I can make you wholly new, but it will require ingredients and sacrifice. Are you willing to become new?
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Archetypes are recurrent symbols that offer spiritual advice to men and women as we travel the journey of life. This is the eighth in a 12-part series, in which this ancient wisdom is made relevant both to ecumenical (book) religions and to the non-spiritual as well through real life examples and everyday application.
While I highly encourage a spiritual path, as it feeds the soul, this wisdom will resonate regardless because it is within our bones and sinew as men. Twelve is a very significant number in spiritual circles. There are 12 months, 12 signs of the Zodiac, Jesus had 12 disciples, 12 indicates a complete cycle.
As we complete our cycle through the archetypes, we will experience the ancient wisdom offered to us around manhood. Whether you are gay, straight, bi, curious, confused, trans, married, unattached, looking, or fearful, this wisdom has the power to meet you where you are and help you experience the slice of divine that is you, as a man.
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Magicians have always held an interesting hold on our psyche. The most famous magician, commonly known as Merlin, has been the source of our modern conceptions of magicians as well as a popular ideal of what a magician should look or be like. Despite the popular conceptions of Merlin, he was no man in a pointy hat with stars on it. Merlin was a crazed man who lived in the woods, observed nature, the stars, and created his own cosmology of things.
The real secret of the Magician is that his outer creations, fantastic miracles, and magic are a reflection of a deep inner life.
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The first Merlin lived in the Celtic culture around 600-800. Consulted by knights, kings, and nobility, he was the penultimate weirdo whom even the most brave feared. The Vitae Merlini tells us that Merlin was held by several men and became a title for a kind of magician. How was Merlin able to perform his legendary feats of magic that have captivated our minds? Through his deep inner life.
If you want to achieve certain things in life, you have to start within you. This means you must get rid of what does not serve you and must keep or bring in what does serve you. The ancient world has wonderful ways of teaching and expressing these lessons.
The real secret of the Magician is that his outer creations, fantastic miracles, and magic are a reflection of a deep inner life. In past archetypes I have encouraged the reader to have some kind of spiritual path. The Magician calls forward your spiritual path in two parts: knowing yourself and being ready for transformative change.
Our Being is Beautiful
“Know who you are and own the hell out of it!” ~Me
“There is no one youer than you!” ~Dr. Seuss
These common refrains are amplified in this archetype because the Magician has to spend so much time with himself and his own faculties. The Magician realizes that he is specially plucked from the sea of humanity for a particular purpose. Not only does he know himself, but he also understands the purpose of his being.
One of the big take-aways from this archetype, and Merlin himself, is a matter of loyalty. Merlin’s advice transcended the political realities of his days. He was loyal to himself and to the natural processes, the stars, and his own internal workings. This was because of the necessity of the spiritual work required to hold the title of Merlin. However, this can be something to take away for ourselves in the form of self-care. Imagine what better partners we can be if we do little things to look after ourselves every day? Don’t let life creep in on your spiritual path (whatever manifestation that might take) or the things that make it so you can live life really well. It is what makes existence valuable.
When we talk about our existence and our life’s purpose, it can be difficult to deal with such an existential concept. In the midst of kids, work, partner duties, and the business of life, the question of purpose is often lost or not useful in the everyday vernacular. But in those quiet moments of meditation or spiritual practice, you can consider your purpose here in this life. Are you meant to heal? Listen? Help nature or the planet?
The Magician is a story of the all-changing alchemical force in our lives.
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Quiet moments are time to listen to the subtle voice in your soul. Many people will tell you that if you find your purpose you should drop everything and go pursue that with reckless abandon; overturn your whole life and make that your entire devotion. You can certainly do that, but know that you can cause great universal change and work in any field.
Cause for change
The Magician is a story of the all-changing alchemical force in our lives. Although alchemy is a modern joke, due to its legendary struggle for a philosopher’s stone or turning lead into gold, for centuries alchemy was the leading science. Merlin, our example of this archetype, was an alchemical master.
We still use alchemical processes today, and alchemy was just as rigorous as the scientific process in terms of repeatability. Alchemy, though, was far more spiritual, energetic, and subtle than modern science.
Alchemy had three basic steps:
1) Gather ingredients
2) Add ingredients into crucible
3) Mix and wait for a result (coagulato)
One of the rules of true alchemy is that whatever goes into the crucible must come out wholly new for true coagulato. Only within the crucible is coagulato possible. The crucible allows focus and space for proper reason to occur.
If we are accepting of every crucible we find ourselves in, then we will become something new.
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Every life decision can be a crucible moment. What you were before, the situation you are now in, and the options before you, all these lead to what can be considered something new. Within the crucible the ingredients become new, and only when all the ingredients are open and accepting to becoming something new does the complete state of coagulato occur.
What’s the experience for us? The wisdom is that coagulato will occur many times in our life. If we are accepting of every crucible we find ourselves in, then we will become something new. All parts will be there, but there will be a new wholeness from the coagulato that will be helpful to your journey on the pathway of life. When something significant happens in your life and you change forever, you’ve experienced coagulato.
This coagulato can be massive (divorce, birth of a child, major health issue, physical change, spiritual change) or it can be more subtle. You can wake up and find out that something has changed within you and that your being has changed. When your being changes, your soul will express that in exciting new ways.
For many men, it takes something like a major loss or life change before this conversion happens, however, through spiritual work you can commit yourself to these changes over time. When you commit to the spiritual alchemical process, changes like getting sober, quitting smoking, or being the man who is ready, willing, and emotionally able to have a healthy relationship becomes easy because you have done the internal work.
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The Magician is a powerful archetype that manifests itself in interesting ways. Are you ready for the spiritual work that allows for coagulato? Are you ready to learn about yourself and own who you are? The Magician asks us to do the hard internal work that makes external change possible and completely worth the internal journey.
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Image credit: jin.thai/flickr