My Gratitude Incantation, Part 2
Spring, The Morning, The East, The Adventurer/Warrior
Spring, The Morning, The East, The Adventurer/Warrior
Oh, how I wanted to ride this post out of its barn into the blossoming world of spring a few months ago! After all, that’s precisely what the archetypal theme of Spring/morning/the east and the Adventurer/Warrior is calling us to do when we engage with it.
Instead, here I am, less than a week before spring has passed me by, only now trotting it out, hoping I won’t get scolded by the early-bird-catches-the-worm coach for being so late.
Before we get into it, in another week or two, I’m planning to write a farewell-to-four-years-blogging on-Medium post (as I merge over to Substack over the summer), and in it, I’ll explain why I really couldn’t get that head start on spring I’d been hoping for.
For now, yes, I broke my promise to write one blog post per week in 2023 and, in doing so, I didn’t write today’s post, part 2 of my series about my morning gratitude incantation, at the start of spring as I’d promised in part 1 of the series.
Now, the purpose of sharing this process is not to convince you to do the same as me. Instead, it’s to help you understand how I work with archetypes to benefit my life, and maybe it’ll inspire you to experiment with these wonderful psychological tools.
Okay, let’s get started.
Before I get into the details, I want to address why I added Adventurer to the Warrior archetype as outlined in Douglas Gillette and Robert Moore’s book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine.
In short, while I want to promote the importance of a healthy warrior archetype, I believe the spirit of the adventurer broadens the warrior archetype to include a wider range of the human experience.
Considering Indiana Jones is one of my favorite fictional screen characters and he spends time in those films fighting, the distinction between adventurer and warrior isn’t always so clear. However, here’s a distinction: an adventurer is a person who, on his way to his treasure, wants to avoid physical confrontation but will still engage if necessary. A warrior, on the other hand, seems more to be focused on the fighting, and the treasure, or the actual reward for the fighting, is secondary. In fact, a healthy warrior is someone who ironically hopes not to be employed too much; he’s a defensive character, protecting a kingdom, a village, or a family, whereas an adventurer is someone who is driven to go out into the world.
In a world where we’ve now got the technology to destroy our civilization and kill billions of life forms with our various war “toys” and where history has taught us that warfare tends to escalate even when we say we don’t want it to, taking on an almost inhuman life of its own (reflected in the archetype of War in the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse), how we communicate about the warrior archetype is extremely important. I believe we should do all we can to suggest methods to diffuse our willingness to resort to violence in pursuit of our goals. Thus, expanding Warrior to Adventurer/Warrior is one small way to do that.
Okay, let’s cover how I do my Gratitude Incantation before we get into the how and why of it.
The Preparation
Leading into the practice, I have the following 20-minute routine:
Three rounds of Wim Hof Breathwork, lying down.
A brief meditation, usually no longer than 15 minutes (also usually lying down).
Three rounds of 4–7–8 breathing — four seconds inhaling, seven seconds holding, eight seconds exhaling, saying these words after each exhale. Round 1: “Thank you for the Gift of another day.” Round 2: “Thank you for the opportunities presented by this Gift.” Round 3: “May Thy will be my will.”
Some sit-ups, usually 100, maybe some push-ups even though I hate ’em. (If you want this practice spelled out in much more detail, please read this post.)
The Practice
Now energized and grounded, I stand up and do the Gratitude Incantation. This incantation aligns us with the four directions, helps us honor the four times of day, and connects us to the energies of the four seasons and the four masculine archetypes. For today’s post, those are the east (direction), the morning (time of day), the spring (season), and the Adventurer/Warrior (masculine archetype). However, as explained in this post, this is just the second of six incantations.
So, I’ve already finished Part 1 facing north with my eyes closed, so I turn to the east and say the following,
“To the East / The Morning / The Spring / The Adventurer/Warrior
Your attributes are courage, curiosity, strength, and valor.
Thank you for these attributes.
May I access them as I may need them throughout my day.”
Putting These Archetypes Together
So, perhaps you are wondering how I link the east, the morning, the spring, and the adventurer/warrior.
It’s all about noticing cycles and the shared energies of those cycles.
First, in our daily cycle, the sun rises in the east in the morning. Second, spring is when Nature begins to awaken; it’s the “morning” of the Zodiacal calendar which begins in Aries with the spring equinox. If we dig into the archetypes of the Zodiacal seasons of spring — Aries, Taurus, and Gemini — we can see how they connect to our first several years of human life, when each of us bravely incarnates into our human bodies (Aries), becoming used to being in those bodies as we engage with material reality (Taurus) before engaging with the world around us with our communication (Gemini). All of this is the start of taking on the world on our lifelong adventure! (For further inquiries into these archetypes, feel free to listen to my podcast episodes in the links below)
Ep. 38: P is for Phire Starter Season (The Aries Season Episode) by The B&P Realm
Yes, the topic is the archetype of Aries, the first sign in the Zodiac, and the purpose is not only to elaborate on…podcasters.spotify.com
Ep. 39: P is for Patiently Awaiting The Taurus Season Episode (The Taurus Season Episode) by The…
In a fashion befitting Fixed Earth, this Taurus Season episode covers a lot of ground and, if nothing, else is sure to…podcasters.spotify.com
Ep. 40: P is for Feeling Groovy in Gemini Season (The Gemini Season Episode) by The B&P Realm
In this episode, we'll cover the quirky, playful, communicative nature of the first Air sign of the Zodiac, Gemini. To…podcasters.spotify.com
Now, in my mind, I’ve broken down the day into four six-hour periods in my Gratitude Incarnation so this part two contains the hours from 6 in the morning to noon. It’s the time of day when we are moving forward yet the day is still ahead of us, in the same way that spring is the time of year we come out of our winter slumbers and begin to engage with the world as Nature comes to life all around us. It just feels like possibility is in the air!
But the very nature of our human experience of Time is that, well, in the words of classic rocker Steve Miller, it keeps on “ticking, ticking, into the future…”.
Thus, this time of possibility is an opportunity, but it won’t last.
Wait until the afternoon to get those projects started and, well, you might find your energy doesn’t match the enthusiasm you had in the morning and you may end up procrastinating even more.
The Four Attributes
In this way, we must seize the day, and considering how challenging life can be or how it can feel like we aren’t making overall progress, consistently giving things a college try takes courage.
Over the past few years, I’ve practiced taking very cold showers and I’ve learned the best way to follow through is to tap into my inner Nike advertising executive and just do it! Start the water on max cold and head right in, don’t think about it! Yes, those first several seconds are a shock to the system but deciding beforehand I’m not going to chicken out helps me overcome any last-minute fears that may arise.
That’s the spirit of the attitude I’m trying to tap into with this part of my Gratitude Incantation. If part one (winter, north, night, Magician) was about reflection and inner transformation, part two is about action and expression in the external world.
Sometimes, though, it can be hard to find which direction to move in and this is where curiosity comes in handy. What lights you up? What questions do you want answers to? In short, what are you curious about?
The answers provide guidance, motivating us to step out our front door, or to use the words of a man who was born in the first part of spring, mythologist Joseph Campbell, to “follow your bliss.”
Curiosity is tied to the Gemini archetype, the archetype of the toddler endlessly badgering his parents and teachers with questions like “Why is my pee yellow?” (This particular tot has moved past inquiring about the sky to more immediate matters, it seems!).
Once we’ve found the courage to get out of bed and followed our curiosity out the front door, it takes strength to stay on our path, to stay true to our values. This is connected to the middle of the spring archetypes, Taurus, the sign of the bull. Of course, when we are talking about archetypes, we have to consider how they express both internally and externally. Thus, strength isn’t just being able to lift a Volkswagen Van packed to the brim with obese koalas, it’s also mental and spiritual strength, the ability to stand firm in one’s values and principles.
Thus, when I’m asking for strength in my gratitude incantation, I’m focused on staying true to myself and having integrity. I want to be like that bull, both in my ability to charge forward fearlessly and in my ability to stand my ground when something unsettling occurs in my life.
Sometimes, though, we have to dig deep and this is where the final attribute from this incantation, valor, aids every adventurer and warrior on their journey. Not only does valor help us survive the challenges on our quests, it allows us to thrive. Of course, it’s tied to courage, but I define the difference as courage is the energy that gets us going, whereas valor is the energy that keeps us going.
In addition, I think valor is connected to morality, the kind of courage that convinces us to fight for or defend something Bigger than us.
Conclusion: Why Learning This Archetype Has Been Important for Me
Throughout my life, but especially in my first 40 years, I’ve had issues with people like security guards and police officers. I’ve also always been strongly anti-war, sometimes to the point of being militant about it. Ironic, eh?
However, by delving into the Adventurer/Warrior archetype, I’ve come to realize that healthy versions of these folks play an extremely important role in a functioning society. They are the Protectors and they often must lose their lives or sacrifice parts of themselves to fulfill their duties to keep the more vulnerable safe.
The issue I’ve always had is with individuals who wear the costumes of police officers or security guards but underneath they lack valor; their strength isn’t based on solid values but on strictly pushing their way through and demanding that we bow down to their corrupted authority (or the corrupt authority of those they serve). By doing this, they’ve not only violated the function of their roles, they’ve made it harder for people to trust everyone in these roles and this can cause society to descend into chaos.
Thus, while I can respect the loyalty of backing up one’s fellow officers as police sometimes do when they stand up for officers accused of heinous crimes in what’s known as the thin blue line, I believe one of the most courageous types of Protectors is the one who calls out his fellows when they are abusing their important positions of power.
Ultimately, I’d like to think that when I venture out into the world, any of this courageous morning Adventurer/Warrior energy I bring will be put into doing something good for my fellow man. And I’ve been told by others that they recognize this characteristic in me. Thus, I still find myself aggravated by those who abuse this sacred role. If you’re a person whose job gives you authority over others, please do take seriously the charge we are giving you. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to do my best to embody this archetype and the gifts it offers.
Final Questions
A few questions to end on.
How do you embody the archetypes and attributes I explored in this post? Have you thought about them? Where do you see them showing up in your life and where could you embody them better?
More broadly, do you use archetypes? After reading something like this, does it inspire you to maybe do your own archetypal explorations?
How about morning practices, do you have any? What are they? Do you include gratitude in them? Do you include archetypes?
Okay, feel free to share any answers to these questions or any thoughts or feelings that this post inspired in you. Be playful and experiment with what works!
Now, keep an eye out for my final Medium blog post where I’ll announce my future writing intentions and do my best to wrap up my experiences blogging on this site since spring 2019. Until then!
Thanks for reading! You can support me simply by sharing my stuff, buying me a coffee, linking to me on Twitter or Facebook, checking out my old blog, listening to my podcast, The B&P Realm Podcast, or reading my 2015 novel, “The Teacher and the Tree Man.” You can also find that book in full here, or broken down into four shorter books (book 1, book 2, book 3, and book 4) or you can listen to it for free. Last, join my community on Patreon.