One Year, 55 Countries, Shout-Outs, and Gratitude

Why Paradox School? (Not An Ad)

In this one I talk about why I created Paradox School and how that ties in to my whole worldsense that I'm slowly laying out through the podcast. Paradox School begins every year in late June, so if you're interested in checking it out you certainly can: www.theparadoxschool.com [https://www.theparadoxschool.com] But understanding why I've created the School, and how it reflects my archetypal framing of human nature, is key for anyone interested in my work. I talk repeatedly about not focusing on the how but the what - what are we really doing? Most of us mistake the what for the how - we think how we're doing it is actually the substance, the essence, and it's not. Paradox School is perhaps the deepest and most articulated expression of what it is I really do, so even if being part of it is not for you (and it won't be for most people) it's useful to hear how it brings my work into form and life. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Challenger/Warrior/Doer

This is such an important archetype, but also one that can be very tricky for many people. The Challenger is always driving forward, excited by taking risks and trying things that don't seem easily doable (or doable at all!) so it can find out what happens. That "excitement of the unknown" is what makes a challenge - if you know you will win, it's actually really boring, and if you know you will lose it's both boring and discouraging. The Challenger would always rather win, but not without a good hard struggle, and it would rather give it everything and lose than win automatically. Remember too that "win" and "lose" are not mostly about other people - it's just the sense of pitting your will against a desire, and driving hard to achieve it and either getting there or not. No matter what happens, the Challenger's next response is, "On to the next one!!" This archetype is very restless, gets bored easily, prefers short, intense bursts of experience, and is entirely sure that rules and limits are for other people and that it can do whatever it wants. This can be glorious, inspiring, fun, powerful, improbably effective - and it can also lead to serious overextension, a list of unfinished goals, difficulty sustaining long-term commitments, and sometimes active aggression. Everyone with a moderate or strong Challenger also has other archetypes, so pay attention to the "plays well with" section to notice where you might have archetypal tension. Also remember that our socialization affects how all the archetypes show up - but this one is more gender-influenced than most of them, so that people assigned a male gender will generally get praise and tolerance for expressing the Challenger and female-gendered, non-gendered, and gender-fluid people will often get criticism, pushback, or hostility for expressing the Challenger. I hope you enjoy learning about the Challenger and for those of you who recognize yourselves, I hope this helps you to have a better relationship with this part of you! ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Collective Redemption through the Neptune Cohorts

Since the Pluto Cohort episode was SO well-received, I decided to go on and do the Neptune cohorts as well. Where Pluto is describing a collective survival urge, Neptune is describing a collective urge for redemption. This is a weird word for us, because it has specifically religious connotations, but redemption is actually an archetypal experience that goes beyond and beneath any specific religious or spiritual belief framework. Listen to the Mermaid episode for more on that - I talk about it quite a lot in there, and if you're not familiar with the Mermaid archetype, that might be a very helpful prelude to listening to this one. Basically the Neptune cohorts are a kind of collective Mermaid - a particular way (through the sign Neptune is in) that we feel that longing to be merged, to be saved, to be redeemed (bought back), to have our sense of sin and wrongness washed away and made clean. Needless to say this can and does have HIGH CHARGE for people, just as high (or in some cases higher) than the Plutonian instinct toward physical and psychological survival. I work through all the Neptune cohorts for humans that are still possibly alive, starting with Neptune in Leo and working up to the current transition from Pisces into Aries just in the past 12 months. I talk about the prevailing trends and movement of the zeigeist, the collective unconscious, during the 13-14 year periods of Neptune in a sign, and also talk about what gets "stamped" into the people born during that Neptune sign, which they then carry through their lives. I am really enjoying bringing this collective view of some of these archetypal energies to you all, and I hope you are finding these useful - I've gotten tremendous feedback on the Pluto cohort episode so I'm hoping this one is equally illuminating! ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Adventurer/Seeker/Believer

Swinging back to the up-and-out archetypes with the Adventurer/Seeker/Believer! This inner figure is full of optimism and enthusiasm - I often refer to it as "Tigger" - so it's easy to think it's just all fun and "let's do it" and continually seeking out an unfolding sense of the meaning of life. It certainly can be all of that, in really beautiful ways. It also has a shadow that can be quite destructive, as all the archetypes do, and I think it's well worth remembering the damage that can happen underneath the bright, cheerful face of this figure. When it's healthy, it does more than any other archetype to help us not be crushed under the weight of being human. When it's in shadow, it can do a lot of the crushing itself. I hope this episode gives you a deeper sense of this very important dimension of human nature! ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Collective Survival Through the Pluto Cohorts

The sign that Pluto is in, for anywhere from 12 to 34 years, forms a very particular vein of our archetypal nature - it tells us some essential things about what collective survival looks like for each group, and in a broad way, for each individual in that group. Because generations tend to be in different Pluto cohorts (even though they're not actual generations), these different survival imperatives can directly contribute to friction and conflict between people. Nothing activates us faster than this - it tends to be a part of us that, once it's switched on, makes it very difficult to keep perspective, see other points of view, be flexible and open-minded, or consider other possibilities. It's SURVIVAL - even when it doesn't "make sense" in any rational way, it has tremendous urgency. These differences can of course also crop up between siblings, partners, coworkers, and other important relationships in our lives. They leave an imprint on larger collective movements like politics, and show up in everything from media to fashion to finance. I don't go through every nuance, of course, but I go through a basic shape of each of the Pluto sign cohorts that covers people alive on the planet right now (Cancer through Aquarius). Pluto moves so slowly (246 years to orbit the Sun) that only a handful of Pluto signs are ever alive in humans at one time. This bit of information has turned out to be deeply useful and insight-generating for many people, and I hope it will be for you too! ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.