Inner Voyage 1 ~ The Innocent

A Woman’s Journey to Herself

You are invited to 12 Archetypal Voyages in discovering the depth of your own soul.

Beginning the Inner Voyage Through the Archetypal Innocent

Each voyage we take in these coming weeks allows us to meditatively breathe in Judith Duerk’s profound soul question, “How Might Your Life Have Been Different If…” This question opens our hearts to the potentiality forfeited in our unlived lives because of traumatic experiences of the past. My goal by sharing these tools is to provide cartography to reclaim any exiled, or lost parts of Self, that desire reclamation. Interwoven in this series of voyages, Carol Pearson’s work on archetypes is also introduced.

The Inner Voyage is a Metaphor to discover and honor what is deeply true in you. Metaphor carries with it a way of perceiving the world. The art I have chosen by other artists will be named, and the art I create is featured in Stage 2, that answers different question.  

Imagery provides unconscious connection giving voice to our multifaceted emotional states, various developmental stages, and unknown parts of ourselves, allowing us to make sense of our own inner and outer contradictions in the life journey.

It is a privilege to showcase the gifts of those who inspire me by sharing their concepts, theories, and art with my unique style. 

Stage 1  

Using Judith’s theme question, “How Might Your Life Have Been Different If…” to express your own soul’s desire and create your unique version of my modifications. Please be gentle with yourself, as there is no way to do this project incorrectly. The sky is the limit in how you approach it; cut and paste using art clippings, create a watercolor, sketch with pencil, or just put the question on the top of an empty sheet of paper and let your imagination take you deeper into the longings of your soul.  

My initial version of this project began as a method using a consilient art style. My consilient art is a medley or gallimaufry of gathering interesting images that I find in magazines, Pinterest, or Google image searches, which remind me of my inner life-scape. 

I am a visual learner, so when I am in the first stage of conceptualizing a new theoretical principle, my primary desire is to connect to the material that impacts my heart and make it artful so that I can remember concepts more readily. Being a visual learner I tend to remember colors, images, and/or placement on the page, more than I remember black and white written concepts. 

Sometimes the art goes no further. Then…if the concept is still percolating and burgeoning within my heart, I may start to dabble in pencil sketch, watercolor, and/or mixed media to make the work my own. 

If we are truthful about art, nothing is original…rather…we find our inspiration everywhere. Some artists are more talented to create from a blank slate looking at a landscape, human body, flower, or any number of abstract images that are embedded within. I am not such an artist, and I hope you do not limit yourself either. Use whatever medium speaks to you, even if it was created by another artist. 

I imagine that Judith might be pleased to know that her work carries on posthumous, through all of the ongoing feminine Circle of Stones who still ponder her particular soulful question which she initiated decades ago.  

Her work is timeless and the question still penetrates women to this day. I invite you to create your unique tincture using some of Judith’s words, and mine as a starting point. You might notice that I initially incorporated her vocabulary when it penetrated my heart, and many of her words allowed me to know myself through her language. She authored the right words that I needed to hear, thus, I held her words as mine was Stage 1 in this particular process.

After each section of prose, Judith ended with a reframe of her original question, which was, “How Might Your Life Have Been Different If,” to “How Might Your Life Be Different?” providing a smooth segue to envision a new horizon. 

Stage 2

Once Stage 1 has opened up a reflection of your unlived potentiality, deep regret, and sorrow that was long ago buried are made conscious, gently allow grief its due catharsis. Please do not stay stuck in that emotional space for the long term.  

After you have created your own prose using Judith’s work, start with a blank page and begin with a new question, “Is It Possible Now?” allowing you to imagine something possible for your life that you had not allowed yourself to dream before now. 

Links have been provided sharing examples of Stages 1 and 2 as templates to utilize in your own work. In addition, an illustration of Maureen Murdoch’s, The Heroine’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s explanation of the unconscious, and 12 Archetypes of Carol Pearson. Judith’s work has been categorized into 12 groups, utilizing the 12 archetypes as the focal themes as a workable framework.

Please remember, your writing does not have to sound like Judith’s or mine, nor does your art. If you prefer, you do not have to include any art in your journaling. The result will become a reflection of your beautiful soul. This voyage is packed full of resources for those who wish to dig deeper into how to initiate your deep sea dive, just look for the links.

Metaphorically, some seaport-stops from my feminine voyage these past decades have consisted of studying women who write from the maternal and matriarchal perspective of empowering their kinswomen. Studying their work allowed a gleaning of their unique heroine’s journey and how they “came home” to themselves. Those women will be honored throughout these next weeks. Although we all do our work individually and uniquely, following their patterns was helpful in mine. This set of blogs is dedicated to navigating waypoints in your uncharted navigation of soul.

Upon recognizing my loss of the feminine energies (my Archetypal Innocence) that are so important to little girls’ emotional development, my trek was inaugurated during childhood through betrayals by my kinswomen, my bloodline; a pattern that oppressed me throughout my early adult and midlife. In trying to regain love, I lost a part of myself as I adapted to take care of others’ emotions rather than being healthy enough to know those issues were about them and not me. 

Allowing “the other” to do their own emotional work was a foreign concept. In addition, I was too fearful of displeasing my caregivers or authority. This came from my fear of emotional abandonment. The skill of distress tolerance when I was disliked, or blamed was alien to me at one time and that is the part of myself that I have been regaining on the journey of “coming home to myself.”

This type of pain is not foreign to humans; the longer I hear others’ narratives and sit with them in their painful recovery, it is evident that fragments of the human story are perforated with the loss of secure attachment with their mothers and/or fathers.

Whether we absorb those losses into our system and soldier-on or remain stuck at the level of the loss is an important question to raise within ourselves:

• Will I remain attached to the wound and the implicit message of that experience?

• Am I repeating pattern set-ups, by allowing myself to be used in relationships and mistaking them for real friendship?  

• Am I pleasing others, acquiescing, compromising my sense of self to not make waves in relationships? 

• Will I continue to choose people in my life who repeat this pattern for me?

• How could I stop this habituated pattern of allowing myself, to do to myself, what others have done to me?

• Will I stay attached to an earlier disempowered image of myself in moments of weakness, self-betrayal, or failure?

Remember, coming home to ourselves is an actual journey, although inward, and like any journey, it takes fine tuning in self-compassion. Ask a safe, someone if they might be willing to explore the inner seascape with you, with compassion, with loving-kindness and with patience.

Music Credits:
Keep Breathing ~ Ingrid Michaelson
Face My Fears ~Isak Danielson 
Wanting to Come Home ~ Don & Lori Chaffer
Fortune (Acoustic) William Fitzsimmons

Inner Questions:
James Hollis