Literal

The literal level of life includes day-to-day concrete tasks such as paying bills and taking children to school. In nature it is eating, sleeping, exercising, defecating. It is filled with details and tasks that seem mundane and habitual. It is a natural part of living life and part of the story we weave living in a certain culture, place, and time. Often it is materialistic and based in the dayworld ego’s burdens and concerns. It is the literal dominant everyday mode of life and is horizontal by nature. We think this IS our life until Soul stops by nudging us to move from cliche to Soul Work at its richest, widest and deepest volume.

Psychological

The word psychology naturally emerged from the Greek “psykhē” meaning “breath, spirit, soul” and logos meaning “study of.” The study of breath (inspiration, expiration), spirit, and soul is the poetic mead of Soul Ways. In the archetypal story of old, Psyche was the breath of Eros. Soul Ways retrieves psychology from modern man and brings it back to nature. Humans are psychological Beings and it is wholly natural to be curious about how the psyche orchestrates life. Learning the art of being psychological supports sovereignty and liberation. Psyche is rooted in nature. It is a dynamic, organic, and energetic body that is fluid; it ebbs and flows through us and through the collective. It engages us and reveals itself in our day-world moment by moment, and in our night-world as images in dreams. At Soul Ways we encourage a relationship with the natural organs of the psyche to support a healthy regenerative innerculture.

Archetypal

Carl Jung (1936) stated that archetypes are “pure products of nature.” James Hillman, the archetypal psychologist, defines “archetypes as the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, the roots of the soul governing the perspectives we have of ourselves and the world.” Archetypal value is at the root of an ensouled world. Just as soul permeates the world, archetypal value does as well. In order to relate to the archetypal image, or find archetypal value, one can cultivate an archetypal sensibility or perspective. One can learn to live a metaphorical life. Practices to increase archetypal or metaphorical sensibilities that shift perspective are vital to sovereignty, liberation, and finding value as we make our way through the world. Archetypal value is most knowable inside Soul Work and includes the native mythology of our time.

Imaginal Ego

The imaginal ego is the radiant imaginal and empathic organ of the psyche that relates intimately with all other organs of the psyche, both personal and collective. It lives just below consciousness as the creative underworld ego split at birth, or in the young life, from the day-world ego. It is the other half of the ego hidden in the depths. When there is a failure of the imagination there is deep disconnection from the imaginal ego which is also the empathic body of the psyche. When there is a failure of deep empathy the dis-integration and disconnection from the imaginal ego is depressing and neurotic, and life can be filled with grief and uncertainty. The imaginal ego emerges in dream, story, art, poetry, and myth to quell the burdens of the day-world ego. Perpetually spilt in two by the Western mind, beginning with Copernicus and then Descartes, the ego is divided from very early in life. The day-world ego unawares, tries desperately to make us believe we are “It” and that is all there is to life. Yet the other half of the ego, the imaginal ego, is working nightly for a full relationship to the rest of itself and psyche. The imaginal ego lives in the night, its compassionate and empathetic heart reaching out, guiding the day-world ego as escort through the night like Virgil guiding Dante. It says, “see my world, see my life, I am here too, so bright and shining, full of love of for you and the images.” It implores the day-world ego to “please, please, take my hand, I’ll care for you, I’ll help you see those parts of us that only I have known and that you fear. I am here for you.” At Soul Ways we are immensely interested in the human relationship with images and the quality of depth and value they can bring to a life through engaging the imaginal ego. Developing a healthy ego which is in service to the Self and Soul requires a relationship with the imaginal ego whose home is the unconscious. Because the imaginal ego is exposed to all manner of scenarios in the dream it seems to have less fear about emerging into the day-world, whereas, the day-world ego is defended toward the dream and its unpredictable images. It has fear about being in the underworld realm. The defenses come from dealing with the fantasy of the day-world catastrophe of life, from trying to live as if the individual singular day-world ego is the only thing that counts. If the day-world ego is happy then what matter the rest of the world—quite the affliction. But then, psychic rupture—liminal space—and the requirement for a new more flexible structure arrives. Liminal space is where the imaginal ego lives. The imaginal ego teaches the day-world ego that the underworld is real and survivable, and that the imagination is trustworthy. The imaginal ego is the bridge between the conscious and unconscious realms.

The imaginal ego can fluidly dialogue with the various organs of psyche while laying tandem with the day-world ego. The presence of the imaginal ego dis-integrates and loosens the rigid day-world ego so it can surrender and relate more fluidly with the rest of the psyche. It is almost as if the imaginal ego sets an example of another way of being for the day-world ego; a way that can find value beyond itself. Through this experience of the imaginal ego the day-world ego can learn to live within the tripartite of the literal, psychological, and archetypal levels because they are now more available to it. When the day-world ego engages the imaginal ego in the fluid ouroboric dance, a circumambulation of light and dark, it learns to participate in an informative inner dialogue while living on the three levels of life. The imaginal ego acknowledges the terror experienced by the day-world ego when it is confronted with the reality that it is separate and distinct from character and is being relegated to a diminished and healthier role in the psyche. The dissolution of the day-world ego in images is what we honor when we drink of the elixir vitae in dreams, poems, and metaphors found in daily life. The imaginal ego facilitates a new dialogue between the literal, psychological, and archetypal levels of life. Value can be found in the literal by its reflection in and through the psychological and archetypal realms, and value can be found in the psychological by reflections in and through the literal and archetypal realms. Soul, including imaginal love and the imaginal ego, midwife’s a fresh experience for the day-world ego and newborn value becomes possible. At Soul Ways we hold counsel with and create practices for the evolution of a reunited ego (personal or collective) that is in service to the Self and Soul for a life that is less fearful and less burdened.

Dream Work

What lights up the dream in the night? No one truly knows. There is a poverty of science regarding this nightly event. Everyone dreams and we know animals dream. What if all life dreams? Native cultures know this deeply. Many believe the earth dreams or that we were dreamed into existence, and why not? The Anima Munde, or soul of the world, has its own images, poetry, and creative instinct and has been considered by ancients to be the voice of the divine or the One who knows. With Soul Ways the dream is honored as a valid way of knowing that deserves our interest. There are dozens of ways to “work” a dream. At Soul Ways we feel it is important to honor the dream from the literal, psychological, and archetypal levels. We conserve the dream image viewshed and turn toward showing interest in the image. We build a relationship with the image by acknowledging its autonomous nature. We honor the emotions, feelings, and moods in the image and take into account what the image asks of us. Through this kind of dream work the day-world ego is relativized, or liberated from its day-world burdens, the imaginal ego is liberated from the unconscious and archetypal empathy emerges. The value in the dream images is revealed through this type of emotional relationship and interest in soul’s most intimate language, the dream image.

Imaginal Work

Imaginal Work builds a relationship with metaphor in daily life. Through this practice we learn to live a metaphorical life where value can be found in any aspect of the living world from moment to moment. All of life is seen as image and while we are immersed in these images a more-than-personal way of Being emerges that is practical and can be integrated deeply into us in each moment. It is a safe and sweet place to live where value thrives and we thrive in it. When we learn to live in this way there is value and meaning in the smallest cell at the tip of a child’s tongue, in every fiber that blows by on the wind, and in the way the water flows around any given rock in the stream. The imaginal ego engages the day-world ego with the energy of the images that our world presents to us and in images that psyche creates in concert with our daily life. The energy propelling the imaginal ego in the dance with the day-world ego is the energy of animation, of vitality, of expression, vigor, and passion. Imaginal Work draws interest in such a way that value bursts forth from the ever present matrix of beauty and creation that lays just beyond our veiled perceptions.

Nature Work

It can be very scary to find nourishment through oneself. To suddenly discover that you are naturally nourishing yourself by being open to relationships with old and new realms is astounding and valuable. Nature is ancient. Our ancestors live in and through nature. Yes, we can find it scary to be nourished by nature if we have been away from it far too long. A tiny scraping noise here, Tree falling over there, Snake moving through Grass, Wolf silently passing by, Turkey gobble, Deer kill in the Woods, Coyote howl, Bald Eagle in flight, Butterfly on the wing, Cottonwood in the Snow, all resonating with our own native nature. The landscapes that we live on, beautiful and harsh at once, often reflect our inner terrain if we only pay attention to the vastness of both. Looking across each landscape to be surprised by the ever shifting horizons of knowing and being is immensely valuable to a healthy psychic ecosystem. Promoting a conversation with nature by initiating creative work around the inner and outer topographies of soul can promote dialogue with the conscious and unconscious realms of life and is an essential act of conservation. Patterns in nature seek us out and again mirror our inner patterns to find value in them. Building a relationship with plants, animals, soil, water, and sky ground us in our poetic Being on this planet. It is much like building a relationship with dream images. Imagine the emotions, feelings, and moods of Mountains, Plains, and Piedmonts…Sagebrush, Badger, or Bear. At Soul Ways Nature Work is imperative to a healthy psyche. A psyche that knows that it is natural and thriving, alive with the pulse of the heart of the world, and honored as part of the universe where all cells vibrate with the feeling that they are contributing to the boundless organism that we all are…the Sensus Communis – “the place of natural law connecting all individuals with each other and with the order of the world.”

Body Work

Who is your oldest and beloved companion? Your body. The body intimately knows the soul. It is ensouled, period. The body of the earth resonates through our bodies with sensitivities, cries for health, and energies to guide us toward consciousness. Instincts thrive in the body…fight, flight, freeze, fawn, create, nourish, reflect, procreate, and defecate. Images live in and emmante from our bodies in health dreams. The body is cellular and science about what is happening at the cellular level is taking leaps and bounds in how the cellular level relates to psyche and soul. The mind, soul, spirit, and body connection is a valid axis of knowing. Emotions and feelings live at the cellular level. Addictions live at the cellular level. The mouths of the wounds that want to speak live in our bodies in neurosis, anxiety, and mental machinations. The body is the first to know when we are in trouble. The solar plexus lights up as we betray ourself with one lover or another, or one commitment too many to something that does not serve us. At Soul Ways we promote healthy natural body practices such as meditation, nature work, yoga, song, drumming, movement practices, and dream embodiment practices at the literal, psychological and archetypal levels. The body is respected through archetypal empathy as our most beloved companion by deep listening, engaged witnessing, and honoring all energetic movement emanating through, from, in, and around the body.

Poetic Work

At Soul Ways engaging poetics is aimed at rejuvenating the natural poetic basis of mind and promotes the value in seeing through to the poetic essence and images in the natural world. The founders of Archetypal Psychology believed that psychology is based in the imagination or a poetic basis of mind. If the nature of the mind is poetic, and the dream is psychic nature per se, might we be poetic beings because we dream? Are we then all poets whether we write or not? Yes, a resounding yes! Poesis is that which lets what is present come forth into unconcealedness. The images of poetry and poetics reveal what is hidden. What is it that is begging to be unconcealed? Your personal myth, an unconscious cultural belief system, a complex, an archetypal energy, a story long forgotten living at the heart of a wound. Poetic living promotes a metaphorical life filled with love, value, and liberation. Poetry is one of the imaginal languages of Soul and it honors the lived experience of being human, being animal, being in the world. Poetics promotes seeing through any circumstance as we stand at and cross over threshold moments where value and meaning emerge.

Imaginal Ecology

The imaginal and the imagination are valid ways of knowing. As a culture, we need more people, groups, governments, and businesses that see from the “Side Ways” to help integrate the psyches of our world and our communities at both the imaginal and intellectual levels. For people who have always known the imaginal as a valid way of knowing healthy imaginal ecology validates their knowing. Their imaginal life is legitimized in poetry, myth, art, and dream—no more fighting the Western intellect.It is another tool of expression for them.They know the imaginal realm from deeper levels and learn more from images rather than the intellect. This is empathy based in the image. For those who struggle with a strong intellect, imaginal ecology balances their day-world ego with the imaginal ego and teaches them about the imaginal realm. This is also empathy based in the image. The courage it takes for the intellectual modern human to surrender to the imaginal is equal to the courage it takes for an image-based person to surrender to living in the world of the modern intellect. People who live in the imaginal, such as artists, have to surrender to modern intellectual times. However, those who have been conditioned to live in the intellect are rarely forced by their culture to surrender to the imaginal. When surrender does occur for the intellectual it is often through symptom, not dreams or poetry. When both the imaginal and the intellectual realms are present unconsciously there can be difficult symptoms and yet if we consciously work with the two realms they can become allies in awareness and create an imaginal ecology where thriving is natural and life is less burdensome. With an ego that is more whole…where the day-world ego and the imaginal ego are in service to the Self and to Soul, a healthy imaginal ecosystem is created. Living with an awareness of the literal, psychological and archetypal levels of life promotes a healthy imaginal ecology.

Organic Regenerative Innerculture

Organic Regenerative Innerculture is an ongoing replenishing of the valuable microbiome of images and poetics necessary for a sustainable life. The soil of psyche is tilled through imaginal soul practices to create an innerculture in the psyche, body, and spirit that can relate to soul and the world from a more integrated and mature horizon. Growth and regeneration of a healthy connection to mind, body, spirit, and soul are foremost here and the tools used to till the inner soil and cultivate a healthy environment are organic in nature. These moves create a deep intimate knowing of the inner life and its natural psychological organs, characters, parts, places, and value. All that arises is valid in this process toward regeneration and a sustainable liberating life.