The Father Spirit at the Turning Point

A Guide for Rediscovering and Renewing the Foundations of Fatherhood

The Father Quest: Rediscovering an Elemental Force
by Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-9-2

The Father Spirit at the Turning Point

As I was reflecting on Fathers' Day this year and developing the material I'm going to use in a Fall lecture and workshop, "The Father Quest: A Guide for Rediscovering and Renewing the Foundations of Fatherhood," I was moved to write the following article. I titled it "The Father Spirit at the Turning Point." Good friends who publish Western North Carolina Woman magazine included it in their June issue; every year their June issue is "Honoring the Y Chromosome." Because of the enthusiastic response to the article, I've decided to share it with you. I hope that you will find it inspiring and enriching.

A few mornings after Christmas my wife and I were sitting at the breakfast table with my daughter. While I slowly sipped my tea, she was explaining how the slump in the economy had impacted their holidays. As a family of five with three children, finding their income reduced substantially had ushered in a holiday stress that was new to them. When she finished talking she sighed and added, "I've given up any hope that we can leave our children any better off than we were."

I was shocked by the discouragement in her voice. Leaving our children better off than we were when we started adult life has been a major part of the American Dream for as long as I can remember. I don't know how old that part of our dream is but I'm sure my father, who lived through the Great Depression, devoted much of his life to it. For his age-group, being sure your children went to college was considered a guarantee for the chance at a better life. My father's generation came out of the depression, World War II and the atomic age with a colossal yearning to create a healthy, sound world. They wanted their children to have lives that were smooth and prosperous. As we lived into the nineteen fifties our society and our families tried to make problems taboo. We wanted to have certainties. Or, rather, our parents wanted to have them for us even as the world was spiraling into the chaos of the nineteen sixties. I don't blame them for their longings because I know they were born out of the fear and traumas they endured and their desire to create a safer world for themselves and their children. Yet, this longing eventually became the root of their problems as it narrowed their perspective on life and now it has become the root of our problems as we have concretized the symbols of well-being onto financial success and material abundance.

I can easily remember that in the nineteen seventies our societal goal was to have more leisure time for our families and recreation. But, as we moved into the recession and energy shortage of the early nineteen eighties our old economic terrors began to re-emerge and we refocused on becoming workaholics; the trend-setting movie of that decade was Wall Street, famous for the speech in it that "greed is good." Instead of being a warning, this movie forecast the future.

The fear, anxiety and profound challenges that had caused a generation of men to become our "greatest generation" left them so wounded that they were unable to train and mentor their sons to be capable of meeting new challenges. My father and my coaches and teachers were more concerned that we be able to get "good" jobs than they were with teaching courage and the importance of character. They had lost track of the fact that the world is always spinning into a future of new challenges that we can rarely predict. This kind of a world can only be met effectively when we have learned something about the importance of having character, which includes love, openness, courage, integrity, and the respect for creativity. The dream of our Founding Fathers was to create a country where individuals could experience freedom, dignity, respect, equal protection under the law, the right to a representative government, the right to worship according to our own conscience and the pursuit of happiness. While this vision was imperfectly implemented it was the most profound social vision in history.

Let us remember now that the reason we call these men the Founding Fathers is no accident. In archetypal terms it is the positive, inspiring Father Spirit that calls for transformation, a renaissance of the spirit of the times in the culture or in each of us. From the perspective of Jungian psychology it is the positive Father Spirit that has called me to transform myself and grow through and beyond the crises in my life, and it is the positive Father Principle (both coming from the same archetype) that demands I must give a personal response to new life and a protective field for it to grow in. This is an important part of the definition of father love whether it is to mother and child or to the concerns of culture. It is the responsibility of father love to build a place for new life to thrive in.

Let us remember also that every archetypal image has a negative, destructive side as well as a positive, nurturing one. There is a negative destructive Father Spirit that we must watch out for. We have seen this image pictured in stories and movies. Darth Vader may be the one that is best known, or the father whose son committed suicide in Dead Poets' Society. Of course, some of us have experienced personifications of the destructive father spirit personally if our father was abusive or supported the Great Santini approach to sports, confrontation or aggression. The negative father spirit is also one that is fearful, afraid of being overwhelmed by life, and is therefore afraid of change, new life, and creative potentials. When we are possessed by this spirit we live in the illusionary hope that the way we did it in the past will be the best way to do it in the future.

These descriptions of the negative father spirit remind me of the experiences of an old college friend. We went to Georgia Tech and he majored in industrial engineering. His father owned a plant that produced concrete blocks. My friend looked forward to the day he could join his father and uncles in the family business. After his graduation his father said he wanted to teach him the business from the ground up and he started him at a low-paying, nasty, back-breaking job in the plant. In reality, my friend learned to hate the business and the true nature of his father that he discovered in the process. He realized his father had no respect for his intelligence or achievements in a tough university, and little respect for his desire to be close to him. And he was unable to nurture his son's ability to bring a new spirit of creativity into the business. His father's interest in maintaining his power and superiority was more important to him than his love for his son.

When my daughter spoke to me a few days after Christmas, I was too surprised to answer her very well. But after thinking about what she said I realized that we are at a turning point in history. I believe that we can leave our children and our grandchildren better off than when we entered adult life. But I also believe that our quest today is to leave them better off spiritually than we were. We can teach them more about reality than we were taught. We can help them learn while they are still in the safety of our love that life is full of uncertainty and anxiety, faith and nagging doubts, profound emotions, health and sickness, love, despair and grandeur. Our goal should not be to help them search for security but for competence in adult endeavors and for meaning along with the kind of passion that is soul deep rather than settling for the good life based on materialism. We must also teach by example or our efforts will be without substance.

If we are going to leave them better off spiritually than we were, we must be living a life supported by a spiritual purpose that is more profound than appearances, the security of fundamentalism, practices that help us avoid looking into our own souls, or the naïve answers of groups immersed in positive thinking. We should be able to show by how we live that we are aware of our ability to confront our deepest fears and hopes, our joys and sorrows, our wounds of love and how we've failed our own ideals at times. And, as our children mature we must be able to share some of what we've learned from these experiences.

The new president we've elected symbolizes a turning point. So far, he is facing our many problems with foresight and intelligence. I'm impressed that he doesn't see war as the solution to every problem ranging from cancer to terrorism. It is about time we learned, or relearned the lesson from our Founding Fathers, that masculine strength, wisdom and courage, when used in support of life's greatest principles, can overcome the efforts of mighty empires whose major focus is on power and commerce.

Our new president is a symbol of the new potential that has been aroused in our country. But, he is not a savior and he knows it. We must answer our own call to transform our model of living into one that isn't based on the fear of losing our never-ending material growth. The Father Spirit at its best calls us to look for balance and depth, for spiritual growth to balance our material growth and spiritual depth to provide the meaning that can give purpose and support to our lives-because neither the material alone nor the spiritual alone can give us the needed fullness of life.

We are also in a dangerous time. When great new potentials are born, the forces of the old order are threatened and fight back. Just as King Herod slaughtered the innocents, all of the new creative potentials he could get his hands on, the voices of conventional wisdom, of fear and the status quo, will fight viciously to retain their power and control. But, this is an era for men to live with new courage, creativity and love-in the support of life. I am looking forward to seeing my grandsons live into this world, and I want to do everything I can to help prepare them for it and it for them.

The Father Quest:
Rediscovering an Elemental Force
by Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-9-2
Available from your local bookstore, a host of online booksellers, and directly from Fisher King Press
Call 1-800-228-9316 to order by phone.

Looing for a few good men . . . Authentic 21st Century Men, that is!

a review by Mel Mathews
of Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century

Not long ago while listening to a NPR broadcast concerning Masculinity in the 21st Century, I was caught up by an interview of a woman journalist who had written about 'what it means to be a man in the 21st century.' The concept of a woman reporting on and defining, or attempting to define, masculinity was a bit off-putting. We tread on thin ice when a woman, or women define manhood and/or masculinity, just as we do when a man, or men attempt to define women and femininity. Sure, we all carry these contra-sexual aspects within, but that doesn’t make Man an authority on femininity, nor Woman an authority on masculinity, anymore than it makes a lefty an authority on a righty. The interview soon shifted away from a woman’s definition of masculinity and to pop-cultural definitions of manhood. Perhaps I was still ruffled by this lefty-righty thing, but I also considered it quite shallow to have masculinity or femininity defined by fleeting fashions of pop-culture, for as naturally as DNA defines genetics, archetypal patterns define the psychological and spiritual makeup of masculinity and femininity—not passing trends.

Now, speaking as a man about masculinity, I can say that many 21st century men have been raised by women—without a masculine role model—and what they've learned about being a man has been defined by the media, the women’s movement, and many other distorted social norms. Often, such men discover that they are no longer able or willing to carry these externally imposed values and instead seek alternative definitions of masculinity and lifestyles. Some would call these periods of change a crisis; others would consider this a step in the direction of mental health. Regardless of how we label this time of soul-searching, it ultimately calls for a willingness to suffer the unknown. The rewards for such courage often prove quite beneficial. For those willing to take on the task of becoming an 'authentic' man, one can expect to gain a more defined sense of self who is moved by his own internal values, and in turn experience a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

However, all the compensatory posturing, chest-pounding or drum-beating in the world won't revive this great masculine spirit. This can only be accomplished by developing a deeper relationship to soul, to the archetypal patterns or energies that comprise the core aspects of our beings. The mental landscape of metaphors—dreams, stories, myths, fairy tales—deal with the eternal truths of human nature and are the language of soul. In the recently published book Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, Bud Harris masterfully guides readers deep into the realm of metaphors where we can examine the evolution and development of human consciousness and reclaim discarded, yet much needed, integral aspects of our masculine natures.

"True masculinity—not the macho type—is needed for men to be strong enough to meet the feminine in themselves. For this they must find their own masculine face—not a face defined by women," suggests Bud Harris in Resurrecting the Unicorn. Harris then delves into the fairy tale, "Fyrtoiet," better known as "The Tinder Box" by Hans Christian Andersen, where an "Elemental Blueprint for Developing Masculinity" is extracted from the symbolic metaphors of this wise old tale.

Perhaps it’s time to pick up where Robert Bly's Iron John and Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly left off in the last part of the 20th century. If you're ready to explore and claim an 'authentic' masculinity from a place that calls for a great deal of courage, where truth, values, and integrity are defined from within, not by antiquated beliefs or pop-culture, then Bud Harris' Resurrecting the Unicorn is certainly worthy of your time and attention.

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, ISBN 978-0-9810344-0-9 is available from the publisher, Fisher King Press at www.fisherkingpress.com or by calling 1-831-238-7799. This timely publication is also available from your local bookstore and from a host of online booksellers.

Mel Mathews' book reviews have appeared in many syndicated publications. He is the author of the Malcolm Clay Trilogy, a series of novels that portray a man’s struggles as he goes against the grains of his upbringings and emerges as a renewed man who is guided by his own inner truth and hard-won wisdom. Learn more about this reviewer and his publications at: www.melmathews.com or www.malcolmclay.com

Permission to reprint this article is granted.

Father's Day and The Father Quest

With Great Pleasure we present the following new Fisher King Press titles by Bud and Massimilla Harris:


The Father Quest:
Rediscovering an Elemental Force
by Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-9-2

An in-depth focus on the spiritual and psychological dimensions of fatherhood, The Father Quest goes beyond simple prescriptions and techniques to explain the importance of fatherhood to our present day culture. The “Father” is one of the two great pillars of society that shape and support human life from the beginning. Readers who are struggling to be fathers, as well those who are struggling with their own fathers, will find healing ingredients to awaken an inner source of renewal and inspiration. One of many subjects explored is the critical importance of passion and love as key ingredients of the “spirit of fatherhood.”





Like Gold Through Fire:
Understanding the Transforming Power of Suffering
by Massimilla and Bud Harris
ISBN 978-0-9810344-5-4

Like Gold Through Fire helps readers to fathom the mystery of their own heart and guides them through life’s labyrinth toward fulfillment and joy. It emphasizes the transforming power of suffering, how it can change us and open our hearts to compassion and joy, and in turn provide for a more rewarding life filled with a wider range of experiences. Like Gold Through Fire helps us to find meaning and to function in a society filled with suffering—helps us to participate in the transformation, as opposed to being a victim of our rapidly changing world.

“A Herculean work . . . whose purpose is to help us fathom the depth of this mystery in our own hearts. The Harrises, in this marvelous book, help us begin this holy work.” —Robert Sardello, Ph.D., Author of Love and the Soul




Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century
by Bud Harris
—ISBN 978-0-9810344-0-9

In the present day, our culture's evolving masculine spirit seems to be sputtering out. Many 21st century men have been raised by women—without a masculine role model—and what they've learned about being a man has been defined by the media and distorted social norms. As is the case for both men and women, without a strong masculine image our souls become fragmented and we lose our way.

All the compensatory posturing, chest-pounding or drum-beating in the world won't revive this great masculine spirit! This can only be accomplished by developing a deeper relationship to soul. The mental landscape of metaphors—dreams, stories, myths, fairy tales—deal with the eternal truths of human nature and are the language of soul. In Resurrecting the Unicorn, Bud Harris guides us deep into the realm of metaphors so we can examine the evolution and development of human consciousness and reclaim discarded, yet much needed, aspects of our humanity.

On sale now for $19.95 ea or
Order all three of these Harris titles for $49.95
at www.fisherkingpress.com
Or phone 1-800-228-9316
International call +1-831-238-7799
Credit Cards Accepted

Massimilla and Bud Harris are diplomates of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. They are practicing Jungian analysts and the cofounders of the C.G. Jung Center for Professional development in Asheville, NC. Bud Harris is the author of several publications including Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century, Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance and The Fire and the Rose: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality.

Title information about the many Fisher King Press publications can be found at www.fisherkingpress.com

To download a pdf version of The Fisher King Review which includes an article by Nancy Qualls-Corbett concerning: Re-Imagining Mary and an article by Fisher King author Erel Shalit, titled: Transiency and the Culture of Plastic, click HERE or visit the links page of our website.

SACRED SELFISHNESS: Lecture & Seminar

"... to be able to give something one has to be something...one must consist of gold and not of hunger."
C.G.Jung

"How can you love somebody if you don't love yourself? How can you give what you don't have?"
Maya Angelou

SACRED SELFISHNESS:
A Guide for Cultivating a Life of Love, Authenticity, and Substance
A Lecture, Seminar, & Workshop by Bud Harris








EVENING LECTURE
Friday, July 10, 2009
and
SEMINAR, WORKSHOP and LUNCHEON
Saturday, July 11, 2009
with BUD HARRIS, Ph.D.
Jungian Analyst and Author Diplomate, C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich



FRIDAY LECTURE
In his seminars on Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Dr. Carl Jung emphasized that we must eat the gold of the world until we are made of gold and not hunger. Sacred Selfishness is the path of filling ourselves with gold. This path is based on the classic quest stories that reveal the path of renewed personal consciousness and help us examine all of our assumptions about ourselves and our lives to assist us in uncovering our hidden potentials.

Filling ourselves with gold is more than an intellectual exercise. It engages us fully in life and through growing self-knowledge softens and strengthens us while helping us to love life and other people. This lecture will explain how this idea evolved with Dr. Harris in the context of Dr. Jung's theory of individuation. Dr. Harris will provide an overview of how this path unfolds theoretically and in everyday life, how real love grows from the foundation of self-love.

SATURDAY SEMINAR, WORKSHOP & LUNCHEON
In the workshop, Dr. Harris explains how most of us are taught from childhood that we are supposed to be generous, to give to other and to meet the needs of people around us. In this part of the program we will explore how Jung's insistence that we eat the gold in the world and accumulate abundance differs from our early teachings and runs against society's sets of demands for feeling successful and worthwhile. Our early lessons and society's values leave us with unmet, often hidden needs and desires, especially those for love, passion and authenticity.

We will seek to amplify and understand the personal and collective forces that have molded our lives, created our scripts and the ways we can free ourselves from these influences and allow the potentials we have formerly curtailed to flourish with new life and transform us.

We will conclude by exploring how we can cultivate relationships and lives that are filled with gold. Workshop participants are asked to bring a pen and paper.

THEMES IN THE JOURNEY OF SACRED SELFISHNESS

1. Understanding the differences between sickly selfishness and Sacred Selfishness.

2. The benefits and spiritual dimensions of Sacred Selfishness.

3. Recognizing the role of Sacred Selfishness in healthy growth

4. How we all have become "captives of normalcy."

5. How we can truly become ourselves.

6. Encountering loneliness and darkness on the path.

7. Facing and dealing with the realities of our families.

8. Accepting symptoms and finding hope and healing.

9. Living a life of passion.

10. How to deal with conflicts between obligations and personal values in the journey.

11. Finding consciousness, illumination and community.

12. What it means to love others and life.

LECTURE
Friday, July 10th 7:30 - 9pm
In this illuminating lecture Dr. Bud Harris will share with us the path for renewing our lives through Sacred Selfishness and how Jungian psychology can help us transform ourselves and the world around us.

Admission is $25 for general admission, $20 for early registration.

SEMINAR, WORKSHOP & LUNCHEON
Saturday, July 11th 10am - 4pm
In this empowering workshop, Dr. Harris will show how Jungian psychology can help us utilize the power of Sacred Selfishness in transforming our lives.

Please bring a pencil and paper to write down your reflections about topics discussed in both the lecture and the workshop. A free Sacred Selfishness workbook is also included.

Admission is $90 for general admission, $80 for early registration. Please register early if possible in order to insure menu selection..

Events to be held at
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville
Corner of Charlotte Street and Edwin Place
Asheville, North Carolina

Registration is available at the door. If you plan to attend, please take advantage of the early registration savings by emailing harrisseminars@gmail.com or calling 828-398-2806, For further information, please call 828-251-9719.

To register by mail, please send a check for the total amount payable to Dr. Bud Harris, One Oak Plaza, Suite 308, Asheville NC 28801

Bud Harris is the author of several publications, including the following Fisher King Press titles: Resurrecting the Unicorn, The Father Quest, and Like Gold Through Fire (co-authored with his wife, Dr. Massimilla Harris.) All are on sale now for purchase directly from Fisher King Press for $49.95. Visit www.fisherkingpress.com or phone in your order to 1-800-228-9316, international orders +1-831-238-7799

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Presentation & Book Signing

Bud Harris will be giving a presentation on his most recent publication:
Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century
On Sunday, March 22, 2009 3:00 p.m.
Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC 28801
828-831-8828

Press Release: Masculinity in the 21st Century

December 28, 2008

Fisher King Press Announced today,

Now available:

Resurrecting the Unicorn:
Masculinity in the 21st Century

A few months ago, Bud Harris phoned and we visited about the possibility of bringing one of his publications back into production. "What’s the title?" I asked. “Emasculation of the Unicorn: The loss and rebuilding of Masculinity in America,” Bud answered. My knees shuttered a bit before I crossed my legs. “We did quite well with this book and it has even been translated into Spanish,” Bud explained. “Well, send a copy and we’ll have a look,” I answered, thinking, holy Moses, how the heck are we gonna sell a book entitled the emasculation of anything?

The Unicorn arrived a week or so later. After reading the first 15 to 20 pages I was thoroughly convinced that this book had been written and originally published before its time, in an era when men were reading Robert Bly’s Iron John and desperately gathering in vain at weekend retreats in hopes of reclaiming their lost masculinity, in an era when we were just beginning to understand that something wasn’t quite right—when we were just beginning to realize that things were out of balance. The men's movement of the 90s withered and fell along the wayside, as so many fads do, but the issues at hand did not go away—instead, they faded back into shadowland. But as we know, sooner or later, these discarded images come back to haunt us, and that’s where Resurrecting the Unicorn comes into play.

In the present day, our culture's evolving masculine spirit seems to be sputtering out. Many 21st century men have been raised by women—without a masculine role model—and what they've learned about being a man has been defined by their mothers, wives, and outdated or distorted concepts from the 20th century feminist movement. As is the case for both men and women, without a strong masculine image our souls become fragmented and we lose our way. When we are in such a state of confusion and imbalance, we must begin again to search for the Holy Grail. The Grail is the symbolic container of the psycho-spiritual contents that can nourish, balance, and renew our lives.

All the compensatory posturing, chest-pounding or drum-beating in the world won't revive this great masculine spirit! This can only be accomplished by developing a deeper relationship to soul. The mental landscape of metaphors—dreams, stories, myths, fairy tales—deal with the eternal truths of human nature and are the language of soul. In Resurrecting the Unicorn, Bud Harris guides us deep into the realm of metaphors where we can examine the evolution and development of human consciousness and reclaim discarded, yet much needed, aspects of our humanity.

Bud Harris is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. He and his wife, Massimilla Harris, are practicing Jungian analysts in Asheville, NC. Dr. Harris is the author of several publications including Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance and The Fire and the Rose: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality.

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century
ISBN 13: 978-0-9810344-0-9
Publication Date: January 1st, 2009
Price: $25.00
Size: 5.5 x 8.5
300 Pages
Author: Bud Harris
Publisher: Fisher King Press

Fisher King books are available directly from Fisher King Press. Attention Booksellers and Libraries, our titles are available to you directly from Fisher King Press with industry standard discounts.

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century by Bud Harris
—ISBN 978-0-9810344-0-9

A Passionate Life: Singed, Scorched, and Seasoned

by Bud Harris, Ph.D.

Dear Reader,

"An analyst is needed who is not only wise and compassionate, but also singed, scorched and seasoned: someone who understands how tough life really is" is a sentence that vibrated through my being like an electric current when I first read it. The words came from one who knew, the venerable analyst June Singer, over 25 years ago. I was in the early stages of my analytic training and June had written the chapter on training in the first edition of Jungian Analysis, edited by Murray Stein. My God, has it been that long? Yes, but I still read this chapter now and then for it sums up the myth I live and work by. But, June is also summarizing the effects of the journey for anyone who wants to live passionately, consciously and become fully alive. I am deeply grateful to her for how she articulated this reality.

Singed, Scorched and Seasoned

Growing up has surprised me by turning out to be a lifelong endeavor. Initially, I charged into adulthood with so much determination that I didn't think very much about how desperately I was tying to figure out how to be happy and successful. My generation married young and I got married while still in college. As I've talked with men's groups over the years I have realized that marriage was our attempt at initiation, to force ourselves into the quest for adulthood. Likewise, for many of us, joining the corporate world was an effort to find our place in the culture of grown- ups. Later, when I stepped out of the corporate world and into my own business I was trying to step toward a more personal sense of identity.

Before taking this step, I spent over two years planning my new venture and consulting with friends about making this change. During these discussions I became aware of the underlying layer of dissatisfaction in so many of the men and women I was close to. In addition, I was mentally working out the details and imagining the success that was fueling my courage to take this leap. Such thoroughness backed by the power of dreams, determination, friends and colleagues led to the success of my business, but not to my fantasized satisfaction. My full engagement paid off except for the fact I ended up depressed instead of happy.

Even if we need to heal our childhoods, and who doesn't, it must then lead to a full engagement in life for individuation to proceed. Living passionately, according to Jung, will bring us to the right path even if we're doing the wrong thing to begin with. Living passionately also brings a certain singeing. Singeing comes from being near to or in the flame, the flame of being involved whole-heartedly in life and facing its failures, problems, blocks and wounds head on. It also means reflecting upon such experiences and searching for meaning in them. Trying to "get it right" in advance, leads to being stuck and constantly spinning our wheels. A full engagement generates the material for us to reflect on that builds our consciousness and opens the doors to new life.

Massimilla and I have often talked about how accepting the failure of our dreams, ideals and what we thought we knew about life has dropped us into the singeing flames of transformation. This acceptance isn't easy and we've had to learn to honor our grief and bitterness as part of the transformative work. Acceptance is a turning point. In my last newsletter I talked about acceptance. It means we face the fire of our own experiences and quit trying to avoid the necessary psychological death that preceeds breaking through our limitations and being reborn. Too often we defend against our pain and the transformative process by turning our symptoms into enemies that we want to banish, suppress or defeat. Transformation means giving up our defense structure of creating a war within ourselves-the structure that wants to prevent us from seeking out the truth of our own reality. This approach is "the road less traveled," it is counter-cultural and it negates our ideas of control, rationality and fixing problems. But, it allowed me to turn my depression into a path of deep healing, reflection and the source of a new life.

With reflection, the scorching began. I realized I was not who I thought I was. I was not a unique individual living a creative life (like most of my business friends imagined) who would have answered immediately, "of course" if you had asked him if he loved himself. It scorches the soul to realize you are living a pattern designed collectively by family, society, church, job and traditions. And, that the only thing unique about it was how my childhood wounds and successes operated to shape the living of this pattern. I was depressed and collapsing and faced with the question, "Can you accept this person and love him?" Scorching meant accepting that my most treasured activities, planning, dreaming and pursuing the dream were narcotizing my fear. This acceptance is difficult and I see the need for it almost daily as I work and teach. I wish I knew how to make it easier for people but it is the necessary cleansing fire. All too often our most successful actions are in the service of flight. I was admired for being ambitious, courageous, taking risks, being hard-working and smart enough to pursue my dreams. And, love was involved for I loved my family and wanted a better life for them. Plus, I firmly believed I was fulfilling my obligations. Make no mistake about this fact either. I'm glad I did it! I'm glad because the experience gave me a foundation of courage to take risks that is still alive today. I'm glad because this experience taught me that the journey into hell is the first step in discovering the deep well of psychic energy within that ultimately makes love and joy equal parts of life. And, I'm glad that I have become a seasoned guide in this process like the ones I was so fortunate to have had.

The reality is that our culture teaches us to run harder and achieve more in order to avoid confronting ourselves, the earlier struggles and realities in our past, and the fiction we are creating and thinking of as our lives. Depression and chaos was the Self's way of stopping me, calling for healing and trying to force self-confrontation. But, I still had a choice. I could have chosen to seek a conventional cure and some semblance of normal functioning. Or, I could have repressed my inner conflicts so vigorously that I could have forced them into becoming an illness. Actually, I believed at the time I would have a heart attack before I was 40 if I stayed on the same path. Something inside warned me of this danger and thankfully I listened and made the second choice of journeying into the unknown land of seeking to know myself.

To be familiar with myth is to know that Odysseus, Aneas, Faust and others had to go into the underworld to find vital wisdom. Dante writes his great poem to show the rest of us the way. We can only reach heaven through hell, by carrying our cross into the darkness of our fear, shadow, wounds and failed dreams. Dante started his journey on Good Friday. Anger, sorrow, disappointment, bewilderment, being singed and scorched are preludes to individuation, to becoming whole and realizing the true depth of love and the richness of life available to us. This path is the one that transforms our ego and initiates it into a relationship with the Self, the Divine spark within. The archetypal pattern of transformation confronts us (our ego) and by doing so belies our cultural ideals and self-help books because we cannot be reborn without dying; and individuation is about being reborn again, again and again.

My winter newsletter will be devoted to the results of the journey, becoming seasoned. Seasoning gives us a sense of life's limitations and also its abundance that we cannot know and understand until we-this is our egos-have been initiated into a relationship with the Self. Until, through consciousness and the pursuit of self-knowledge we have fully experienced life and learned about the deep potentials of love, passion and the abundance available to us.

Bud Harris' latest book THE FIRE AND THE ROSE: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality as well as his many other previously publications can be purchased wherever books are sold. In the Asheville, NC area, you can buy this book at Malaprop's, at Accent on Books, and other fine bookstores. Or you can purchase this book online from amazon.com