Shamanic Myth Circle. Summer Archetype: The Healer. The Myth of Medea
From the motif of the circle and the tetrad is derived
symbol of a geometrically constructed crystal,
and therefore, a miraculous stone... Second
variation - wheel. In the first motive
It is emphasized that the "I" is contained
in the larger space of the self,
in the second - rotation, acting
and as a ritual walking in a circle.
Jung, 2009, § 352
According to Erich Neumann, human consciousness goes through four stages of development. The first is uroboric, when consciousness and the unconscious are merged and there is no division into opposites. The second is matriarchal: consciousness has risen from the depths of the ocean of the unconscious, opposites have appeared, but there are no harsh judgments yet, no analytical division, there is peace, Eden, a person is not responsible for what happens to him, everything "happens" to him, everything is miraculous. The third is patriarchal: there is no longer the miraculous, there is the scientific, there are no more accidents, there are patterns, hierarchy, intellect, knowledge, analysis; if facts do not fit into the theory, they are discarded as unnecessary, often one of the opposites prevails over the other. The fourth - transformation - is, in essence, the stage of merging the second and third, the possibility of recognizing both the scientific and the miraculous; Perhaps this is where analytical psychology, with its "both, and," attempts to live, maintaining opposites, searching for a symbol where the question of God's existence can be answered with: "I don't believe, I know." "Now the patriarchal solar consciousness reunites with what preceded it, and, together with the regenerating power of the primordial waters of matriarchal consciousness—closer to the primordial matrix and its central symbol, the moon—rises from the depths to celebrate the ancient ritual of the hierogamy of the moon and the sun on a new, higher level of the human psyche" (Neumann, 1994).
In the "Shamanic Circle of Myths" program, we attempt to travel through the matriarchal level of consciousness while maintaining connection with the patriarchal level. This is extremely difficult.
We took Jung's idea of the four functions of the psyche, assuming that each of these functions develops through a matriarchal level, and tried to select myths from Greek mythology to see metaphors for these functions in their heroines. We came up with: feeling—the myth of Medea; intuition—the myth of Cassandra; sensation—the myth of Atalanta; and thinking—the myth of Penelope. But experiencing myths and analyzing them from a subjective perspective, imbuing them with one's own stories, is the work of the intellect, so we added the shamanic circle, ritual, drums, and the method of trance postures as an opportunity for inner journeys without being tied to the patriarchal level.
We used the approaches of two American anthropologists, each of whom studied traditional shamanic cultures around the world in their own way. One approach involves the practice of the "four roads" and experiencing the annual cycle through working with shamanic archetypes—this is the approach of Angeles Herrien. The second is based on the practice of ritual trance postures and is known as the ecstatic trance method, which offers the opportunity to undertake ecological journeys into the depths of one's psyche using tools such as sound, rhythm, and specific body positions. This method was developed by Felicitas Goodman (1914–2005).
Matriarchal consciousness is impossible without the cycle of nature, and we made our workshops seasonal, linking the seasons, shamanic archetypes, functions, and myths. Since ancient times, all traditional communities have lived in a profound connection with nature, observing the positions of the major celestial bodies in the sky and the endless dance of the seasons. These observations gave birth to the folk calendar and the holidays of the annual cycle. Rituals were an important part of community life, meaning-making points that helped connect people to the cycle of natural change. Everything found its place and correspondence, both internal and external, and everything intertwined. Over the centuries, the five sacred transitions of human life—birth, the initiation of adulthood, marriage, pregnancy, and death—as well as the passage of the main points of the annual cycle and the change of seasons, were developed and celebrated with important rituals.
The circle of shamanic archetypes of Engeles Errien allows us to make more apparent the external and internal phenomena that occur to us at different times of the year. This work involves conscious, deep contact with natural cycles through various practices and rituals, focusing on various aspects of one's activities, qualities, and interactions with others. By consciously moving through the key points of the annual cycle, we learn to connect the flows and events of inner and outer nature.
"Each season of the year has always presented humans with different challenges; in each period, humans have undergone various trials and tribulations, and since ancient times, they have prepared for the next season by performing certain rituals" (Lopukhina, 1998). Experiencing changes in nature, we transfer them into our inner reality through various rituals. According to Angeles Arrien, "ritual is a conscious recognition of a change in life; it is a gesture of respect and an expression of support for change through such elements as the presence of witnesses, the offering of gifts, ceremony, and the solemnity of the situation" (Arrien, 2003, pp. 160–161). Arrien also notes, citing Combe and Holland, that "the word 'ritual' is of Indo-European origin and means 'to combine, to correspond.' It is similar to words such as art, craftsmanship, structure, pattern, and arithmetic—everything that brings things together to create a new order." All participants in the ritual open the way for a new “correspondence of things” (ibid.).
Thus, we have a picture: spring – healer archetype – feeling – Medea; summer – seer archetype – intuition – Cassandra; autumn – teacher archetype – sensation – Atalanta; winter – warrior archetype – thinking – Penelope. Unfortunately, today we don't have a clear opposite for the "seasons – functions" correspondence. Ideally, we would like it to be winter – summer, spring – autumn, thinking – feeling, sensation – intuition, but for now, we see it as we see it. (We wrote this article first, the article on Cassandra second. In the second article, we reversed the order of Engeles Errien and are now working with the seer archetype in spring and the healer archetype in summer.)
In order to balance our inner forces and revive the energy of the four archetypes within ourselves, we can use a variety of inner work tools, seasons, myths, and certain ritual trance positions.
The unusual body positions depicted in art for millennia allowed our ancestors to heal and undertake "spiritual journeys." Until the middle of the last century, ancient figurines and cave paintings depicting people in these unusual body positions primarily attracted the attention of archaeologists and cultural historians, but anthropologist Felicitas Goodman succeeded in identifying a trance-like component in them in the 1960s. It became clear that the ritual body positions depicted in many prehistoric cave paintings and in figurines from various peoples of the world were united by a common theme. They all depict people in a special, altered state of consciousness (Goodman, 1988, 1990). What was astonishing was that so many different peoples of the world, at different times and using a variety of materials, were able to depict people in similar body positions. It resembled a forgotten trance language, traces of which she "accidentally" discovered.
Goodman's research allowed her to recreate a simple yet highly effective method of inner journeying using these special body postures. The journey is accompanied by rhythmic stimulation. Typically, at the beginning of the journey, this is the sound of simple gourd rattles or noisemakers, which prepare the body for the trance experience. Then, a specific static body position is held for 15 minutes accompanied by a drum at a specific rhythm of 210 beats per minute or higher. Together, sound, rhythm, and the specific body position help us shift our "perceptual filters" and, like shamans of ancient and modern times, journey through our inner worlds and the other realities associated with them. When working with ritual postures, a number of rules are essential. We remember that all body positions are static, necessarily involving a combination of relaxed and tense muscles, known as tension points. We try to maintain this body position for the entire 15 minutes while the drum is playing, and this is an excellent means of "distracting" the consciousness. While the mind is preoccupied with remembering "how to hold my hands, what's wrong with my neck," the unconscious has time to perform what in hypnotherapy is called mental restructuring. On the other hand, it is the presence of consciousness, its work, that minimizes risks, making the journey safe and manageable. The consciousness is forced to hold the body as a specially molded vessel, into which energy will be poured each time depending on the tasks performed in the trance state and the specificity of the chosen trance position.
By assuming a ritual pose, we close our internal energy lines in a specific way, allowing access to specific spaces of the Spirit. The primary purpose of ritual poses, as well as other means of shamanic practice, such as burning herbs, shamanic chants, monotonous movements, and dance, is to enter an altered state of consciousness. We shift our state of consciousness to access inner resources and for healing.
“All rituals in the world designed to separate the soul from its ‘bed’ include rhythmic impulses, such as the sounds of rattles, rattling toys, or drumming. These impulses alter the body’s biochemical balance; they can culminate in a state of ‘boiling energy,’ as the Kalahari Bushmen call it. We call this altered state ‘ecstatic trance.’ Research has discovered that unusual body positions provide the opportunity to enter another reality. These unusual ritual body positions facilitate experiences such as the soul’s journey into the lower, middle, and upper worlds” (Nauwald, Goodman, 2008, p. 95).
The shamanic beliefs of the Peruvian Shipibo tribe suggest that each of us is surrounded by a patterned fabric of life. If a person's life pattern is disrupted, they become "ill," and the shaman performs a nightly ritual, attempting to identify which of the "patterns" has been disrupted. Then, through special chants, the shaman restores harmony to the person's life fabric. The Shipibo say, "To be healthy means to have good patterns."
The same can be said about ritual poses. Each has its own pattern, its own "red line." All poses undoubtedly have a healing effect on the body-mind-soul. By journeying through a particular pose, we can connect with its inner pattern, with the cosmos of the culture that nurtured and produced it. It has been noted that during initial journeys with trance poses, this cultural background is more common. In subsequent journeys, we access its deep, archetypal level.
Among indigenous peoples, the trance state has been and remains a socially accepted method of maintaining the balance of body, soul, and spirit, and restoring this balance when it is disrupted. In Arabic, trance is called "waj," meaning "to find." Essentially, trance is intended to find certain parts that are missing for a state of completeness, wholeness, or "healing." "Transition" here means the deliberate removal of perceptual filters, allowing penetration into other dimensions. The experience a person experiences is a state of ecstasy, a transcendence of oneself. The prerequisites for achieving this state are present in every person. Our body is a perfect set of tools for achieving trance.
The method of ritual postures gently balances all internal systems and elements through interaction with archetypal figures that inhabited the Earth and the Cosmos of a given culture. Experiences of altered states of consciousness resulting from intentional, targeted shamanic influence can be healing, illuminating, and prophetic, allowing one to feel truly whole and complete at the same time.
We've been running our program for three years, and it's moving along its own path. You can enter and exit it at any seminar, and you can go through one cycle of myths, or more than one—it's up to you. This isn't a women's program, although we've heard just that kind of feedback about it. It's a program for people who want to travel from the patriarchal to the matriarchal stage of consciousness and back again. "Do you know how much of the feminine a man lacks to be complete? Do you know how much of the masculine a woman lacks? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men, and thus there are only men and women. But where are the people?" (Jung, 2009).
Neumann spoke about the matriarchal consciousness in men: “It is quite obvious that matriarchal consciousness is not limited to women; it is equally present in men, where his conscious is anima consciousness” (Neumann, 1994).
In response to question (1) about the functions and levels of consciousness, John Beebe responded that each function has its own level of development. That is, if we consider the eight functions of consciousness (according to Beebe), then each one is at a matriarchal (less manifested in consciousness) or patriarchal (more manifested) level of development, regardless of a person's gender.
So, today we present a shamanic myth: summer – the archetype of the healer – feeling – the myth of Medea.
Last night when I was sleeping,
I had a dream – a wonderful dream! –
That here, in my heart, there is a beehive.
And the golden bees make white honeycombs
And sweet honey from my old mistakes.
Antonio Machado, "The Seasons of Solitude" (quoted by Angeles Herrien)
What's the typical reaction when people talk about Medea? "Oh, it's about killing children out of revenge!"—that's the definitive answer, usually nothing more. Psychiatry even has a Medea complex, defined as "a mother's desire to kill her children in order to take revenge on her husband for his infidelity" (Zhmurov, 2012).
Reading the myth of Medea, one is struck by a strange sensation: attention and, surprisingly, respect from the gods, and hatred and contempt from humans. There's even a historical anecdote that Medea's children were actually killed by the Corinthians during a pogrom, and then, for a huge sum of 15 talents, Euripides wrote his tragedy, in which he portrayed the children's murder as the work of a mother, carried out in revenge against their traitorous father.
When Medea, pierced in the heart by Eros so deeply that "the arrow entered up to the feathers" (Graves, 1992, p. 446), sits in her room, hesitating between betraying her kingdom or renouncing the love that Aphrodite maintains "with the aid of a new love potion: a live wryneck, stretched out on a red-hot wheel" (ibid., p. 445), she is, in essence, choosing between passion and the madness that occurs when a person refuses the gods. By this time, Medea already occupies a certain position in society: she is a sorceress, the high priestess of Hecate, upon whose entrance the king begins to observe propriety and ceases insulting foreigners. She sees the future, knows what awaits her, but resigns herself to the command of the gods. And their command, it seems, is to carry through the centuries this human hatred and fear that we also experience at the mention of her name, despite the fact that more than 2445 years have passed since Euripides wrote the play, and the myth of Medea itself, of course, is even older.
“Self-hatred, ‘the last expression of the death drive’, wins this duel and annihilates the last visible traces of the life drive – children… She is ‘the object of hatred, the woman, of all women, the most despised by the gods, by me and by the entire human race’ (Jason complains in the name of us all), the eternal victor,” writes the French psychoanalyst Nadia Bujor (Bujor, 2012, p. 48).
After Medea's gift resulted in the deaths of Glaucus and Creon, the burning of Creon's palace, and Jason's miraculous escape (or was it a miracle?), "Zeus, appreciating Medea's courage, fell in love with her, but she rejected his advances. Hera was delighted: 'I will make your children immortal,' she declared, 'if you place them on the sacrificial altar of my temple.' Medea did so, and then escaped in a chariot drawn by winged snakes, lent to her by her grandfather Helios"—this is how Graves describes this passage in the myth (Graves, 1992, p. 458). Hera kept her promise—we still remember Medea's children. Zeus abandoned his advances and never pursued Medea.
Theseus brings Hercules to Medea after he murders his family, his children, in a fit of madness. Why do you think? So she can cleanse him of his crime, even though she's already committed her own, perhaps even more serious because she was conscious and understood what she was doing. And she cleanses him: now Hercules can approach the oracle and receive a prophecy about what to do next, how to atone for his pain. The gods accept Medea's cleansing.
At the end of her life, Medea does not end up in Tartarus and atone for her unimaginable sins, but receives immortality, ends up on the Isles of the Blessed, and, according to one version of the myth, marries Achilles, the greatest hero of Greece.
Throughout her life, Medea relies on her own values, which remain unknown to us, and throughout her earthly life, she brings death and life to people. She kills, but she also heals, purifies, and brings back life. The rejection of her homeland, father, brother, husband, and children becomes her desperately bleeding wound as a Healer. "Shamanism is always associated with excruciating suffering of soul and body, leading to persistent psychological trauma. The 'closeness' of such a healer to the 'savior' seems to confirm a well-known mythological truth: he who inflicts wounds, but also receives them, is the bearer of healing, that is, the sufferer takes the suffering with him" (Jung, 2005, p. 339).
Medea is led by four goddesses - Hecate, Hera, Aphrodite and Athena, or rather, the last three come to her with Jason and remain with her when the gods turned away from Jason as an oathbreaker.
Abraham hears the voice of God and is ready to sacrifice his son, but an archangel stops him. We speak of the voice of the Self and call this individuation. This is the patriarchal level. Medea hears the voice of Hera and sacrifices her children, but no one stops her hand. In matriarchal consciousness, "the actual achievement of the ego lies in its willingness to accept the surfacing contents of the unconscious and to bring itself into harmony with them" (Neumann, 1994).
She hears the voice of the matriarchal side of the Self, believes it, but we call it a crime...
Feeling, as a function of the psyche, determines the value of what we encounter. James Hillman wrote that "the feeling function relates the subject to the object (setting its value) and the object to the subject (incorporating it into the subject's scale of values). Consequently, this function serves to determine relationships, and it is often called the 'relationship function'" (Hillman, 1998). He also wrote: "A developed feeling function is the intelligence of the heart, not fully understood by the intelligence of the mind" (ibid.).
According to Neumann, “…symbolically, matriarchal consciousness is not located in the head, but in the heart. Here, ‘understanding’ also means the action of the feeling that understands, and quite often this action, as, for example, in the creative process, is accompanied by an intense involvement of affect, so that something can break into the light and illuminate consciousness. In comparison, the process of thinking and abstracting characteristic of the patriarchal consciousness is ‘cold’, since the ‘cold-blooded’ objectivity that is required of it presupposes the establishment of distance and, accordingly, the presence of a cold mind” (Neumann, 1994). And further: “Just one important meaning of this symbolism should be mentioned: the fact that the heart, and not the head, is the seat of matriarchal consciousness means that the ego of the patriarchal consciousness – the familiar head-ego – often knows nothing about what is happening at the deep level of consciousness – the center of the heart” (ibid.).
1. Being a Healer means wandering throughout your life in search of your
integrity.
2. To be a Healer is to bring back to memory what has been forgotten:
connection, unity and interrelation of all things, living and non-living.
3. Being a Healer means accepting even the most terrible and frightening.
4. Being a Healer means opening the closed, softening the hard and
hardened, something that has become an obstacle.
5. To be a Healer means to enter into the transcendent, into timelessness, where the Divine dwells.
6. Healing is creativity, passion and love.
7. Healing is the search for and expression of one’s “I” in all its fullness, with its light and shadow, masculine and feminine.
8. To be a Healer is to hope and rely on Life.
Zhanna Akhterberg, “Woman Healer” (quoted from Angeles Herrien, 2003).
Many traditional shamanic communities believe that the heart is the connecting thread between Father Sky and Mother Earth. Therefore, following the path of the Healer "means listening to all that has heart and purpose. In virtually every tradition, healers believe that the power of love is the most powerful healing force available to all human beings. True Healers of any culture are those who harness the power of love: acceptance, understanding, appreciation, and gratitude" (Arrien, 2003, p. 75).
“The energy of sleep that restores the body and heals its wounds, as well as the healing that occurs naturally in the darkness, belong to the nocturnal sphere of the healing moon, as does everything that happens in the soul and allows a person to “grow beyond” an insoluble crisis through dark processes perceived only by the heart” (Neumann, 1994).
Angeles Arrien writes that “if we do not pay attention to our own health and well-being, we manifest the shadow sides of the Healer Archetype” (Arrien, 2003, p. 96).
The wounded healer manifests through four addictions:
1) a tendency to exaggerate (an unclaimed resource – love);
2) a tendency to improve (misuse of power, unclaimed resource – outstanding skill);
3) the need to know everything (an unclaimed resource – wisdom);
4) a fixation on failures, inattention to successes (an unclaimed resource – foresight, the ability to perceive things as a whole). (ibid., pp. 98–100).
We usually end the Medea workshop with the "woman from Georgia" trance pose.
A 17.1 cm tall bronze statue of a woman was found in Vani, Georgia, at an ancient ritual site. "Georgia, located at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, has always been distinguished by its cultural and linguistic diversity. Its history is closely intertwined with many ancient myths. Archaeological finds bear witness to the spiritual life of Transcaucasia in ancient times. According to these finds, the "Great Mother" in her many incarnations occupied a central place in mythology. The sun was seen as a female deity, and the moon as a male one. Until recent times in Georgia, especially among the mountain tribes, the veneration of wooden and stone images, which were revered as sacred, persisted" (Nauwald, Goodman, 2008, p. 145).
Working with this pose leads to a wide variety of experiences. There are many feelings, tears, a sensation of "space singing." A feeling of "difficult with people, easy with nature." Death as a healer. Power and wildness. The movement of energy. Freedom, healing. A religious experience. Gradual synchronization when working with noisemakers in the hands. A keen sense that left and right are different, and therefore difficulty maintaining the same rhythm when working with rattles. A feeling of "giving birth to yourself."
We would like to conclude our article with feedback from the seminar participants:
"A plot, seemingly completely unrelated and logical in itself, becomes so obvious and powerful when it crashes into reality that you have to survive! A seemingly innocuous myth draws you into the plot as a character, forcing you to re-understand everything happening around you, to re-understand yourself. It forces you to become Medea, to once again retrace the terrifying yet completely logical path of finding personal integrity."
“It feels like a part of my soul that was lost before has come back to me.”
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Notes:
(1) From a personal conversation during the Moscow Summer Conference of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Actors in 2013.
An article about the seminars in which we immersed ourselves in the space of the myth of Medea, filling it with our thoughts, feelings, associations, and, at one level, maintaining the metaphor of Medea as the leading function of the Sense 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 positions (itop.moscow)
Olga Kondratova is an analytical psychologist, member of the IAAP, ROAP
The article was published in the journal “Jungian Analysis” No. 1 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.