THE ARCHETYPES OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

THE ARCHETYPES OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

Yaro Starak

 Gestalt Therapist and Director Terrigal Gestalt Institute, Australia

http://starak.blogspot.com

“Every man, experiencing as he does his own solitariness and aloneness, longs for union with the other. He yearns to participate in a relationship greater than himself. Normally he strives to overcome his aloneness through some form of love” Rollo May.

“If you are seeking, seek us with joy. Do not give your heart to anything else but the love of those who are full of Joy. Do not stray into the place of despair, for those are hopes, they are real, they exist. Do not go in the direction of dark. I tell you – Suns exist!”  Rumi.

Romantic relationships have been examined from as long ago as human beings came upon this planet. From the recent writings of Dr. Rollo May to the ancient poetry of Rumi, we can experience the ‘voice’ of longing for a Union with the Beloved.

I have always been interested in poetry. In school, as a child living in Venezuela, I was fascinated by the dancing girls when we had our ‘compulsory’ Friday party at the end of the school week. I began to write poetry about the girls moving gently to the Latin music and inviting the shy boys to dance. Novels and other books about romantic love were a way to hide my shyness and secretly feel the paradise of having a girl-friend. I did not know at that time that I was ‘taken’ by the god Eros. I was eager to unite with the feminine ‘soul’ the Greeks called Psyche. My longing was to meet the ‘other part’ as Paulo Coelho writes in his book “Brida”. In the story of Eros and Psyche, Eros moves from the sexual body beauty to the ‘soulful’ love; from immature erotic-sexual impulses to a meeting of lovers as depicted on the LOVERS Tarot card. It is the sacred marriage, the union of the two polarities: Consciousness, Intellect, rationality with the body, emotions, and intuition. The search for that union manifests itself in the dynamic interaction with man and woman.

However, what is happening in our current so called ‘modern’ times? This longing has developed into a plethora of sublimations that substitute authentic romantic love for artificial encounters on the internet. The word “safe” has achieved a new meaning: escapism. Escapism which has evolved into separation from families and couples, from community, from society and has finally turned into major depressive symptoms that are spreading like wild fire all over the western world.

Relationships are our primary learning experiences that begin at birth with the first look at another – a mother, to our final day as we expire and say the last word: “mother”. Relationships are ‘mirrors’ that reflect what is going on inside us.

Fritz Perls, one of the main originators of Gestalt Therapy, once said that everything is a projection. Projections are energies that come out of our unconscious or unaware state and which   C.G. Jung labelled as Archetypes. He proposed that such Archetypal energies are part of our Deep Self and also part of our Collective Unconscious. What is inside of us is also represented in the outside.

Romanic archetypal energies are powerful forces that generate Love, Intimacy, and Sexuality and they are the core of our longing to be with the other. For example, in recent years the quest for a sexually fulfilled love has grown to a point of a quasi-religion. People disillusioned about the teachings of the various versions of God, have adopted Romantic Love as the ‘ultimate’ commitment to one person (monogamy) or entered into the proliferation of sexual experiences that questioned all morality and all intimate boundaries.

The consequence was that true Romantic Relationships beginning with some light  ‘flirting’ that may have or not become a possible intimate contact were declared ‘sexist’ and so the natural urge to meet the other or that ‘poetic’ longing that takes several stages to develop was lost. Lost was the flirting as ‘sexist’; then the courting as ‘irrelevant’; engagement as ‘silly’ and ‘outdated’ and finally the union of marriage as a full time intimate, loving and mature relationship was overthrown by arranged pre-nuptial agreements promoting deep mistrust in authentic relationships.

As we know, the decline of religion and respect for the sacred in the West prompted a ‘sexual revolution’ that for a while became more powerful than loving and spiritual experiences in intimate relationships. However, the current ‘revival’ of spirituality may well be due to the fact that open-ended sexual experiences soon became an empty exercise and quite exhausting; or the fact that we saw the emergence of the modern plague called AIDS.

I was asked by the local paper in Brisbane to offer a workshop for the young men and women about Flirting. In 2005, the most popular way of ‘getting a date’ was on the Internet. I told the editor of the paper that the young people of today are too much in a hurry with all that ‘speed dating’ and internet searching for the ‘Ideal Psyche’. I suggested a workshop where people will meet face to face and participate in a group activity that will show them the traditional ways of contacting the ‘other’. The process is as follows: First, ‘flirting’ then ‘courting’, then ‘engagement’ and finally a ‘commitment’ to a marital life. The challenge for me was to face 19 young people all very keen to find out what exactly I was going to DO with the group. I began to explain the ancient meaning of ‘flirting’ – I said it comes from the French “fleurer” or to “flower”. Flirting, then, means: Connecting with and meeting others. Having fun and showing people you are interested in them. It is about feeling happy, joyful and excited about life. It is about making genuine contact and feeling attractive. Finally, one may take the ’flirting’ relationship further if it is mutually acceptable.

Then comes ‘courting’ – a phenomenon that began in the 12 century Europe, particularly in Provencal area of southern France and Spain. The word comes from then Arabic “courtesy”. Courting was the reversal of the dominance of the male over women. Young men considered themselves to be a ‘servant’ of the Lady of the court. Provencal troubadours took courting to a high poetic levels when they wrote about the impossible love for the high ranking ladies.  Courting then was a way of ‘serving’ the female energy by Amor, the god of erotic love but not yet consummated.  My workshop continued.

I spoke about young men coming to ‘court’ young women they met by flirting first and then take time to get to know them and share common values, thinking and experiences. After a time, the couple may agree to develop a more serious bond by getting engaged. Only later the mutual invitation was made to marry.

In the group, we acted out all the possible aspects of contact with the other and learned how to move on into the next stage of coupling. Most men and women attending the workshop discovered a wealth of possibilities and were amazed at how little they knew about this process of developing romantic relationships.

Romantic relationships (sensual, not sexual) offer neither the fast sexual highs nor the deep spiritual achievements hoped for by those who ‘discovered’ spiritual India. Romantic relationships promote the opportunity to become aware of deeper energies that emerge when one is in the presence with another – romantically or otherwise. Then the choice is there: to become fully ‘in touch’ with our inner fear of closeness, intimacy, vulnerability and risk and discover who we really are or learn how closed we are to the wealth of possibly in leading a full life.

Ancient Tao-ist and Hindu teachings offer us options of how to become open to various forms of romantic (sensual) relationships that have been developed over millennia. This is what they say:

Human beings are made up of a physical body, a mental body, an emotional body and a spiritual body. Having at least four options the ancient individual could explore one or all of the romantic ways of relating to the beloved. This will be developed later.

Recently, in a cover story about the four faces of romantic relationships, Dr. C. Ferguson (Boston U.) proposes four aspects of our romantic being. He calls them the four Archetypes of romantic relationships based on C.G. Jung’s research: Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual. All are aspects of our deeper longing for contact.

Since we are living in the ‘here and now’ or in the present state where our relationships unfold through contact, we long for and desire to authentically experience in the ‘here and now’ the energies of our true essence with another. The archetypal ‘faces’ that are available to us are the energies of Love, Acceptance, Harmony and Inclusion. I would add to these: Compassion, Respect and Humility. All are archetypal qualities that create that deep ‘connectedness’ of one person with another; or we can take this idea further from the person, we also are connected deeply with an animal, a plant, a sunset or anything outside ourselves.

I began my book about my life with a theme “What is Love”? A Spanish song set me on that journey: “Many know about Desire but few know about Love”. This means that many confuse love with eroticism(desire) because there is no love without Eros. Love is the final metaphor of sexuality. Its ‘cornerstone’ is freedom; the freedom to choose one person among others who are in our field and committing our love to that person with certain reciprocity. Love of mother, father, brother or sister are not - The Love. This love is more like piety. This is an ancient Latin word ‘pietas’ meaning: the virtue that moves us to revere, respect, serve, and honour God, our parents and our country. While desire is a temporary erotic or pleasant encounter with the object of desire. For centuries women were objectified and made ‘desirable’. Desire is pleasure, love is suffering.

Human love is the true union between two beings that are subject to time, age and its difficulties: change, sickness, death, loss, etc. Therefore love is tragic, painful and full of suffering. Yet we want exclusivity in love. We want to be special and at the same time feel that the other is also special. Without this condition there cannot be love. “Falling in Love” is a trance and in that trance state called love, there are archetypes present, energies that can take love into ecstasy or into hell.

Love is not beautiful but wants beauty, perfection of beauty. Beauty in love is the ‘desire’ to achieve full immortality, to transcend our human vulnerabilities. Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet drama is a good example of such love. In this play we can experience all the archetypes of romance that attract audiences until these days.

As we examine all the four major archetypes of romantic relationships, we need to keep in mind C. G. Jung’s advice: These are Universal energies that manifest themselves in human beings and tend to be both negative and positive in nature. We are now going to examine in more detail those four archetypal energies.

A)   The Physical Archetypal Face: This is our primal physical attraction to another. In making contact on this level, we may experience some sudden ‘electric’ current circulating throughout our body. This creates a physical sense or excitement that is attractive like one magnet to another. This excitement or magneto-electric current in our body is the energy of the LOVER Archetype. On a deeper level, the Lover seeks an authentic encounter with another that is represented by trust, oneness, unity and security.

The poet Rumi is an excellent example of the human manifestation of the Lover. He writes:

           “Every wonderful sight will vanish

Every sweet word will fade

But do not be disenchanted

The Source they come from is eternal

Growing, branching out, giving new life

And new Joy!”

 The Way of Passion

B. The Mental Archetypal face: Romantic feelings and sensations at this level emerge from our past experiences, our beliefs and values. Our beliefs structure our view of reality and our values ‘prescribe’ the relative importance of something. Thus, the two people meeting may be guided by what they have in common, how they think about things, how they ‘resonate’ with each other and what values they may be sharing (eg: religion, status, language, culture, class, etc.) Yet the hidden energies that are not expressed may be fear of intimacy, closeness, introjections, vulnerability and so on.

Minimising such ‘negative’ archetypal energies with flexibility, patience, truth, honesty, wisdom, understanding and inspiration will enable the partners to grow in harmony. However, whether we do ‘grow’ with our partner or not, our beliefs may change and we may develop or just do our ‘own thing’ as always. Yet we do get some sense of self, because all contact is a mirror for us, of who we are and such ‘mirrors’offer an opportunity to change.

The Archetypal image of this stage is the MAGUS. In the Tarot cards, the Magician is described as a skilled and clever persona who can perform rituals and call out energies of fire. Fire transforms what is added to it. This Shaman (Man of Knowledge) can transform water into steam, clay into brick and fire into ashes. The Magus is the embodiment of conscious mind that knows how to ‘manipulate’ the physical world.

C. The Emotional Archetypal Face: The emotional, romantic energy represents the search for an authentic experience inside oneself and with the ‘other’. Some call this ‘desire’; others call it ‘love’. However, many confuse desire for love and enter into what they experience romantic relationships that fill their desires and pleasure but soon lose that feeling and search again and again. This generates a plethora of emotions.

Ideally emotions tend to expand our consciousness and help us to align ourselves with the other giving expression to the qualities of enthusiasm, humour, beauty, hope, abundance, compassion, respect, humility, peace, joy, and clarity of vision. By coming into contact with those emotional energies we seek to co-create our mutual dreams, our optimal environment in order to feel good and be happy.

The archetypal image representing the manifestation of this energy is the GODDESS- the fertile Earth-mother. By her nurturing femininity she helps give ‘birth’ to creativity, abundance, joy and unconditionally offers her love to all her children. She brings dreams to fruition and brings forth a world where Intuition and Logic dwell in harmony.

D. The Spiritual Archetypal Face: The spiritual romantic energy represents the search for the ‘transcendent’ state of being with the ‘other’. It is a culmination or the integration of the previous three archetypal energies. The spiritual romantic relationship transcends time, space and acknowledges our connectedness as human beings with something more than ourselves. This opens the door to Soul-centred romantic relationships that is experienced and expressed in many different and creative ways. Here we are guided by the deeper archetypal energies of true love, acceptance, harmony and union with a higher oneness.

The Archetypal image representing this spiritual energy is the Hindu SHIVA and SHAKTI. “Only when Shiva is united with Shakti does the power to create can manifest” say the ancient Vedas. This is the ultimate romantic- spiritual union between the two archetypal energies of the Masculine and Feminine principles or Yin and Yang as they are called in the Tao Chinese practice.

This spiritual romantic tradition has also been called TANTRA. In the West it is mostly understood as ‘sacred sex’ but in India it is considered only one aspect of the union of two energies whose aim is to achieve a spiritual union here on Earth. Tantra is the concrete manifestation of the Divine energy of the Godhead. This energy, in the case of romantic relationships, seeks to ritually channel the two energies in a creative and emancipatory way.

In India the Tantra rituals of union with Shiva and Shakti energies come from the ancient customs written up in the sacred scripture called VEDAS. They are the oldest scriptures that reveal the true knowledge about living a good, healthy and happy life.

As a young man, and a shy one, I was fascinated by the stories of Indian and Japanese drawings of couples making love. The books were full of stories about emperors and noblemen trained in the art of lovemaking to have the energy of passionate sexuality well into their old age. They often had twenty or more women in their harem and all of them were kept sexually satisfied. In the ancient lovemaking text like the Kama Sutra was considered in our western world a pornographic book. However the true origin is as follows:

“The author of the `Secrets of Love' was a poet named Kukkoka. He composed his work to please one Venudutta, who was perhaps a king. When writing his own name at the end of each chapter he calls himself `Siddha patiya pandita', i.e. an ingenious man among learned men. The work was translated into Hindi years ago, and in this the author's name was written as Koka. And as the same name crept into all the translations into other languages in India, the book became generally known, and the subject was popularly called Koka Shastra, or doctrines of Koka, which is identical with the Kama Shastra, or doctrines of love”.

In the Chinese Taoist texts that I began reading only recently, it is written that the emperor should make love to nine chosen consorts every night. He is to progress from the lower ranks and then to the higher ranks. The old texts say: “Retaining his semen by proficiently dealing in the art of love, the emperor concentrates his powers within. Then, at the full moon, he gives his seed on the Queen of Heaven”. A child born from such a ritual was to have magical powers. I was in awe and wanted to know what was the way of love in China.

                                                                                  

 IS THERE A WAY?

Many teachings propose two basic ‘ways’ of seeking the truth: one is to become a follower of a teacher who has ‘been there’ and the other to ‘discover the ‘Way’ by one’s own experience. I propose a combination of the above based on the teachings of the ancient TAO.

The ‘New Age of Aquarius’ brought many so called new ideas and practices that promoted a ‘new’ consciousness in relationships. One was the concept of ‘High Monogamy’ that has been gaining popularity manly due to the AIDS epidemic. It challenges people in romantic relationships to transcend the so called “romantic egoism” while from the far East came the revival of Tibetan and Hindu Tantric sexual practices that combine a close relationship to a partner with a gradual and mutual spiritual development through specific practices. Unfortunately, currently Tantra practice has been re-defined in the literature of the West as a way to achieve better orgasm leaving out the long tradition of authentic spiritual rituals and discipline. However we often ‘know’ more about what and who we are from the vast media available today than from a deeply experienced encounter with ourselves and the ‘other’.

One of the most significant emerging ‘secret’ sexual practices comes from the ancient Chinese ‘way of life’ called THE TAO. It is not a religion, a philosophy or a cult. It was developed some eight thousand years ago in China. The main scholars who dedicated their life to the study of the principles of ‘Tao’ were Lao Tzu, the keeper of the imperial library and who came from Tibet, Chuang Tzu, who wrote about the “Refinement of Energy and Perfection of Spirit” He was one of the most influential developers of Zen Buddhism in China and master Confucius, who focused more on social conditions in China. 

The ancient Taoists developed a clear practice where a couple (or a monk) could cultivate the Tao (The Way) while remaining fully active in worldly life. They did not promote celibacy in monks as a spiritual goal but proposed a ‘middle path’ whereby harmonious relationships (not only romantic ones) would lead to longevity, physical and mental health and spiritual attainment.

But what is the real purpose of esoteric sexuality or spiritual Tantra? Where can we find the real knowledge and practical instructions in those matters? How can we apply the rituals of romantic relationships in today’s ordinary life and relationships? And how can we really understand the Spiritual Archetypes when they are so far removed from the larger religious dogmas, fundamentalism and misinformation available in the popular media?

The answer to those questions are found in the study and aware management of our sexual energies or, as the ancient called them ‘the elixir of life’. They are now available (and are not secret) in the life-affirming traditions of the TAO. Tao-ism presents us with practical perspectives that answer the above questions. The ancient Chinese masters observed that the sexual- life- elixir is closely related to ongoing physical and mental health. It also was a way to cultivating our higher spiritual faculties. They were successful, in a real way, in increasing longevity, health and harmony in relationships between sexes and provide a means of spiritual transformation.

While in the so called West, the religious traditions evolving form the cultures based on “The Book” – Christian, Moslem and Hebrew, fixed sexology in rigid moralistic dogmas and over many centuries conditioned most people to the notion that sexuality is bad or sinful to the extent that it is almost impossible for a majority of people today to grasp the essential meaning of the workings of sexual archetypal energies.

In a ‘nut shell’ the Chinese ancient Taoist practice teaches that:

1. The male is constitutionally less adequate to the female with respect to sexual capacities. Therefore the woman has the capacity and the intuition to instruct the man in romantic relationships.

2. The man must develop a specific method or discipline of having sex without ejaculation. Particularly as he grows older.

3. The so called ‘battle of the sexes’ that has created so much violence, abuse and other forms of destructive relationships has been considered by the Taoists an interplay of the dynamic Yin(feminine) and Yang(masculine) forces that are creative energies expressing a playful interaction between sexual ‘adversaries’, similar to the Hindu tradition of the Dance between Shiva and Shakti.

4. Sexual energy aided by the four Archetypes of Romantic Relationships can be transformed into active spiritual development creating peace and harmony in the world.

I was amazed that the notion that sex was sacred according to the ancient texts; it was a very attractive notion to me. Lovemaking was sacred and it had long term results. I found that the word ‘sacred’ is not used as something out there, in heaven, but a real, authentic contact with the ‘other’. I was fascinated and ready to experience such a practice – love, sex, eroticism as spiritual experiences. I found a partner that was willing to share with me this practice and we were both amazed at the results. Here is what I discovered as a man. I am not willing nor able to speak for the woman.

• Making love can be a meditation where two are sitting jointly and sensing each other’s presence. Yin-Yang energy exchange.
• Creating a special space and love rituals that will offer the couple’s mutual love to the universal Love.
• Sitting opposite each other and making a serious devotion to the goddess and god within.
• Practicing the Tao methods of ejaculation control in the man.
• Developing personal practices of lovemaking dedicated to the union of Shiva and Shakti.

Finally I found that sexual ecstasy happens when I am so completely absorbed in the richness of the present moment that nothing else exists only “I and Thou”.

Useful web pages:

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/may.html   Rollo May

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/lao.html) Tao

http://www.spiritwatch.ca  Relationships

http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk   Rollo May

http://www.khamush.com/   Rumi

http://www.cgjungpage.org   C.G. Jung

http://www.ahpweb.org    Humanistic Psychology resources.