O Great Tree of Peace, connecting all worlds!
In your crown our destinies grow, in your roots our ancestors sleep!
Manifest yourself in this space and allow us to know ourselves,
Rising high to the stars and diving deep into the earth.
I call all your inhabitants, all who treat us kindly!
Come!
E. Ratnichkina. Opening a Sacred Space
Having started writing articles for the magazine, we began to see the cycle of seasons differently. The first thing we decided to change was to trust ourselves and try being a Healer in the summer and a Seer in the spring. This was our initial intent, but Angeles Arrien believes otherwise, and our work is based on her book, "The Path of Four Roads" (Arrien, 2003).
In our region, we have a completely different perception of the seasons and cardinal directions, and the south and summer are practically synonymous. In spring, when the snow melts, revealing the hidden, allowing us to "see the invisible" in ourselves and others, in nature and in a given situation, we honor the inner Seer, acting from our true essence.
Erich Neumann believes that "sexual life is also directly related to spring, whose nature as the 'season of love' is confirmed by the increase in conceptions, sexual crimes, and suicide rates. Since sexuality is the starting point for symptoms of mental life as a whole, we can assume how strongly our psyche is dependent on cosmically determined periods, including, perhaps, the details of our lives. In this sense, it makes no difference whether we consider this effect to be under hormonal control or controlled by something else" (Neumann, 1994, p. 89).
Hillman writes that “Love blinds us in order to extinguish the faltering and habitual everyday vision, so that another eye can be opened, the eye that perceives the movement from soul to soul… Not the enlightened man who looks and sees, but the transparent man who is looked at and seen through; the foolish man who has hidden nothing in himself, made transparent by an adequate self-esteem; his soul is loved by him, it is completely open, fully expressing itself; he is exactly what he is, he is free from paranoid concealment, from the knowledge of his secrets and from his secret knowledge; his transparency is a kind of prism for the world and for the non-world. For it is impossible to know oneself by reflection; only the final reflection – the reflection of the obituary – can tell the truth, and only God knows our real names” (Hillman, 2005, pp. 119–120).
"We follow the path of the Seer through personal creativity and the ability to bring dreams and inner vision into the world" (Arrien, 2003, p. 24), thereby encouraging ourselves and others to seek and express their own truth. This archetype encourages us to ask ourselves what our life's dream is, or, as shamans say, what our personal magic is. The Seer archetype manifests as "an inexorable force within us that persistently urges us to be who we truly are, demanding the manifestation and expression of our authentic essence, vision, and creativity" (ibid., p. 121). Interestingly, in some Native American cultures, the term "sacred circle" is synonymous with true, authentic self and signifies the realm of human spirituality. These peoples say that “when a person is himself, he is in the “sacred circle”, and when he returns to his true essence, he “sits in the center of the sacred circle”” (ibid., p. 115).
Angeles Arrien lives in another hemisphere and on another continent. For us, the archetype of wholeness has turned a different side, for the Self is "not merely a statistical quantity or a frozen form, but at the same time a dynamic process" (Jung, 2009, § 411). So, we write about spring again, but now for us, spring is intuition and the Seer.
The primary principle that guides Seers is to speak the truth without accusation or judgment. It is a difficult path—to speak impartially, remaining within one's sacred circle, preserving one's own dignity and that of whom or what we speak. We can navigate this path and strengthen "the one who Sees" through the tools available in traditional communities: voice work, singing, meditation, reflection, prayer, and vision quests. "The sound of one's own voice both relaxes us and induces euphoria; it awakens reserves of hidden strength, strengthening the sense of belonging to a community" (Goodman, Nauwald, 2008, p. 76). Perhaps this is why many indigenous cultures believe that our favorite songs are songs of power. By spending time in nature, in reflection and meditation, we are renewed, like nature in spring, and discover what is hidden within. By honoring our dreams and the images that come to us during meditation, we develop the Seer within. From this understanding, the Path is born. Receiving guidance from within, we are ready to act. All shamanic healing rites begin with the creation, or rather, the reproduction of a specific coordinate system within which the ritual will take place, with the opening of a "sacred space," as American shamans call it (Villoldo, 2001, p. 154). Understanding the structure of this space comes to shamans during training and the various visionary rites they undergo during initiation. Spending sometimes several hours preparing for the ritual, the shaman calls upon friendly spiritual forces, enlists the support of ancestors, addresses the four cardinal directions, which can be represented by archetypal animals, as well as the earth and sky and the higher deities. In this way, the shaman effectively makes manifest their inner universe, their inner geography. The very understanding of the annual circle, its inner philosophy, is revealed at the moment the work of the one conducting the ritual begins, making tangible and transparent the forces that are called into the circle.
In a sense, all shamans are masters of creating ritual space, but this is preceded by a call and then initiation: the inner universe must be "seen" through death and rebirth. As Joan Halifax puts it, "through symbols, songs, and dances, the shaman conveys to his people the essence of the cosmic geography revealed to him during initiation, trances, and soul journeys. Dancing myth, creating maps, shamans live in a multidimensional inner world, connected to our so-called reality" (Joan Halifax; cited in Matthews, 2002, p. 24).
Thus, healing rites are preceded by visionary rites, the discovery of which can be both a blessing and a heavy burden. “The assaultive and rapturous quality that overwhelms the personality and transports it into ecstasy, madness, poetry, and wisdom when it is seized by a sudden idea, inspiration, or rapture emanating from the subconscious—this is one side of spiritual activity. On the other side, we discover dependence on and trust in the matriarchal consciousness. This trust in any intuition and inspiration from emanations of the subconscious that arise anywhere and anytime, in an incomprehensible and mysterious way that is almost impossible to control. In this sense, all shamanism, extending to prophecy itself, is predominantly passive suffering: its activity is more a perception than a deliberate action” (Neumann, 1994, p. 92).
When living the shamanic circle of myths, we also begin the work by opening a sacred space, which is expressed by inviting friendly spiritual forces ready to participate in the ceremony and assist us on the journey. We honor our inner Seer by sharing our dreams and images, as well as life stories that come to us during the reading of the myth and the journey through trance postures.
So, the shamanic myth:
Spring – the archetype of the seer – intuition – the myth of Cassandra
Trust the voices within you...
K. Kinchev. The Wind Dances in a Circle
And on the night when from the horse's belly to Troy
Death descended, as it should, winged,
Above the mad crowd being beaten
Someone shouted: “It’s the witch’s fault!”
V. Vysotsky. Song of Things to Cassandra
The myth of Cassandra marks the breaking point between the intuition of matriarchal consciousness and consciousness itself, which has transitioned to a patriarchal level of development. What does Cassandra see after receiving Apollo's gift? Why, having received the gift, does she immediately try to reject it? Apollo's gift is the ability to precisely name what one sees:
Where did you find yourself in vain torment?
Is the prophetic word a divine gift?
The song of the prophet merges with the cries of delirium,
A harmonious song of fate.
Where did you find such a melody?
Threatening new grief?
Aeschylus, stanza 1150
But what does “exactly” mean when it comes to vision?
The myth begins with the death of the Mother in the womb of the Father. Zeus swallows Metis, pregnant with Athena: he fears the birth of a son who will overthrow him. As a result, the most devoted daughter in the world is born from Zeus's head, a daughter who never knew her mother. As a child, Athena befriends a boy—or, in some versions of the myth, a girl—named Pallas (Pallantes). Athena accidentally kills this friend during a game. In memory of the murdered man, she adds his name to her own and creates a palladium, which she places on Mount Olympus.
When Zeus rapes the Pleiades Electra on Olympus, she touches the Palladium with her hand. Athena, in anger, throws away both the Pleiades and the Palladium. Electra is Cassandra's great-great-great-grandmother, and it is this Palladium that Ilus (Cassandra's great-grandfather) will find after asking the gods for a sign in honor of the city's construction: "Apollo of Smintheus gave Ilus this advice: 'Preserve the goddess falling from heaven, and you will preserve your city. For wherever the goddess comes, she brings power!' Following this advice, Ilus erected a temple in the citadel, where he placed the statue" (Graves, 1992, p. 464). The gods predict a bleak future for the city, so Ilus does not build walls around Ilion—his son does. Poseidon and Apollo build the fortress walls, which can withstand a ten-year siege:
"Zeus, enraged that Apollo and Poseidon had rebelled against him, forced the gods to serve as simple day laborers, and Laomedon took advantage of their services. Poseidon built, while Apollo played the lyre and fed Laomedon's sheep. Lelegs Aeacus assisted Poseidon. But Laomedon deceived the gods and did not pay them what was due, thereby incurring their terrible indignation" (ibid., p. 464). Poseidon builds walls of stone, Apollo of music: Troy is securely packed.
What do we have? Troy (Ilion) is a capsule of trauma, and the symbol of trauma is the palladium. Zeus and Metis (thought, wisdom), Zeus and Electra – the absorption and violence of the Great Feminine by the Great Masculine. Athena is the murderer of Pallas (Pallantus), and this friend means a lot to her if she mourns and tries to perpetuate her/his memory. What does this mean? Who is this friend for Athena? Her love? Her sensuality? We don't know, but it seems likely that this is something Athena cannot deal with. Athena is the only feminine-non-feminine goddess. Is murder a symbol of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy? "Pallas simply means 'girl' or 'youth'" (ibid., pp. 30–31), meaning she kills her innocence and naivety, redeems herself from the matriarchal realm, leaps the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, and becomes the goddess of wisdom. "She herself was not born of a woman, but emerged from the head of Zeus, and therefore, by her very nature, she is deeply hostile to the chthonic-feminine element in every mother and in every woman born of a mother" (Neumann, 1998, p. 193).
"Among Hecabe's younger children, Cassandra and Helen were twins. During a birthday party held in the sanctuary of Apollo Thymbraios, they grew tired of playing and fell asleep in a corner, while their parents, who had drunk too much wine, forgot about them and staggered home. When Hecabe returned to the temple, she saw sacred snakes licking her children's ears and screamed in terror. The snakes immediately disappeared into a pile of laurel branches, but from that moment on, Cassandra and Helen were endowed with the gift of prophecy" (Graves, 1992, p. 465). The myth then unfolds in such a way that we can see: there is intuition at the matriarchal level (Cassandra) and the patriarchal level (Helen), they are not connected; Cassandra dies after the fall of Troy. Helenus becomes king of the Molossians, befriends Achilles' son, and lives a long life after the fall of Troy—as if there is a gap in the development of intuition, a ban on the development of the feminine image. But Cassandra doesn't die in the burning city; she meets death in a foreign land, at the hands of a woman. She is killed by Clytemnestra, who in turn bears the mark of the same violence: her first husband and child are killed by Agamemnon, her second husband, and her daughter Iphigenia is sacrificed by him. Does the matriarchal element haunt her? As if the transition requires a betrayal of the Mother, which Cassandra must not commit. Cassandra is a priestess of Athena, whom Apollo claims. Apollo and Athena are forces of light opposing the darkness of the matriarchal world; Cassandra is the sacrifice that allows the Father to triumph over the Mother.
There is another version of the myth of how Cassandra received Apollo's gift.
"One day, Cassandra fell asleep in the temple. Apollo appeared to her and promised to teach her the art of clairvoyance if she shared his bed. Cassandra accepted his gift but refused the rest. Apollo coaxed her into a single kiss, and when she did, he spat in her mouth, thereby ensuring that no one ever believed her prophecies again" (ibid.).
Cassandra does what she must: she refuses, maintaining a note of extreme arousal. Her consciousness desires connection, but her matriarchal intuition refuses, seeing the nightmarish prospect of rejection. But Apollo, too, accepts the refusal.
From the seminar review :
Cassandra is the voice of Troy, the symbol of this city. A contradiction within me—recognition and a downcast gaze, shame? Or avoidance… You bear the mark of otherness. Who will remember that others started the war, if it is you who speak of doom, prophesying, rushing madly along the walls. And yet, why did you refuse Apollo? Or did you not refuse, but accepted the poison of his kiss, fully sane and conscious?
We find ourselves in a state where our intuition predicts, shows us what will happen, but our consciousness doesn't believe it, refuses to believe it. Why does the psyche need this? Why do we all face this desperate distrust of ourselves? We know what will happen, but we don't believe it, and then we mourn and grieve, and get angry at ourselves. Why?
From a seminar review : And how I, at first sensing this intuitive message and responding to it, then at the last moment doubted and rejected it, like Cassandra breaking her agreement with Apollo. What drove me in those moments? I think it was fear. Fear of accepting responsibility for what will come next, because as soon as knowledge is acknowledged, one automatically has to acknowledge what follows. And then, following this knowledge, opens such a difficult path of pain and loss, which probably everyone who has ever been sealed within the walls of their own Troy must face...
The intuition of the matriarchal consciousness speaks directly from the Self. The ego cannot assume such responsibility, and society is not ready for such knowledge. For centuries, this intuition has been erased by the unconscious, which facilitates the path of the patriarchal consciousness.
But Apollo remembers Cassandra and does not let Orestes out of his sight until he is acquitted of the murder of Clytemnestra. "The trial proceeded as expected. Apollo appeared as the defense, and the eldest of the Erinyes as the accuser. In a eloquent speech, Apollo denied the significance of motherhood, arguing that a woman is nothing more than a furrow into which a husband sows seed, and that Orestes's deed was sufficiently justifiable, since only a father is worthy of being called a parent. When the votes were divided, Athena sided with her father and cast her vote in defense of Orestes" (ibid., p. 323). Orestes is acquitted of the murder of his mother. "Defending himself from the maternal world of vengeful Furies, seeking his mother's murderer in order to kill him, Orestes takes the world of light as an ally." Apollo and Athena help him achieve justice, and justice in this case means the introduction of a new law in opposition to the old matriarchal law, which knew no forgiveness for the incomprehensible crime of murdering his mother” (Neumann, 1998, p. 193).
Enantiodromia, a reversal, a reversal of opposites: there was one parent—the Mother—and now there is one parent—the Father. At the seminar, this is a place of tension, a place of anger: "How is it possible, only one parent—the Father?!" At the trial, Apollo, who, along with his sister, killed Niobe's children for insulting their Mother, Leto, declares this. Is his statement as straightforward as we tend to think? Or is it crucial for him to bring the Father into the world, even at the expense of the Mother? Athena gives refuge to the Erinyes (matriarchal law) on Athenian soil.
Leader of the Erinyes:
How can I bear the insult!
Should I, a grey-haired old woman,
Into the black depths of the earth
Today I will leave in disgrace!
Anger fills my chest,
Anger is bursting out,
My heart was gripped by pain.
My mother, Night, do you hear?
By their cunning the gods have completely put me to shame.
Athena
No, I won't get tired of appeasing you.
You won't say that I, the younger goddess,
And these townspeople are an ancient guest,
Scorning hospitality, they rudely drive away.
No, if Pito, the goddess of persuasion,
You honor - you will soften, meekly hearing the advice.
So stay. If you refuse
Stay, you don’t dare send to my city,
A curse, damage, and destruction falls upon my people.
Oh yes, you dare not. After all, you were offered
To rule the land here forever and live in honor.
Leader of the choir
Lady Athena, where will you give me shelter?
Athena
Where there is no trouble or sorrow. Settle in and live!
Leader of the choir
And if I settle down, what honor will there be for that?
Athena
Without you there will be no prosperity in any home.
Leader of the choir
Will you grant me such power?
Athena
I will send good luck to those who honor you.
Leader of the choir
And in this you give eternal guarantee?
Athena
I wouldn't promise anything that wouldn't happen.
(Aeschylus, stanzas 880–900)
Neither Apollo nor Athena deny the Mother, but it is important for them to affirm the law of the Father.
Matriarchal consciousness cognizes through contemplation, patriarchal consciousness through reflection. Apollo seeks union with Cassandra; without her, he is cold and distant, killing from a distance, examining through a microscope, distinguishing, segmenting, and concretizing. If Apollo unites with Cassandra, matriarchal intuition rises to the level of patriarchal consciousness, and a genuine work of imagination emerges that "goes beyond the mental union of our microcosmic fantasy life, the mind's reflexive 'incubation' of its thoughts... The imaginal consciousness born from the work of imagination unites the masculine and feminine polarities" (Hillman, 2005, p. 113).
“Sudden thought and intuition are expressions of the spiritual power of the unconscious lumen naturae [light of nature] of the archetypally feminine night world, where the darkness is suddenly illuminated by light, as if by inspiration” (Neumann, 1994, p. 79).
Apollo: And then, in the temple, I seemed at least a little... attractive to you.
Cassandra: Ah, Apollo... You were divinely good... But too zealous...
Boris A. Novak
There are certain trance poses that are supposedly designed to intensify the state of vision. Many of these poses are likely remnants of ancient shamanic rituals designed to induce a special state of perception, in which "perceptual filters" shift especially rapidly, making available to us a different understanding of the world and profound knowledge. Captured in stone, clay, and cave paintings, these ancient "ritual instructions" have survived to this day and are accessible to our "participant observation."
One such ritual pose, the "Mochica Seer," belongs to the ancient Peruvian culture of the Mochica Indians, known worldwide for their remarkable ceramics and sacred Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. This small clay figurine depicts a seated elderly woman in a collected, tense posture, with her knees drawn up. A unique pattern is etched in paired lines on her face. A single glance at her is enough to sense the special depth and concentration of her state: "she who sees" has experienced both the gift of vision and its burden. Perhaps this is why one of her eyes seems to gaze out into "this" world, far into space, while the other is turned inward. The large size of her ears is striking, suggesting different ways of receiving information in an altered state of consciousness. As Buryat shaman Marina Choyzhalsanova says, "shamanic visions can come in the form of whispers, images, sensations... it's different for everyone; for some, knowledge simply comes" (from a personal conversation). Rubbing your ears to activate their function before entering a trance pose will heighten perception during the trance. Drawing paired lines on the face creates a specific energetic imprint that can intensify experiences not only during the trance but also during sleep in the first nights after the journey. "Dreams become clearer, and everything we see in them becomes more three-dimensional" (Goodman, Nauwald, 2008, p. 219).
The participants' experiences can be described with the following words: a lot of energy and a lot of anger; unbearable, powerless; the priestess of the Moon and the priestess of the Sun; a lot of fire, heat, a feeling of expansion. The ritual pose developed the theme of the rapid opening of vision and the acquisition of a gift, bringing to the surface the debate "I can - I can't", anger and peace, the feeling that "I can look into the water and see the edge of the sun", "the union of the impossible", as well as the conflict between logic and intuition, masculine and feminine. One of the stories about the journey: I see everything in red-orange-black tones, this is Nowhere. Lots of fire, very hot. Drum music. A man is dancing. Much passion, much aggression. Scary. Mysterious. It is mesmerizing. Painful. He beckons. It is impossible to tear yourself away. There is no time, no space. It seems that it lasts forever. Or just a moment. I know that this is Apollo's dance.
We usually begin and end the workshop with the combined sounding of our drums, focusing on the inner theme, "I am Cassandra." In the first circle of sound, according to the participants, Cassandra stood up to her full height, evoking the agitation of all the inner elements.
There was a feeling of being thrown about by the energy that was approaching, and you, as a human being, could do nothing but warn—the force was on its way. The second circle of shared soundings combined impressions from the entire process, gathering all the stories heard and revealing a special territory within us connected to the Vision.
I'd like to conclude this article about Cassandra and Vision with the words of the seminar participants: "One can speak of a profound experience not only of my personal feminine history, but also of the transpersonal history of the Feminine, where I felt like a vessel for its embodiment. At the same time, I accepted within myself what I had previously shunned, even feared, and therefore avoided. What I had previously devalued as unworthy, even base in the eyes of society, became my strength. I felt the power of a Woman.
It was as if a veil had fallen from my eyes.
Cassandra reveals something to everyone from the vast and multitudinous depths within her, depending on how much each person is able to absorb at the moment. Or not. Cassandra definitely requires maturation.
I want to run and scream while all this is happening around me. Be horrified, people of Troy, by my madness; you haven't realized your own. You haven't yet found what I've found. What you don't own is easy to sacrifice.
If there is no need for freedom, slavery is merely a way to make life easier . Especially now. Ready-made opinions, ways of life, rules—all for a safe death. It was easy for me to deny myself yesterday, before meeting Apollo. And now I exist. My Zeus, Baba Yaga, Jesus, Abraham, Isaac, and Cassandra, Medea, Kolobok, and the Little Humpbacked Horse are equally important to me. My Baba Yaga has a cellar full of magic and a picket fence full of heads. I need Apollo. I need me. Cassandra, thank you."
Bibliography
Neumann E. The Fear of the Feminine. – Princeton University Press, 1994.
Villoldo A. Shaman. Sage. Healer. – Sofia, 2001.
Graves R. Myths of Ancient Greece. – M.: Progress, 1992.
Goodman F., Nauwald N. Ecstatic trance. – Ripol classic, 2008.
Matthews D. The Celtic Shaman. – M.: Sofia; ID Helios, 2002.
Arrien E. The Path of Four Roads. – Sofia, 2003.
Novak B. A. Cassandra. Cited from: http://www.stihi.ru/2011/04/14/9165.
Neumann E. Origin and development of consciousness. – M.-Kyiv, Refl-book,
Wackler, 1998.
Hillman D. The Myth of Analysis – M.: Cogito Center, 2005.
Aeschylus. Oresteia // Agamemnon. Quote from: http://www.lib.ru/POEEAST/
ESHIL/eshil1_2.txt.
Aeschylus. Oresteia // Eumenides. Cited from: http://www.lib.ru/POEEAST/
ESHIL/eshil1_4.txt.
Jung K. G. Eon – M.: Academic project, 2009.
I'm not a fortune teller, I'm not a fortune teller.
I won't remove the evil eye.
Even if I feel sorry for you –
As I say, so it will be.
Some wave a censer, some a sword
You are considered a soldier by God.
I am considered by God to be an interpreter...
In life, everyone is given their own path.
Victoria Roche, Cassandra
An article about the seminars in which we immersed ourselves in the space of the myth of Cassandra, filling it with our thoughts, feelings, associations, and, at one level, maintaining the metaphor of Cassandra as the leading function of the Intuition of matriarchal consciousness.
Authors of the article and seminars in the series:
Elena Ratnichkina is a psychologist, practitioner, and researcher of shamanism; director of the Felicitas Goodman Institute (Russia), which studies the practice of ritual trance postures (itop.moscow)
Olga Kondratova is an analytical psychologist, member of the IAAP, ROAP
The article was published in the journal “Jungian Analysis” No. 2, 2014. I thank the editor-in-chief of the journal, Elena Purtova, for the text of the article and permission to post it on my website.