But what happens when the stories we choose to live by lead us down dark and treacherous paths? The Netflix series “The Last Airbender" offers a compelling example of this question through the character of Admiral Zhao and his unrelenting pursuit of becoming a legend by slaying the Moon Spirit.
Carl Jung's concept of the archetype of the Self is a complex idea of embodied consciousness, symbolizing unity between body, mind, and soul. It directs us to explore and integrate the various parts of our psyche while maintaining a homeostatic balance, and serves as a guiding force on the journey of individuation.
According to Jung the collective unconscious is a reservoir of shared, universal experiences and symbolic imagery that all humans inherit, regardless of upbringing. In a metaphorical sense, one can see archetypes as source codes, signifying the deep and fundamental patterns that underlie human consciousness and our interconnectedness with the natural world.
The circle is a powerful and widely recognized symbol that represents wholeness, unity, and the eternal cyclical nature of life. It signifies the interconnection and interdependence of all things, associated with infinity, harmony, and balance. Circles also hold symbolism of protection, completeness, and the rhythmic patterns of nature. Furthermore, circles represent community, equality, and spirituality in various traditions.
Myths and stories throughout the ages and across the world tell tales of heroes and heroines who survive the ordeals of impossible tasks given to them or perhaps having to fight dragons, but hopefully coming home with the treasure. The hero’s journey is a dynamic process that can serve as a conceptual metaphor for understanding individual development where each major transitionary life event serves as a call to step into an initiatory experience.
The mother’s impact on her children can be enlivening or deadening as reflected in the positive and negative mother complexes. Awareness of how mother images live within is us integral to becoming more conscious.
Our own relationship with our father figures repeats in many other relationships, especially in the form of a father complex, whether negative or positive. The complex is based on the specific conditioning or programming we received as children though the real interactions with a father figure. This may compel us to search for father figures all our life, sometimes ruthlessly competing for their attention.
Jung’s archetype of the Self is the central archetype in our psyche, the ‘imago Dei’ and source of life energy. Jung said “It might equally be called ‘the God within us.’ The beginnings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be striving toward it.”
The way of the warrior is not one of wanton destruction, but of judicious use of violence in appropriate situations. “Proper aggressiveness in the right circumstances… (which the warrior) knows through clarity of thinking, through discernment”...
“Man ‘possesses’ many things which he has never acquired but has inherited from his ancestors. He is not born as a tabula rasa, he is merely born unconscious. But he brings with him systems that are organized and ready to function in a specifically human way, and these he owes to millions of years of human development.”(