web master Iasion
Healing and Transformation
Stations of Mythic or Spiritual Journeys
The following "stations" or "events" represent those typically found in any initiatory experience, whether the initiation be brought on by "life's journey", or invoked voluntarily by the initiate, himself in a formal or ceremonial setting. The order may differ from one setting to another.
Paradise - Innocence
Abduction
Separation from innocence/paradise/home/comfort zone
Separation from loved ones
Separation from community
Blindness
Bereftness-inconsolable grief
Entrance into the Underworld-Psychic Unveiling
Fatigue-exhaustion-illness
Loss of possessions-including identity
Abandonment-betrayal
Purification
Sacrifice
Contemplation
Lost-meaninglessness-futility-no purpose-defeat
Barrenness
Disintegration
Confrontation with one's demons-fears and history
Loss of illusions
Reduction to essence
Surrender
Fasting and preparation for ordeal
Ordeal
Prayer and meditation
Burning in the divine fire (that doesn't burn)
Alliance with the Natural World
Alliance with Liminal figures, others, the dead ( & honoring)
Dedication and devotion
Telling the story
Celebration and revelry
Alliance with the gods "Imitatio Dei vel Deae"
Re-cognition
Dis-membering
Transformation:
Unification:
Healing and Restoration:
The elements listed below more specifically relate to the Eleusinian Mysteries and to the Myth of Kore [virginal Persephone] and Demeter. In the myth and it's surrounding Psychology we find the classical Initiatory path used in everyday Jungian work: the personal journey we all must take: Innocence and it's loss to accomplish rebirth, or return to essence.
The gods "Imitatio Dei vel Deae"The Natural World
Transformation:
Purification:
Sacrifice:
Vision:
Receiving gifts:
Unification;
Healing and Restoration: Return to Essence
"Blessed are they who have seen the Mysteries, and descended into the Underworld: they know the end of life and the beginning!"
"After the uterine illumination comes the ordeal of rock out of which must be born the spark which is to fire the world. I speak in broad, swift images because to move from place to place in Greece is to become aware of the stirring, fateful drama of the race as it circles from paradise to paradise. Each halt is a stepping stone along a path marked out by the gods. They are stations of rest, of prayer, of meditation, of deed, of sacrifice, of transfiguration. At no point along the way is it marked FINIS. The very rocks, and nowhere on earth has God been so lavish with them as in Greece, are symbols of life eternal. In Greece the rocks are eloquent: men may go dead but the rocks never."
Henry Miller, Colossus of Marou
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