Commanders, shocking the families and General Natonsky. As a result, Virginia Senator Webb and Senator Patty Murray of Washington State are pressing for a senate hearing.

The Hymn to Demeter: The Roles of the Gods in Soul Making

This paper was written for Chris Downing's class on Greek Mythology, 2009, at Pacifica Graduate Institute. It is drawn from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

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The Hymn to Demeter: The Roles of the Gods and Events in Soul Making

At 10:30 p.m. on July 13, 2008 I received the news that my 25 year old son had been killed in the Battle of Wanat in Nuristan province, Afghanistan. The emotional floor dropped out from beneath my feet as I plunged into the darkest and most hellish experience of my life.

As I contemplated a topic for this paper, the Hymn to Demeter kept calling to me. I resisted mightily, telling myself that the subject was overdone--I wanted something fresh and original. Yet, like Hades grasp on Persephone, it would not let me go. After many readings I have come to identify with the various characters and events in this story, many analogous to my own nightmarish journey into soul making. I will explore those characters and events.

The stated purpose of the first Homeric Hymn to Demeter was to inform the Greek audience that it was possible to have a visionary experience that allowed one to rise up after going “down into the squalid darkness.”

Happy
is that man,
among the men
on earth,
who witnesses
these things.
And whoever
is not initiated
in the rites,
whoever
has no part in them,
he does not share
the same fate,
when he dies
and is down in
the squalid darkness. (Boer 160)

The word translated ‘witness’ (horao) is significant as Kittel points out in his Theological Dictionary of the New Testament:

"…the Gk. language has for the concept of hearing only "akouo" and its compounds, whereas for seeing it has a whole series of verbs at its command. This interrelation show us already that seeing was more important for the Gks. than hearing. The individual words for seeing…denote different kinds of seeing." (Kittel V, 316)

Horao and its derivatives often emphasize personal experience—seeing an image in a dream, an apparition, or receiving a dynamic spiritual insight. It implies far more than seeing with the mere physical eye. The stated purpose of this hymn and the subsequent Eleusinian ritual was to facilitate a witnessed experience that would open the psycho-spiritual eyes to images below the level of ordinary everyday consciousness.

In addition, horao is etymologically related to eidon, the Greek word for idea or image. From eidon the name Aidoneus or Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, is derived. Westerners typically associate the sky Gods with glorious new ideas of life, but the Greeks saw Hades also as the God of new ideas or insights that can be gained only by a descent into the depths of a darkened imagination. When the lights go out, Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone swallows us up as we enter "into another dimension; a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; the middle ground between light and shadow.” This is the imagistic realm of soul making.

Lastly, the verb meaning to witness, horao, is in the perfect tense and denotes a past action that produces ongoing results, indicating that the vision at the end of the historical nine day Eleusinian ritual would last a lifetime. This ancient Greek religious initiation, corroborated by historical testimonies, notably changed one’s life.

At least twice the hymn states that the result of the seeing or witnessing would produce "happiness…on the earth." The Greek word for happiness, olbios, connotes external physical prosperity as well as an internal or psychological state of contentment. In other words it is possible to undergo, or more accurately "to go under," a terrible ordeal and rise up into a condition of well being. The sled ride down into dark Hades is not the end of the trip.

The main characters of this drama are introduced at the outset: Demeter, her daughter Persephone, Aidoneus, Zeus and Earth. Curiously, Persephone is referred to only as "her daughter" and not formally named as are the other deities, perhaps because Persephone is not yet a ‘completed’ or fully grown deity. She must first be taken into the Underworld, rooted and only then ascend to Olympus and receive her name. This may signify that we as humans are not really substantial until we have undergone experiences of loss and darkness.

THE NECESSITY OF DESCENT AND ASCENT FOR THE SOUL

It seems that the natural cycle of descent and ascent was as necessary for the gods as it is for our human psychological development. In fact from an archetypal perspective it would be more correct to say that natural and human evolution mirror the eternal Gods. This developmental idea is also found in this hymn in the image of Gaia’s beautiful narcissus, a thematic symbol of movement from root, to stem, to the many buds on the stem and finally the fragrant bloom that causes the sky to smile:

From its root
it pushed up
a hundred heads
and a fragrance
from its top
making
all the vast sky above
smile. (Boer 111)

This organic developmental process of soul is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable in the New Testament Gospel of Mark:

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." (Mark 4:26-29)

The two most popular death and resurrection rites in the ancient world were found in the Eleusinian and Christian stories. Both emphasized ‘night and day’ as central features. Many Christians forget that the arrival of the kingdom of God, like the Hymn of Demeter, requires the descent into the dark before moving into the light of day. This natural process of psycho-spiritual expansion conflicts with the usual orthodox Augustinian Christian teaching that says suffering, darkness and death are the ‘unnatural’ results of human original sin. This can set a person up for psychological despair when tragedies and losses occur. Both the hymn and Jesus' parable recognize both dark and light forces that are prior to and foundational to human existence and development. What Bruno Snell says of the Greek mind is true of the universal psychological process, “Every human act betrays the vitality of the ultimate cause behind it” (Snell 25). This means that loss, grief, desperation and all such descents into darkness and their subsequent ascents are not just human but mythical in proportion and somehow connected to a larger cosmology. Humans must experience the depths as well as the heights in order to know "happiness".

The seed metaphor is important for soul making. Putting roots down into the dark soil is as fundamental as rising up into the light. This point is part of the significance of Persephone spending one third of the year in Hades ‘growing down,’ and two thirds with her mother on Olympus, or ‘growing up.’ One third, or the number three, is a universal, archetypal indicator of an accomplished process with a beginning, middle and an end. The number is not to be taken as any kind of literal chronology for emotional development, but rather as a symbol of the inevitable polarities of life and the emotional cycles for psychological completion. From a depth psychological perspective, the psyche is moving toward what Jung referred to as the “homo maximus” (completed human) or the mature Anthropos (Jung, CW XIV, 400).

Examination of the Individual Mythical Characters for Soul Making

If the main purpose of this hymn is to initiate persons into a deeper and broader experience of full human consciousness, including darkness and death as well as light and life, then it is important to see each character and event in the Hymn as aspects of an individual’s soul making process. Christine Downing summarizes this point well when she writes,

"I have come to understand, also, through my involvement with this myth, the difference between relating to a myth and relating to a mythological figure. It seems vitally important no longer to identify only one character in the myth, Persephone, nor to focus on one episode within the story, Persephone’s forced abduction by Hades…I now see that the myth is the mythos, the plot, the action, not the figure abstracted from it." (Downing, Long Journey 219-220)

In each story, every character plays some role in us. In a similar vein James Hillman reminds us, “…if our aim is psychological – that is connecting what happens with soul – then we will search for the most fundamental significance of the events in their archetypal or mythical patterns” (Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology 176). Notice that Hillman writes of ‘events’ and ‘patterns,’ plural. Every character and each event in a myth presents images which are pregnant with potential insights and in-sites into each person's soul making. It is up to the reader to turn the kaleidoscopic tube containing the various shards of the myth and see what new perspectives tumble into the reflective mind.

Demeter’s Role in Soul Making: Matter Matters

After Demeter discovers that her daughter is missing, she despairs. This is psychologically instructive. Her grief of loss actually receives more attention than Persephone’s sadness over being abducted into Hades! Demeter literally means ‘Earth Mother.’ It is importan to note that 'mater' means 'mother' which also means 'matter' or the stuff we are made of. Hillman says,

"The great mother…is our materialism; the common derivation of both matter and mater (mother) is neither an accident nor a joke. She is that modality of consciousness which connects all psychic events to material ones, placing the images of the soul in the service of physical tangibilities." (Hillman, The Dream 69) This means that matter, matters; the physical body is important in soul-making.

This insight reveals that loss takes place in 'da mater' or in the solid earthly realm. While grief may be experienced as taking place in our shadowy inner psyche, practically it is intimately related to what occurs in the material world, in the flesh. Soul-making requires that the visible and the invisible realms work together. In the invisible, interior sphere, symbolized by Persephone in Hades, we experience loss as a feeling of invisibility, of being insubstantial. We are John Lennon’s, “Nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land making all his nowhere plans for nobody.” It feels like Hell.

However, in the visible sphere, symbolized by Demeter (matter), we see the role played by the acquisition and loss of materiality. Persephone, the substantial daughter, is an explicit symbol of familial and relational connections. As the Greeks knew only too well, life involves many personal physical losses and earthly attachments. There could be no better symbol than a child who had been tethered to her mother by an umbilical cord to portray separation and loss. The evolution of consciousness requires both the material and immaterial experiences of loss.

After my son was killed in Afghanistan, I had both of these experiences simultaneously. There was a profound sense of his continuing, invisible psychological presence which brought me peace and comfort, yet I wept over his physical and visible absence. I could find comfort in his post mortem existence in some invisible realm, but overwhelming grief filled me when I recalled holding his solid body in our last hug, running my palm across the stubble of his military haircut and feeling his warm cheek on my face. What has sustained me through this nightmare is the awareness that soul is made by the connection of “all psychic events to material ones.” The external material loss of my son and the subsequent emotional plunge into the internal ‘squalid darkness’ worked together to create a more conscious soul. M. Merleau-Ponty summarizes this point well, “Meaning is invisible, but the invisible is not contradictory of the visible: the visible itself has an invisible inner framework, and the in-visible is the secret counterpart of the visible” (Merleau-Ponty 54).

Merleau-Ponty is referring to the important confluence of the physical and non-physical. This point was recognized as being central to soul-making by the second century Christian theologian Irenaeus in his opus, Against Heresies. His copious arguments against the matter-denigrating heretics, whom modern academics call Gnostics, were philosophically and psychologically motivated. According to Irenaeus, the evolution from the ‘likeness of God’ into the ‘image of God’ required the interaction of a physical body with an immaterial soul and spirit. This ontological intermingling of the material and immaterial elements for making soul was further developed by the later Nicean and Chalcedonian councils when they affirmed the notion that Christ’s nature was homoousia -- equally matter and non-matter. In other words, matter mattered as much as soul and spirit.

This means that the objective, material world is very important to soul making. Demeter’s grief did not arise because of the annihilation of her daughter’s existence, but because of her child’s invisibility through the loss of sight, touch and the sound of a living person. The rite at Eleusis would provide a new kind of sight--in-sight as the initiates would enter into the world of Hades.

A Divine Conspiracy

From a limited perspective, the Hymn of Demeter might seem to be little more than an etiological myth explaining the origins of the earthly seasons, or the horrors of Greek mothers and daughters enduring covertly arranged marriages. But if we consider this hymn psychologically and primarily as an initiation myth designed to help people move through loss and darkness, we can see a larger soul making plot involved.

The text says that "Zeus allowed" the abduction of Persephone, that he "had planned it," and that he actually "gave her (Persephone) to Hades." Earth (Gaia) is also complicit in this abduction; she helped trick Persephone by creating the beguiling narcissus flower "as a favor for" Hades. In addition, after Persephone reached for the flower, the earth "opened wide the road" for Hade’s escaping chariot. It seems the Gods were working together in this horrific event. This notion of a divine conspiracy is further corroborated when the hymn says that none of the immortals “heard her (Persephone’s) voice…” They played dumb. But later the text states that none of the “gods nor mortal men… wanted to tell her (Demeter) the truth.” Clearly they knew about the abduction, which is especially evident when we read that Persephone’s terrified screams "echoed across the mountain peaks and through the depths of the sea." It appears the gods were part of the divine scheme to keep the secret from both Demeter and Persephone.
There is a New Age expression that says, “The Universe is conspiring for your good.” An archetypal perspective would agree, yet remind us that the "good conspiracy" may require some pretty awful moments, if not years or decades. It takes time for a soul-seed to germinate, take root and move from the dark soil into the light of day.

Hecate and Helios: The Roles of Night and Day

Only Hecate, the personification of the moon in her dark sky cave, and the Sun in his dawn dome admitted that they heard Persephone’s cries of terror and were willing to help. Hecate, holding a light in her hands, led Demeter to the Sun, Helios, who told her the truth about the abduction.

On that dark night of July 13, 2008, after I was told that Jason had been killed in the early dawn hours, 4:00 a.m., in a remote village in Afghanistan, I lapsed into what can only be described as a 2-3 minute walking blackout. I came to, standing outside of my house, a tight fist raised to the heavens, screaming, “Fuck you God!” As I returned to consciousness, the glowing white moon on a stark black sky filled my vision. My very first thought was, “You are the only one here who saw my boy this morning when he disappeared from this earth.” There was a queer moment of comfort and connection with my son in seeing the familiar lunar witness. Hecate was my sole companion at that moment.

The next morning I awoke after a night of indescribable grief and troubling visions, and an imagistic voice whispered, “Michael, you are not the man you were yesterday. You will never be the same. You are being dis-integrated. You will be rebuilt. Be patient.”

I spent the next eight months wandering through a labyrinthine Underworld of mourning, seclusion and outrage. My entire self was being demolished; I was no longer the father of a son. What was I? What would I be? Only from an archetypal perspective combined with faith in a soul making cosmos did I know that something entirely new would emerge from the experience.

Several months after his death, in March of 2009, I awoke one memorable morning. Sunlight was streaming through my bedroom window, and I heard a by-now familiar voice which whispered into my semi-conscious waking mind, “Dad, the sun is back, get up; the time in Hades is over, for now.” I am neither exaggerating this quotation nor adding the word ‘Hades’ for dramatic effect-- the voice let me know that the period of groping through the oppressive abyss had come to an end. Since then I have had moments of deep grief, but nothing like those eight months.

Demeter’s moon and sun images have now become my own, bringing to mind a joining together of the Yin/Yang energies--of night and day, above and below, masculine and feminine, working together in that twilight or middle ground where new ideas emerge and souls are made. James Hillman reminds us, “The word eidolon relates with Hades himself (aidoneus) and with eidos, ideational forms and shapes, the ideas that form and shape life.” There are images and perspectives to be gained while in Hades that cannot be gained in the light. This is nuanced beautifully by Christine Downing's comments:

"But time spent in Hades that is not spent trying desperately to get out also leads to discovery of the power and beauty of the dark moments in our life, the real confusions and desolations. Fear is so different when one does not have to fear fear but can simply fear; incompleteness and hurt are also different when one sees them not as something to get beyond but as something to live." (Downing, Long Journey 231)

The Role of Zeus in Soul Making

As mentioned earlier, Zeus permitted the abduction of Persephone “far away from Demeter.” Without consulting either Persephone or Demeter, the cloud-secluded ruler of Olympus gave his chthonic brother Hades permission to seize and ravish this young and vibrant girl. Even the great Sun, Helios, defended the wisdom of Zeus’s action to the inconsolable Demeter by saying, “He (Hades) is not an unworthy son-in-law among the gods…” The sun seemed to know something Demeter did not. But Demeter would have none of it. After her conversation with Helios we read, “Yet sharper pain, more savage even, struck her heart…outraged with Zeus…” (Boer 119)

This part of the story suggests an occasional psychological disconnect between the heavenly Father and the earthly Mater. It seems that there are those wonderful times in our emotional lives when the above and below are mysteriously conjoined, but then there are those moments when the heavens seem to mercilessly assail the earth and her inhabitants, reminiscent of the Hebrew Book of Job, resulting in material and emotional disaster. The Gods seem to clobber us from above. Few of us voluntarily go down into the depths. It takes Hades’ forceful chariot abducting us with a phone call, a medical diagnosis, divorce papers served or some other horrific onslaught--quite often when we are picking flowers, like Persephone, at sunrise in a serene field with friends.

I must confess that the Zeus character is the most difficult for me to comprehend. The notion of an almighty God allowing or planning my abduction into Hell is troubling. Yet I must also admit that there is a part of me that wants “to go deeper” no matter what the cost might be. Several months ago I was contemplating John Donne’s fourteenth Holy Sonnet. Donne actually asks to be ‘ravished by God’:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. (Donne XIV)

(Click here for an examination of this poem with commentary)

The word "ravish" in the last line comes from the Latin word rapere and gave rise to our English words ‘rapid’ and ‘rape.’ It means to abduct, seize, carry off by force and was originally used to describe the work of pirates and raiding armies. Only later did it develop the sexual connotation we most often associate with it today. Donne's is a bold prayer--a petition to be assailed, conquered and raped by the deity. He seems to understand that such experiences are not only normal to human existence, but necessary to make whole person. Psychologically, this indicates that there are seasons in life when it feels like we are being taken against our will, times of being conspired against by the Gods. Life itself seems to drag us into the depths when we least expect or deserve it. Donne’s prayer recognizes that there can come a point in the evolution of consciousness when a person actually prays for his or her fortress of ego to be assailed, razed and governed by the Holy One.

Conclusion

The loss of my son has taken me beyond a theoretical approach to this ancient mythical Hymn. I have experienced the physical and psychological devastation that comes with being stripped naked and emotionally raped. One is never entirely ready for such tragedies. I cannot say that I have experienced ‘happiness’ subsequent to the loss of my son, but I can say that I see a new creation rising from the crushed and disintegrating seed buried in the soil of soul.

Nearly one year after Jason’s death, his face and hands appeared to me in a meditation. He extracted a large, glowing red heart from his chest and held it in both palms. From my own chest emerged a discolored, shriveled heart. His bright organ, which reminded me of the paintings of the Sacred Heart of Christ, was slowly extended toward my tarnished heart, gradually surrounding it and finally absorbing it completely. In the trance I communicated to Jason that I could not accept his heart. He smiled and conveyed, “Dad, the work you are going to do will require more compassion than you currently have; this is one reason I gave my life.”

When I emerged from that moment, I felt I had my son back in a way I never had. We were together again in a manner I would never have imagined—in a way impossible to tell, or even fully understand except through myth. The realization that material bereavement facilitates soulful expansion will not necessarily make our losses any less painful, but it can make them purposeful. Only persons initiated into such an awareness are likely to emerge from the "squalid darkness" with some sort of happiness or psychological well-being. Obviously we do not literally get our dead loved ones back in this life, but Psyche, symbolized by Persephone’s eventual ascent, blooms and creates a new life as she returns from the dark soul-soil of the Underworld.

I will end simply, with my paraphrase of the hymn’s concluding lines:

Come Demeter and Persephone,

come Hades and Zeus,
I enter willingly into the depths of los,

reassemble what you have dissolved,

and in exchange
for the loss of my son,
give me the kind of life and character
that will fulfill my soul’s calling.

The Cure: "Where the Birds Always Sing"

To my son Jason Michael Charles Bogar who was killed in action at the Battle of Wanat, Afghanistan, July 13, 2008. "Cpl. Jason Bogar fired hundreds of rounds from his automatic weapon until the barrel of his weapon became white-hot and jammed and then tended to Pfc. Stafford’s wounds. An RPG wounded Sgt. Ryan Pitts, who was also tended by Bogar with an tourniquet around Pitts’ leg before switching to another gun. Bogar was eventually killed and his body was recovered uphill, evidently dragged there by an insurgent. Bogar was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star with a "V" for Valor, the fourth highest medal awarded by the U.S. Military."

This world is neither fair nor unfair--but some intuitive hunch tells me that it is somehow purposeful.

WHERE THE BIRDS ALWAYS SING
(click to play)

The world is neither fair nor unfair
The idea is just a way for us to understand
But the world is neither fair nor unfair
So one survives
The others die
And you always want a reason why

But the world is neither just nor unjust
It's just us trying to feel that there's some sense in it
No, the world is neither just nor unjust
And though going young
So much undone
Is a tragedy for everyone

It doesn't speak a plan or any secret thing
No unseen sign or untold truth in anything...
But living on in others, in memories and dreams
Is not enough
You want everything
Another world where the sun always shines
And the birds always sing
Always sing...

The world is neither fair nor unfair
The idea is just a way for us to understand
No the world is neither fair nor unfair
So some survive
And others die
And you always want a reason why

But the world is neither just nor unjust
It's just us trying to feel that there's some sense in it
No, the world is neither just nor unjust
And though going young
So much undone
Is a tragedy for everyone

It doesn't mean there has to be a way of things
No special sense that hidden hands are pulling strings
But living on in others, in memories and dreams
Is not enough
And it never is
You always want so much more than this...

An endless sense of soul and an eternity of love
A sweet mother down below and a just father above
For living on in others, in memories and dreams
Is not enough
You want everything
Another world
Where the birds always sing
Another world
Where the sun always shines
Another world
Where nothing ever dies...

WAITING FOR THE SUN: SUFFERING FROM A.S.S.

One of my favorite songs is by The Doors, Waiting for the Sun. Jim Morrison woefully sings:

Waiting for the sun…Waiting for the sun…
Waiting.... waiting.... waiting.... waiting....
Waiting.... waiting.... waiting.... waiting....
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - hear my song
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - tell me what went wrong

Recently, I have discovered that I am 'Waiter.' I am often unconsciously waiting for the sun - waiting for things to line up, or postponing enjoyment until the good outweighs or eradicates the bad. I am reminded of Woody Allen's role as Alvy Singer, the neurotic romantic, in the movie Annie Hall. There is an interaction between Alvy (Allen) and his ex-girlfriend Annie Hall, played by Diane Keaton, at an outdoor restaurant. Annie suggests they go somewhere and have some fun. Alvy declines:

Annie Hall: Alvy, you're incapable of enjoying life, you know that? I mean, you're like New York City. You're just this person. You're like this island unto yourself.
Alvy Singer: I can't enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening.

ALVY SINGER SYNDROME

I think I have spent too much time suffering from A.S.S., the Alvy Singer Syndrome. Like Woody Allen's character, I have often seen the world through the lens of ubiquitous suffering and universal darkness, "If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening."

And lest you think you are an immune optimist, consider this cultures chronic obsession with Global Warming, scanning food labels before eating, chronic dieting, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the latest fashions, wrinkled skin, not having a 'healthy' relationship, recycling and bicycling, frequent urination and the unemployment rate. I am all for taking care of our bodies and the planet, however, sometimes we are unconsciously "waiting for the sun--to come along," or for someone, or something...to come along.

After the death of my son in 2008, my emotional descent took me a long way from the sun. I found little joy in much of anything. I was in the winter of grief. It was normal, necessary, infinitely valuable and purposeful. For about eight months everything was viewed through the lens of my boy being shot and dying in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. I have never known such darkness.

About eight months after Jason's death, I was walking along a quiet shore oon Bainbridge Island, praying, crying and waiting for the sun. I glanced up and saw a Heron gliding high above the water. He tilted his wings downward to slow his flight and regally settled on the bouncing branch of a tall Douglas Fir. My heart spontaneously swelled with joy for this surprising moment of Beauty. The setting sun was radiating a pinkish-orange crown along the horizon behind the bird. I thought my heart would burst. My joyful experience was caught by the thought, "I can't enjoy this, my son is dead." Just then some inaudible voice whispered, "When the moment of Beauty arrives, enjoy it fully."

DANGER OF THE WHOLENESS DOCTRINE: WAITING

One of the dangers in all of our talk about 'wholeness,' saving the earth, the second coming and our American perfectionism, chronic seeking, seeking, seeking and waiting is that we find ourselves always waiting.

Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - hear my song
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - tell me what went wrong
Waiting…waiting…waiting…waiting

What are we waiting for?

Interest is More Importan Than Hope

I once heard James Hillman say in a lecture that “interest is more important than hope.” Doctor Hillman elaborated further on this comment in an interview with Cliff Bostock.

Bostock: You don't like the word "hope" much.

Hillman: Hope is an evil. It was the one evil left in the box when Pandora snapped the lid back shut. Hope is about the unknown future. It's like the promise of salvation in the afterlife.

Bostock: So you're a pessimist?

Hillman: Not in the least. In fact, I think I'm quite the optimist. I just think we should pay attention to what is here right now. It's this hope thing that has gotten the planet into such a mess. If we paid attention to what was true right now, instead of what we hoped would be true in the future, the world would look very different. ... I'm thinking about something I said at the lectures I gave on aging last week. You experience this thing growing old of having your prostate enlarge and you have to get up in the middle of the night several times to go to the bathroom. Well, you can call this hopeless or you can say you "hope" it will get better. What I prefer to say is that in old age, I "wake up to the night." Do you see? This is a metaphorical reading of it. I think it's optimistic. It takes care of the problem and gives my experience meaning. But it's not a hopeful position. (Paradigms 1998).[i]

In this paper I will explore Hillman's notion of psychologizing or "seeing through"[ii] events and turning them into meaningful experiences, specifically by contrasting the idea of hope with the idea of interest.

HOPING AND HOPPING

The word hope comes from the Old English word hopian, meaning to "wish, expect or look forward to something.” Some linguists think that hope is related to the word ‘hop,’ suggesting the notion of "leaping in expectation." [iii] Using this image, we could think of hoping as living in a state of hopping--squatted down on your haunches, anxiously looking from side to side and back to front, ready to spring this way or that to a different destination, never wondering what there is to get from the current position. In the foregoing interview, Hillman illustrates the difference between the two ideas with the prostate condition that wakes him up several times a night. Does one exclusively assume the medical/healing lens and hope for a cure, or does one see through the event and "wake up to the night"?

This state of hoping is especially urgent when we are in uncomfortable situations. Hope focuses our attention, intentions and energies on fixing or changing things. We obsess about altering external conditions--partners, habits, governments--always ready to hop off in hope of something new, better and improved.[iv] A ‘hopeful’ person is typically not engaged with the ‘pathos’ or passion of the moment--personally, politically, spiritually, emotionally or intellectually. Such a person is merely a spectator or observer rather than a participator. The hoper becomes an anticipator rather than an interested participator, and a participator is not only able to 'take part,' but through being interested, they are aware of being purposefully 'taken apart' in the troubling situation.

VERY INTERESTING

The word ‘interest’ is from the Latin interresse which literally means "to be between". The term comes from two words: inter = between + esse = to be.[v] It was originally used in legal matters when an unpaid debt was owed and the ‘interested’ party had to reside in the 'between' period, wondering when the money would be paid back. The word also referred to the 'interest' that was gained 'in between' the time of loaning the money to a lender and waiting to have it paid back. Over time the term came to refer to periods of curiosity that arose from inhabiting the formless void in between what was and what would be.[vi]

A depth psychological perspective might see this 'interesting' void as the alchemical retort where transmutation takes place. It is not the hoped for end that is crucial here, but the incident itself. To be interested is to reside in the confusing gap.[vii] It is that space a trapeze artist relaxes into when letting go of one bar in order to take hold of the next. Utilizing another image, "to be interested" is to consciously submit to the carving-out process[viii], the interior excavation that creates new psychological sites through intersticed in-sight. Interested-sight is not outward and on some 'hoped for' future, but rather on what is occurring in the soul during the linking moment/movement. Our culture views hope as optimistic, and residing in the discomfort as pessimistic. Hillman turns the table when the interviewer calls him a pessimist: "I think I'm quite the optimist. I just think we should pay attention to what is here right now" (Paradigms 1998). Hillman provides a much needed corrective for what William James rightly recognizes as the uniquely American religion of "healthy-mindedness"[ix] or positive thinking. Positive thinking typically focuses on hope and change, fleeing the painful, uncomfortable and "negative"[x]. Perhaps we could call interest the "positive power of negative thinking".

Being "interested" does not mean we receive only or primarily conceptual understanding of our inner self. The soul does not provide mere intellectual information, but rather in-formation or what some have called kardia-gnosis (heart-acquaintance). Troubling[xi] experiences destroy old psychic formations and create new core-formations[xii]. That is one reason Hillman uses the word "soul-making" or psycho-poiesis so often.

To avoid hopping and to stay present with the experience requires us to enter into and move through anxiety, fear, grief and confusion.[xiii] Interest allows these emotional interstices to become purposeful. They are the jackhammers and wrecking balls of the psychological de-construction crew creating a site for new additions to the psyche.[xiv] Only through faith in an archetypally populated multiverse can we see through the havoc and toward the new re-structuring. Hillman calls this attitude "psychological faith". This is not a faith in some system of psychology, or a faith that hopes things get better, but rather "faith that manifests itself in images...the love of images...trust in imagination as the only uncontrovertible reality, directly presented, immediately felt" (Re-Visioning 50). But while we are in between, the energy and focus must be on the images that show up during the excavation. Hopers spend time wondering how they can move to a different situation; interested people spend time wondering which God is there in order to "go to the soul itself and find out what it wants" (Healing 86).[xv]

RESIDING IN HELL

On July 13, 2008, my twenty-five year old son Jason Bogar was killed in action in the Battle of Wanat, Afghanistan. I felt the ground drop out as I literally fell to my knees when given the news of his death. I experienced the shadow of Hades dark sled racing by, abducting me and hauling me into the Underworld. Something in me wanted to hope, to hop out of the damned carriage, out of the nightmare. I caught myself over the next few days shaking my head in the way one does when hoping to wake up from a terrifying dream. I know why people hope. But I was hopeless, [xvi] so I became interested.

I willing entered into the deepest, darkest experience of my life, beginning what Ginette Paris refers to as those dangerous internal voyages which "open us to a treasure chest of endless surprises: the unconscious" (Wisdon xxii). I followed the signage which hung over my personal descent into Dante's Inferno, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” I will tell you that I did not abandon psychic purpose, telos, but I did abandon hope. Exhausted and pressed under a load of indescribable grief, I descended without struggle into the abode of the dead. That first night after I heard that my son had been shot and killed seemed eternal. I faded in and out of an erratic sleep as a muddle of images and words rushed over and through me like a psychic tsunami. I did not try to disentangle or differentiate them--I just watched and listened. Toward morning, as the bleak dawn began to seep through the blinds of my room, the mental and emotional dissonance subsided, and a voice whispered, “Michael, you are not the man you were yesterday. You will never be the same. You are being dis-integrated. You will be rebuilt. Be patient.”[xvii]

There were days I did not rise from the bed and yet I felt virtually no guilt as I pulled the covers over my head--weeping, sleeping, remembering, dreaming and imagining every possible scenario as to how my son spent his last day on earth. I allowed psyche to present every possible picture of my sweet son awakening that morning--what he ate for his last meal, how he felt when the battle began and how he fought under the 4 a.m. sunrise in the Korengal Valley of northern Afghanistan. I allowed myself to see graphically every possible representation of how he had taken that fatal bullet to his chest. I spent time in the interim, interested. This was not an academic interest and there was no time limit or expected outcome. I was not hopping toward anywhere. I was a guest of Hades and Death.

I spent the next eight months wandering through this dim labyrinthine underworld of mourning, seclusion and outrage punctuated with odd moments of a gray serenity. I showed up at various social interactions and governmental investigations.[xviii] It felt like my entire self was being demolished. I was no longer the father of a son. Who was I? What would I be? Only from an archetypal perspective combined with faith in a soul making cosmos did I know[xix] that something entirely new would emerge from the experience.

Several months after his death, in March of 2009, I awoke one memorable morning. I hadn't noticed the sun for eight months, but on that morning it was prominently streaming through my bedroom window. I heard a familiar voice which whispered into my semi-conscious waking mind, “Dad, the sun is back, get up; the time in Hades is over, for now.” I am neither exaggerating this quotation nor adding the word ‘Hades’ for dramatic effect-- the voice let me know that the period of groping through the oppressive abyss had come to an end. Since then I have had moments of deep grief, but nothing like those eight interesting months. Far too much transpired in my soul during that time to examine in this paper. However, the words of Christine Downing hit the mark:

But time spent in Hades that is not spent trying desperately to get out also leads to discovery of the power and beauty of the dark moments in our life, the real confusions and desolations. Fear is so different when one does not have to fear fear but can simply fear; incompleteness and hurt are also different when one sees them not as something to get beyond but as something to live. (Long Journey 231)

For this particular tragic event I willingly and consciously became interested. Friends, family and associates graciously but ignorantly praised my courageous approach to this loss. I let them know that it was not "my approach". I had spent decades as a heroic ego trying to navigate around, over, against and above the disturbing events and people in my life. It was only after I had begun to see through the perspective of soul with "an ego that gives credit to images and turns them in its darkness" (Re-Visioning 50) that I could purposefully and with presence move through such a devastating experience.

CONCLUSION

Imagine a larger world with this soul-perspective, entering fully into the "in between" void with all of our national, international and collective fears and concerns. Imagine a humanity where people are not living in a frantic state of "hope and change." No wonder Hillman said, "It's this hope thing that has gotten the planet into such a mess. If we paid attention to what was true right now, instead of what we hoped would be true in the future, the world would look very different" (Paradigms 1998).

And how about our enemies? Imagine moving into that curious rift with them, or alone if they won’t join us. No matter what our religious or political ideology, what if we actually read their literature, not to criticize or fault-find, but to understand? What if we tried to think their thoughts, watch their news channels, attend their religious meetings or political rallies? And of course we can disagree, oppose, take stands and champion a personal position--but after we have been" interested" in them rather than "hoping" them out of existence!

Or our partners; imagine entering their mind and heart to reside for a moment "in between," to become curious. What if we could see all Emotions as divine emissaries, as angels with personal messages, like the angel that visited and tussled with the Hebrew patriarch Jacob in his night of dark anxiety? Jacob's story is potentially my story, our story. It is in these dark, painful and troubling interims that we become unique souls. As Hillman puts it, “Had Jacob not grappled with the Daemon he would indeed have not been hurt, and he would not have been Jacob either" (In The Words).

So then, from a depth psychological perspective I wholly concur with James Hillman, "Interest is more important than hope." I am half tempted to conclude by saying, "I sure hope that he is right!" Isn't that interesting?

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[i] James Hillman: The founder of archetypal psychology discusses Jung and Freud by Cliff Bostock. Originally published in the "Paradigms" column of Creative Loafing, Atlanta, Apr. 4, 1998) http://www.soulworks.net/writings/paradigms/site_026.html

[ii] This idea of psychologizing or seeing through is very similar to Heidegger's ideas of philosophizing and talking through as discussed in his book, What is Philosophy, especially page 67ff. Both men engage in what Heidegger calls dialegesthai, or dialoguing. Heidegger dialogues with the classical philosophers, Hillman with the psyche and a host of academic disciplines.

[iii] The Online Etymological Dictionary says, "Hope: O.E. hopian "wish, expect, look forward (to something)," of unknown origin. Some suggest a connection with hop (v.) on the notion of "leaping in expectation." Related: Hoped; hoping. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=hope&searchmode=none

[iv] Elsewhere Hillman calls anger a valuable emotion that may be moving us to change an intolerable situation. There is a time for action, for change, but not until one has reflected on the event and turned it into an experience.

[v] Interest in the Online Etymological Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=interest&searchmode=none

[vi] The Hebrew creation story begins with this image as the spirit of God hovers between the heavens and the unformed earth, in the interesting void, tohu va vohu in Hebrew. The six days of creation are poetically structured to form three “interesting” gaps in days 1-3: day/night, sea/sky, water/earth. From days 4-6 we see the emergence of something new arising from each interim: sun/moon/stars, fish/fowl, humans/animals. Adam and Eve are then placed in between infinity and finitude in the Garden of Eden where they encounter the interesting tree of knowing duality (good and evil). Christ is crucified between two thieves, one shouting hope and the other being interested. These mandorla images fill the biblical mythology as JHWH (I am) and Shatan (I am not) provide a kind of spiritual or soulful isometrics for soul-making. This was the direction in which the Christian mythos was headed under the 2nd century theologian, Irenaeus (Against Heresies) before 4th century Augustine steered the story toward original sin and redemption.

[vii] Confuse means "to fuse or meld together". This furthers the alchemical metaphor, referring to the conjunction of two or more opposing principles.

[viii] One image I like to use of soul-making is that of a pumpkin being turned into a jack-o-lantern. The raw gourd has its top sliced off, guts carved out and only later does the unique face and internal light show up.

[ix] William James was a friend and associate of Horatio Dresser. Dresser's parents were vital players in the burgeoning 19th century New Thought Movement which stressed positive thinking and mental healing. James included a whole section on this phenomenon, The Varieties of Religious Experience, titled The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness.

[x] The 19th century poet John Keats called this "Negative Capability," the capacity to remain in unresolved uncertainty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability

[xi] The Christian-Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Saying 2, has Jesus speaking, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be troubled. When they are troubled, they will marvel, and will reign over all." This idea of purposeful trouble informs Heidegger's views of anxiety and guilt as necessary forerunners of discovering the authentic life.

[xii] Core is another term related to heart--Greek = kardia, Latin = cor.

[xiii] These are the obstacles named by the 2nd century "Gnostic" Bishop Valentinus in his Gospel of Truth. Something similar is done in Mary's sermon from the Gospel of Mary. Both of these texts present a soul that is formed by moving through Fear, Grief, Confusion, Desire and Death. These ideas heavily influenced Jung's psychology.

[xiv] When Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you," the typical Christian reading sees a literal sort of hoped-for heaven. I suggest that Jesus was speaking of new soul-additions that would be coming after his departure. He likely had the vast Jerusalem temple complex in mind with the myriad additions supplied by the benefactor, King Herod. In addition, the Greek word for rooms was sometimes translated classrooms. Jesus was likely referring to coming soul lessons, not some residence with harps and halos. This is akin to Keats Hornbook analogy.

[xv] Hillman points out that the 2nd century Christian Theologian, Tertullian, understood the voice of Soul, beckoning other believers to listen to a new witness, "Stand forth, O soul...,stand forth and give thy witness." (Healing Fiction, p. 86). I remember reading that Tertullian also warned his fellow Christians that the formation of a canon of sacred literature ran the risk of "chasing the Holy Spirit into a book."

[xvi] Having discovered and devoured Hillman's two books, The Soul's Code in 1996, and Re-visioning Psychology in 2005, I had acquired something of a soul-making perspective. It was not always so. In 1990 I went through a loss of faith, the end of a religious vocation and the dissolution of a marriage that included three beloved children. During that particular period in Hell I placed my hope in religion for a short time, and then in Tequila, spiritum contra spiritus. Both failed me miserably.

[xvii] I was struck by a similar statement made by Ginette Paris after her serious brain injury, "The person that I was, and could not tolerate being, is being killed. I find repose in this destruction." Wisdom of the Psyche, p. 5

[xviii] This particular battle has been under careful scrutiny for the past two years. Dateline NBC just did a one hour story on the possibility of dereliction of duty on the part of three commanders. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37853775/ns/dateline_nbc-international/

[xix] This was not intellectual knowing, but a kind of gnosis or innate acquaintance.