Theseus, Ariadne & The Minotaur
We all spend most of our time around the 'comfortable campfire of the conscious self.' This is normal. This is our comfort zone. To grow, we inevitably have to move outside the comfortable campfire of the conscious self, move out beyond our own comfort zone.
This is especially true and sometimes urgent with issues we have struggled with for a long time. Core issues are almost always unresolved unconscious disturbances. To heal them you usually have to find some way to go down and visit these issues where they live. The soul can go anywhere, so this is not a problem. Since the soul cannot die, there is nothing to fear. You as a soul go on forever. However the journey may still call for courage. Theseus is an image of courage to track ancient, unresolved disturbances down where they live and deal with them.
Theseus, in the Labyrinth, looking for the Minotaur
Theseus knows to win his freedom, and the freedom of his fellow enslaved countrymen, he must make a strategic intervention down into the dark, confused and confusing labyrinth (the sub and unconscious has little directionality and is only very rarely visual. Most of the perceptions available are indeed limited to the auditory and to feelings (kinesthetic percepts).
Theseus, the conscious self, representative of the soul in the human psyche, is not alone exploring the Labyrinth. He has princess Ariadne with him. Ariadne represents the soul here. Theseus is only the conscious self. But he is the agent of the soul as Theseus is in charge of the tools of directionality and choice. Ariadne cannot show him the way out directly but she has unraveled and left a thread of continuity for Theseus to follow and find his way back out of the Labyrinth, once he has done the work of slaying the unresolved disturbance
The Minotaur represents ANY unresolved disturbance making trouble in your life, especially those lodged in the sub or unconscious. Theseus must meet this disturbed part of himself on its own territory and resolve it. The Ancient Greeks were not all that sophisticated. To "resolve" a problem is represented by killing it.
In my mind, the bull-headed Minotaur represents the typical dysfunctional basic self of the Age of Taurus. The Greeks lived primarily int eh Age of Aries. The Taurean ways were exhausted and outmoded. They needed to be "slain" so the newer, fresher Aries energies could lift humanity.
How does Theseus succeed? With the indirect guidance of the soul (Ariadne) he is encouraged to employ a simple but strategic tool right at hand, the thread (of the wakeful intellect, the sequential, rational mind can link cause and effect into chains of causation and into meaningful sequences of logic. In Greece of 1000 BC, Theseus' thread is not so much his logical mind as his thread of wakefulness to observe cause and effect, trail and error, using results as a guide for where it is safe to travel in his own lower depths.
With his thread (of wakefulness), Theseus descends into the dark unconscious while remaining connected with the light of day above.
So, self-healer, if you feel like Theseus, hunting down the Minotaur in a Labyrinth of your own making (your own sub and unconscious) you are not alone!
If you get stuck, give me a call.
This is especially true and sometimes urgent with issues we have struggled with for a long time. Core issues are almost always unresolved unconscious disturbances. To heal them you usually have to find some way to go down and visit these issues where they live. The soul can go anywhere, so this is not a problem. Since the soul cannot die, there is nothing to fear. You as a soul go on forever. However the journey may still call for courage. Theseus is an image of courage to track ancient, unresolved disturbances down where they live and deal with them.
Theseus, in the Labyrinth, looking for the Minotaur
Theseus knows to win his freedom, and the freedom of his fellow enslaved countrymen, he must make a strategic intervention down into the dark, confused and confusing labyrinth (the sub and unconscious has little directionality and is only very rarely visual. Most of the perceptions available are indeed limited to the auditory and to feelings (kinesthetic percepts).
Theseus, the conscious self, representative of the soul in the human psyche, is not alone exploring the Labyrinth. He has princess Ariadne with him. Ariadne represents the soul here. Theseus is only the conscious self. But he is the agent of the soul as Theseus is in charge of the tools of directionality and choice. Ariadne cannot show him the way out directly but she has unraveled and left a thread of continuity for Theseus to follow and find his way back out of the Labyrinth, once he has done the work of slaying the unresolved disturbance
The Minotaur represents ANY unresolved disturbance making trouble in your life, especially those lodged in the sub or unconscious. Theseus must meet this disturbed part of himself on its own territory and resolve it. The Ancient Greeks were not all that sophisticated. To "resolve" a problem is represented by killing it.
In my mind, the bull-headed Minotaur represents the typical dysfunctional basic self of the Age of Taurus. The Greeks lived primarily int eh Age of Aries. The Taurean ways were exhausted and outmoded. They needed to be "slain" so the newer, fresher Aries energies could lift humanity.
How does Theseus succeed? With the indirect guidance of the soul (Ariadne) he is encouraged to employ a simple but strategic tool right at hand, the thread (of the wakeful intellect, the sequential, rational mind can link cause and effect into chains of causation and into meaningful sequences of logic. In Greece of 1000 BC, Theseus' thread is not so much his logical mind as his thread of wakefulness to observe cause and effect, trail and error, using results as a guide for where it is safe to travel in his own lower depths.
With his thread (of wakefulness), Theseus descends into the dark unconscious while remaining connected with the light of day above.
So, self-healer, if you feel like Theseus, hunting down the Minotaur in a Labyrinth of your own making (your own sub and unconscious) you are not alone!
If you get stuck, give me a call.
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