Radiant Joy Brilliant Love

by Clinton Callahan

  • A cult tries to get you to go to sleep, to give your power away and to be somebody they prescribe, a consumer.

  • Archetypal Relationship demands that you find ways to stay awake, step into Power, and become more and more yourself, a responsible creator.

  • As Archetypal Man or Woman you gain direct immediate access to almost unlimited Power.

  • None of that Power is yours.

  • You can only use that Power to serve the needs of the space of Archetypal Love.

  • You will feel many things.

  • You are invited to trust yourself and others at an unconventional level.

  • “Do-overs” are allowed.

  When the man is fiercely turned on about his life, he guards his attention so his energy is not wasted. When the man is fiercely turned on about his woman, he guards his moments of intimacy with her as if he were sitting in the presence of God. This man wakes up turned on. He walks to the toilet turned on. He eats his breakfast turned on. He brushes his teeth turned on. And when he puts his attention on his woman, she gets it.

  The woman wants to be fought for. She wants to be special to her man. She wants to be wanted as top priority. The woman wants to be rescued from normality and taken on the adventure of her life. She wants to be part of the adventure, not standing around on the sidelines cheering. She wants to be in the thick of it, up to her armpits in alligators, but not being the leader. She wants to be included and brought into places that take her breath away. She wants to see impossible promises kept. She wants to see loving communications with children, bad guys transformed, and mothers protected. She wants deep spiritual questions met with clarity and compassion, in ways that help other people lead better lives. She wants to sense profound spaces that startle her with their vastness. She wants to be caught up in something greater than herself that is sourced by her man.

  There need be no end to the dance between the masculine and the feminine through which the Archetypes live. Even the most mundane of activities can reflect the Archetypal. No moments need be wasted. No opportunity lost. Even when all that occurs around you begs for an ordinary-human-relationship response, nothing says that you have to comply. You can sustain your independent authority about how to make use of this moment. In truth, the consequences of you choosing Archetypal Relationship will only be that the Archetypes live.

  There are endless opportunities to practice giving and receiving attention in daily life. The more you pay attention so as to submit the space of your relationship to be used by the Archetypal, the more you will be used. To paraphrase Bernard Shaw’s words, the greatest joy in life is your relationship being thoroughly worn out before it is thrown on the scrap heap, and before you and your partner are moved on to your next experiments.

  SECTION 12-J

  Bright Principles and Archetypal Love

  Archetypal Relationship differs from both ordinary and extraordinary human relationship in the way it relates to Bright Principles. Archetypal Relationship has an open interface for a direct, real-time exchange between human consciousness and the Bright Principles. Such exchange is permanently offered by Bright Principles, but in ordinary human relationship our self-aware human consciousness is completely blotted out by the defense-oriented motivations of our Box.

  In extraordinary human relationship, the adult human being takes more than ordinary responsibility, but not the radical responsibility required by Archetypal Relationship. In extraordinary human relationship, responsible high drama is happening, but not Archetypal drama. The responsible adult is maturely taking care of themselves, but is not holding the space for directly serving Bright Principles.

  In Archetypal Relationship, the exchange between Bright Principles and self-aware human consciousness is not blocked, censored, or manipulated by the Box. This is because a relationship with Gremlin has been established – he sits at your feet cared for and attentive until you direct him to take action in a way that serves. In Archetypal Relationship, the Bright Principles can become conscious of themselves through one person experiencing themselves being a Bright Principle, in action, and appreciating the manifestation of the same Bright Principle in the other person. For example, the overriding Bright Principle of Archetypal Love becomes conscious of itself through meeting and appreciating itself in the other person, who is also conscious of being Archetypal Love. Self-awareness is a gift from human beings to the Bright Principles – which cannot obtain such awareness any other way except through the efforts of warm-blooded human beings in conscious Archetypal Relationship.

  Just as Archetypal Relationship needs Bright Principles in order to live, Bright Principles also need Archetypal Relationship in order to live. Each needs the other to succeed so that it too can succeed. Archetypal Relationship and Bright Principles are interdependent. The model for the interdependence between Bright Principles and Archetypal Relationship is the alchemical aphorism, “As above, so below. As below, so above.” Neither the physical nor the unmanifest is superior or inferior. Above and below exchange with each other through a third, usually invisible, element in the equation – the medium of space, which simultaneously separates and connects the other two elements. Without the third element of space, the first two elements could not exchange. Human beings provide this rare and precious service of consciously holding space, through which the exchange can occur.

  When the exchange occurs through the space of Archetypal Relationship, the Bright Principles supply food for Archetypal Relationship and Archetypal Relationship supplies food for Bright Principles. The food that Bright Principles provide to Archetypal Relationship is the quality of Bright Principles represented by the specific Bright Principle itself. For example, the Bright Principle of clarity supplies the food of clarity to the Archetypal Relationship. The Bright Principle of kindness supplies the food of kindness. The Bright Principle of possibility supplies the food of possibility, and so on. The food that Archetypal Relationship provides to Bright Principles is conscious attention placed on the Bright Principles. The attention on the Bright Principles is the conductor through which flow three forms of energy to the Bright Principles: the energy of conscious recognition of the Bright Principles, the energy of appreciation of the Bright Principles, and the energy of faith in the Bright Principles.

  The reciprocal feeding of Archetypal Relationship and Bright Principles through the exchange of foods makes this an ecosystem. Like all ecosystems, the relationships among members are alive and in constant flux, attempting to include all elements, while maintaining an equilibrium that is stable enough to sustain the life of the members. This complex and unpredictable dynamism forces every Archetypal Relationship chamber to be experimental. Whether the chamber is formal, such as in a prepared bedroom, a dining or poetry reading experience, or informal, such as waiting in line at the cinema together, the outcome of the interaction is always unknown. Actions and the purpose of actions that occur in the Archetypal Relationship chamber are continuously changing and developing through being an integral part of a larger ecosystem. The chamber ebbs and flows with energetic tides, and throbs with the beating of Archetypal lifeblood. And you thought you were just having a night out together!

  Try to remember that Archetypal Relationship is far more involved with Archetypal necessities than with human, personal or individual necessities.

  SECTION 12-K

  Impersonal and Nonlinear Evolution

  It is particularly useful to remember that Archetypal Relationship is not much concerned with human necessities if for some reason your Archetypal Relationship seems to be changing radically, or looks like it may come to an end. The circumstances of the beginning, the changing, or the ending of Archetypal Relationship could have little or nothing to do with the people involved and could have everything to do with the experiments that could or could not be continued. The changing status of an Archetypal Relationship may be completely a result of the cosmic dance of “Divine Evolution,” requiring specific and immediate changes in possi
ble experiments. It may have nothing to do with you personally.

  If you assumed that you were the one who caused your Archetypal Relationship to begin, then if your Archetypal Relationship radically alters or ends you might also assume that it ended because of you. Both of these assumptions could be false. If Archetypal Relationship exists through being of service to what Lee Lozowick calls “the Great Process of Divine Evolution,” then the ending of Archetypal Relationship could have nothing to do with you at all. Evolution might simply require that you, your partner, or both of you, be experimenting under different circumstances.

  Nonlinear changes are happening all the time. Perhaps, over the years, you have noticed inexplicably sudden changes in your business career, your place of residence, your friendships, your financial condition, or your health; situations where it seemed like you were picked up out of one circumstance by the scruff of your neck and unceremoniously dropped into completely different circumstances. This change was nothing that you decided on, and would have been nearly impossible to arrange through linear efforts. But since it actually happened, you had to accept it. Could it be that evolution simply had need of you elsewhere so as to maximize the benefit to evolution? Unfortunately, determining the evolutionary value of sudden changes only happens in retrospect. We cannot connect the dots until we look backward from some point in the future. All we can do is develop enough flexibility, so that when the next changes flip us into new conditions we can land on our feet, instantly reorient ourselves, and participate with our full level of contribution.

  SECTION 12-L

  Doing the Homework

  Most of us reading this book have not yet been experimenting with Archetypal Relationship. We’re either deeply absorbed in culturally-encouraged ordinary human relationships, or just getting our toes wet with extraordinary human relationship. Issues around ending a relationship, for us, will not usually involve Archetypal considerations, like the ones mentioned in the previous section. (You can also read more about what to do when a relationship doesn’t work in Chapter 19.)

  For most of us, a non-Archetypal set of considerations applies, raising a different set of questions. In the ordinary, and even in the extraordinary, domain we may spend long periods of time agonizing over questions like: Should I or should I not stay in this relationship? Why does it have to be so difficult? I have already put up with so much; when do I get the reward? Maybe this is the point of no return? How can I be sure it will turn out differently next time? Is there no hope? Where is all the love and joy and happiness that should be in a relationship? When does the breakthrough happen? Where is marital bliss? Where is ecstatic sex? Or forget sex; where is simple kindness and respect? Where is talking civilly to each other over the breakfast table instead of bickering about who is right about what happened yesterday on TV? Why has intimacy been replaced by gossip or shouting at the kids? Why do I feel like I am walking into a meat grinder? Why is it so predictable and dead? Why does it feel like being in a prison for crazy people? Why doesn’t she really love me? Why doesn’t he change, even a little bit? Is this all there is? Am I just a slave here? Am I just sticking around for the sake of the children? Why doesn’t she understand what I say? Why doesn’t he talk to me? Why do I feel so, so lonely? Why does it feel like there is no real connection between us? Am I doomed to endlessly relive what my parents did?

  If any of these questions are in the fore-front for you, then stop reading here, go back to Chapter 2, Ordinary Relationship / Ordinary Love and start reading it over again. Seriously. You have not done your homework. It is not time for you to read the rest of this book because you are not yet doing what you could do to make use of the opportunity you have in your present relationship laboratory. After you have taken more risks to keep your center, to express your feelings, to make boundaries and ask for what you need, to listen with completion loops, only then has the real test been done. Before that, you are complaining that the airplane does not fly, without ever having given it full throttle and pointing it down the runway into the wind.

  What have you got to lose anyway?

  This is not a rhetorical question. If you think the relationship is already on the rocks, what is the problem with taking outrageous risks that might crash it completely on the rocks but also have the possibility of taking it to an entirely new level of intimacy? Take your time to consider this question for yourself.

  Without having done your homework to shift from ordinary to extraordinary human relationship, the rest of this book won’t make much sense. Or, if you are moved to, read the next chapter, The Underworld, and then see how it goes.

  Make the Leap

  Internalizing new relationship ideas from a book, to the point where they accumulate enough presence to change your behavior, takes time. But waiting around for the right time can easily become a Box technique for procrastinating change. The key element to you changing your behavior is you getting off your ass and doing things differently. You will never have anything different than what you have right now if you keep doing things the way you are doing them right now – no matter how right you think you are about what you are doing. Nothing is going to change for you until you get it that you are the one who is right now making it exactly the way it is for you. It is you, not them … not the other person. It is you. This is horrible news because it means that the shit you are feeling is the shit you have rubbed into your own heart. This is wonderful news because if you put the shit in your own heart then you can wash it out again.

  Whether you know it or not, there is no hope. The Box will make no effort to change until you grab it by the nose, yank it around to face in a completely new direction, kick its ass and shout with rage until it moves. This is your life, not your Box’s life. The moments are ticking by. It is 11:59 P.M. Do you know where your center is? Do you know where your attention is? Do you know where your boundary is? Do you know how big your now is? Do you know what your story is? Do you know what your feeling is? Do you know if it is a feeling or an emotion? Do you know what kind of listening you are using? Do you know which roadblock that is? Do you know what your purpose is? Do you know where your Gremlin is? (If you do not know where your Gremlin is, then guess who is driving…)

  I cannot tell you how many times people have sat before my teacher asking for his help in their relationships, acting all innocent and righteous, thinking that he can finally straighten their partner out, when all along it is they who are sneakily avoiding responsibility. Me included.

  Our suffering about relationship comes from institutionalized confusion. Most relationship stories that our culture offers to us end with, “…and they got married and lived happily ever after.” Meaning that, our culture does not have the knowledge for sustaining longterm committed relationships in which individuals joyously thrive and evolve. This leaves it up to you to figure it out for yourself. Welcome to your underworld.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Underworld

  Somehow, you must satisfactorily deal with any connotative reaction that arises from the title of this chapter, The Underworld. This book does not intend to investigate the pros and cons of popular psycho-ideologies. Yet it could easily be that a phrase such as “underworld” encroaches on the territory of an unconscious myth that is currently influencing you. The myth would equate the word “underworld” with “negative,” “evil,” “dangerous” or “bad.” If so, the connotations will automatically block you from acquiring new possibilities in Archetypal Relationship. What can you do? Recognizing a myth, consciously, as a myth, creates freedom from the unconscious grip of the myth. After the recognition, if you have an emotional reaction to the term “underworld,” for example, and you have clarity that your emotional reaction is only the self-defense mechanism of a myth that you already disinherited, then you can let the reaction happen safely, all by itself, and keep exploring. We need to study the mechanics of mythology in greater depth here, before venturing into the underworld.

  SECTION 13-A

&nb
sp; The Power of Myth

  Western civilization lives within a mythology that for the most part has not yet been recognized as a mythology. When a myth is not recognized as a myth, it is still considered to be the factual truth. Debunking Western mythology is not the purpose of this book. The purpose of this book is to provide you with the possibility of expanding your relationship skills. The difficulty right now is that further expansion of your relationship skills conflicts with a predominantly held Western myth that you may still be holding as the truth.

  Check to see if you have this myth somewhere deep in your system: “We live our lives and then die, and then, according to a judgment about what we did during our lives, we are sentenced to spend the rest of eternity in either heaven or hell.”

  I am not asking you if you adjust your daily actions in fear of the consequences defined in this myth. Simply to look back in the dusty fringes of your mind to see if the myth is there, and is perhaps patching over a gap in the scenery where there are not enough facts to give you a different picture. Is this myth still functional for you? Or, have you somehow adopted a different story, and integrated it at a deep enough level to supplant this imagery?

  We may try as adults to exchange the Occidental “die and go to hell” myth for some Taoist or Buddhist perspective, or with something like the Native American mantra, “It is a good day to die.” But such philosophies do not usually land close enough to our core to replace views installed during childhood. The mind might grasp the new concepts, but our deep soul is still convicted of the original story: Down there, lording over the underworld, is some bad-ass devil guy gleefully rubbing his hands together and waiting for us to make some sinful little mistake so he can have our soul forever.