Awakening the Archetypes Within
Awakening the Archetypes Within is a series of experiential workshops that offers participants the opportunity to learn about and connect with the four primary archetypes essential to living a fulfilling, creative and meaningful life.
Weaving together Jungian depth psychology and pan-cultural methods for accessing the archetypal imagination, these workshops will act as an initiation into a deep and lasting relationship with soul and imaginal soulwork.
“I don’t know what you learned from books, but what I learned from my Grandfather is that there is a part of the mind that is outside the person, which the person does not really know about. That is the part of the mind that is most important in determining whether somebody becomes well or remains sick.”
— Thomas Large Whiskers, Navaho medicine man, quoted in the New York Times, 1972
Archetypes are primal energetic patterns at the deepest levels of the ancestral psyche that act as keys to unlock aspects of human potential.
Most modern people don’t experience initiation or rites of passage but still manage to gain access to one or two archetypal powers in order to survive and function on a basic level. The remaining archetypes are still active, but are usually unconsciously expressed in their dysfunctional shadow form. Fear, anxiety, passivity, aggression, powerlessness, abuse of power, depression, addiction, disorder, greed and many other symptoms prevalent in the world today are a result of soul loss.
In order to live in a fully engaged, creative and meaningful way that heals pathological patterns and contributes something beneficial our family, community and the world, we need to reawaken to and develop our archetypal potentials.
And, if we have any hope of avoiding self-annihilation, repairing our communities and preserving the world, we must first restore wholeness within.
Restoring wholeness means recovering a healthy and conscious connection to archetypal potentials. Across every culture in pre-modern times, our ancestors performed soul retrievals and healings with music, story, and trance states.
Because the shamanic archetype has been deeply repressed by organized religion in our culture, recovering it is a necessary first step.
Workshop Series
The Inner Shaman: Saturday, March 23 4-6pm
Our series begins with the Shamanic Archetype because it’s the archetype that attracts us to and gives us access to non-ordinary states of consciousness (imagination, trance, visions) in order to seek healing, knowledge, power and love. The Inner Shaman is the one that will guide you in the recovery and development of all the other archetypal potentials through your own ritual practice.
The Inner Warrior: Saturday, April 6 4-6pm
The Warrior Archetype is the next necessary potential because it’s the energy that allows us to move out into the world and take action. We need a strong and healthy connection the Inner Warrior to cultivate discipline, courage, independence, to create and uphold boundaries, and to act with integrity and honour.
The Inner Lover: Saturday, April 20 4-6pm
The Lover Archetype brings an essential counterbalance to the Warrior’s fiery determination and power. The Inner Lover connects us to our sense of beauty and an appreciation for the body and nature, and allows us to fully access our creative potential and our capacity to form and maintain healthy relationships.
The Inner Elder: Saturday, May 4 4-6pm
The Elder Archetype is primarily developed by cultivating and balancing all the other archetypal energies. The Inner Elder connects us to our ancestral memory, awakens our sense of obligation to the wider community and world, and brings order and harmony to our life, inside and out. They give us the capacity for wisdom, leadership and mentoring.
About the Workshop
Each session will focus on a key archetype — it’s qualities, gifts and shadow aspects — and provide suggestions on how to develop its potentials through daily practice and ritual.
The heart of the workshop is the Soul Journey, where you’ll have the opportunity to make contact with the archetype in the deep imagination. Utilizing pan-cultural techniques of ecstasy — music, chanting, breath, drumming — we descend into the depths of the archetypal psyche to make contact with the archetypes as they uniquely appear to us.
“Active imagination is to be understood as a way or method, to heal, raise and transform the personality.” — Carl Jung, ETH Lectures
Participation in all four workshops is recommended but not required.
Bring a journal and eye-covering. Each participant will have a reclining chair and blankets. It’s recommended to wear comfortable non-binding clothing.