Telos Initiative
Telos is a term used by the philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause or purpose of something. Our telos is to seek truth and cultivate wisdom using dialogue and rational discussion. The podcast will cover a wide range of topics in various genres and we hope to grow with our audience toward our ultimate purpose in this mystifying existence.
Telos Initiative
Episode 6 - The Four Archetypes
Unlock the secrets to living a balanced and fulfilling life with Angelo, Chris and Matt, as we explore the compelling world of archetypes. Our latest episode walks you through the essential traits of the four primary archetypes—Warrior, Lover, Magician, and Sovereign—as defined in Moore and Gillette's groundbreaking book, "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover." Learn how the Warrior's discipline, the Lover's appreciation of beauty, the Magician's wisdom, and the Sovereign's sense of order are crucial for achieving harmony in your personal and professional life.
Discover how archetypes influence personal growth and relationships, as Matt shares insightful strategies for harnessing the Magician's wisdom to navigate life's challenges and the Sovereign's ability to underpin other archetypes with a sense of order and generativity. We'll also delve into the symbolic significance of Norse runes in relation to abundance and generative principles, and explore the overlapping dynamics between masculine and feminine archetypes. The episode gets even more intriguing as we uncover the shadow sides of these energies, revealing how imbalances can manifest in destructive behaviors and offering the keys to nurturing a balanced self.
Finally, we spotlight the power of archetypes in creativity and leadership, using characters like Rurouni Kenshin and Dexter Morgan to illustrate the disciplined nature of the Warrior archetype. Matt, Chris and Angelo discuss how balancing personal and collective growth can strengthen both your home foundation and broader societal impact. Learn about the importance of organizational partners in turning creative ideas into reality, and how mythological elements like Odin's ravens and wolves can offer profound insights into the balance between thought, memory, greed, and hunger. This episode is packed with wisdom and practical advice to help you harness archetypal energies for a richer, more harmonious life.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast. I'm Angelo Cole, I'm Chris Vigil and I'm Matt Maes. Today we are going to be talking about a particular topic that Matt is somewhat interested in and I'm not so privy to. It's the four archetypes. Matt, do you mind giving a little bit of, maybe an introduction to, what makes these four archetypes so special?
Matt:Yeah, absolutely. And I have to say I've been blessed to be with a partner who has really introduced me to this concept and I've been able to go into it in my own men's work journey and it's just been a deepening uh, deepening dynamics for me and I've, you know, really found them in multiple different dimensions in my life and it's really opened up a lot of self-awareness for myself, like how I see myself and how I, how I see others, how I'm to relate to others. But in a nutshell, the term archetypes really comes from Carl Jung's work originally, and then specifically the four archetypes were really fleshed out by Moore and Gillette's book. Was I forget the word of the archetype, the order of the archetypes in the book, like lover, magician, sovereign warrior, something like something like that?
Angelo:okay, right and you said that's more in gillette, more and gillette, yeah, more.
Chris:And so, Robert Moore m-o-o-R-E and Douglas Gillette. Yes, thank you, and the book is. King Warrior, magician Lover.
Matt:King, warrior, magician, lover. Okay, Interesting, awesome, thank you.
Angelo:This will be a new topic for me. I honestly don't know too much about it. I've heard a few things that Matt's brought up before in conversations of the past, but as far as really the power of what these archetypes have and what they can do for you, I'm really interested in hearing what you have to say about that.
Matt:Yeah, absolutely. And so to give an overview, a really simplistic way, a primer, of how to think about the archetypes, so there are four, and so the reason why I can't remember the order of the titles of the books is because I, well, we can think of them in terms of the directions, right, so that's how, like, literally in my mind, I think of them in terms of the. In terms of the directions, right, so that's how, in like, literally, in my mind, I think of them that way, right, so the warrior is the south and represents the well, it's the go-getter energy, and it's also boundaries. It's also like when someone crosses a boundary that you have, then you know the tendency for someone would be to to get defensive or to be, you know, anger is an indicator that something important to you has been overstepped Right.
Matt:So, typically, when someone is defensive or feeling like you know, in that fight or flight thing or two people or or more people are in conflict, it's usually because one or more of those people has at least felt disrespected in some way, like some you know something has been crossed. Um, you know, a perceived slight has occurred, right? So that's where the warrior energy comes out and it's like, hey, you know, I'm defending what is important to me, right?
Matt:a boundary the boundary, yeah, um, but it's in terms of even beyond boundaries, it really, it really is the force of going out and doing the thing like the warrior. Is action right, okay, okay. So then we have to. The east is the lover. Now, the lover is concerned with, well, in terms of self-love and love for others, and also the aesthetic connection with things, right. So it's the part of you that is rejuvenating, the part that appreciates beauty, the part that, well, I mean, lights things up for you. You know, it gives that sense of vibrance in the world, right, and to the west, you have the magician.
Matt:Now, the magician represents the mind, it represents our ability to analyze things, to conceive things, um, really to imagine, and it is also the seat of wisdom you know, when, when centered, the magician represents, uh, wisdom, or being able to, to be in touch with wisdom, and the sovereign, which is another name for the king or queen, is the part that is well. It represents order, it represents bringing. I love this. My first men's work teacher shared this with me. It invites all parts to the table, so it invites the magician, the lover, the warrior and connects all of them together. And one of its best qualities, I think its prime quality, is it's that sense of who you are. It's that sense of Identity.
Matt:Well, it's yeah. Identity, your idea well it's yeah, like your uniqueness, your unique brilliance, like what is, like what's special about you and the, the impact that you put into the world, the influence that you have in the world, right, and much like, Much like. Each one of them are individual, but by themselves they can get lost, right? So the magician without the you know we'll go more into this, I'm sure, in our talk but the magician without the softness of the lover can become callous and intense and very cynical and dry and bitter and, by the opposite token, it can get its head stuck in the sand and in denial and not properly regarding things that it needs to pay attention to and could use that warrior energy to activate it and to kind of kick its butt a little bit, frankly, and bring it back to center, right. So if you ever experience that and it seems like you're dealing with an intense person who you know, oh, this person seems like you're dealing with an intense person who you know, oh, this person's mean or strict or whatever they're, uh, my guess is they're probably just trying to make you aware, you know, trying to make you aware, and it's like that's, that's the way to kind of break through is, is that intent? You know somewhat intense energy of the warrior. So it's actually a really reasonable thing a lot of the times.
Matt:So yeah, in an overview, that's how to think about the archetypes, and they each have different poles too, so I'll share more of this as we go in. But they have the inflated and the deflated sides to each of them, which manifest in different ways, and typically someone doesn't have just just an overinflation or an over, you know, a deflation in one side. It's usually more like a pendulum, Like one is an expression of, or I was about to say, one is an expression of the other. Well, one is a pull of the others. But basically you're out of balance, you know, and we can all get out of balance in different ways. But you know that's where shadow work comes in and that's where we're, you know we're able to analyze and work with these parts of ourselves okay that that makes me wonder, um, is there a tendency to lean towards one or more of these, uh, particular archetypes for each individual?
Angelo:like, would you sort of, is there like a sort of test where you're like, hmm, I test more towards the warrior because, uh, I have the tendency to, um, maybe act before I think, or, uh, you know so each of these four archetypes the uh, king, warrior, magician and the lover has a good and healthy expression of itself, but also has a dark inverse which can also be expressed.
Chris:Now I think you can lean towards one of those. Um, I think, ideally you have the culmination of all four of those things in the father archetype archetype. Um, interesting, yeah.
Chris:So when I I actually listened to an interview by more in gillette, as someone had recorded and I think it was robert moore, said that the catholic priest is the christian version of the magician okay so I think if a person has a tendency, if you're a christian person or a catholic person and you have a tendency towards thinking you might be a priest, right, that is like the, the forefronted archetype of the magician expressing itself in your life. Other people might be like a scientist or social justice or not, warrior, but I mean, you know, that's the idea just someone who's um, who's like a big mover, a social mover okay, maybe a businessman or could be.
Chris:Yeah, I think I think when you, when you get down to the skill types that you have, like you know, you might have an affinity towards business or philosophy or law or science that's your weapon of choice and what you choose to do with that being a go-getter and establishing boundaries with your skills and what you're going to channel that energy towards, that is the warrior energy, okay, I almost feel like I see um a hint of that trinity that we talked about earlier, where there's um a feeling and a thinking in the lover and the doer, and then there's a I mean the lover and the magician, and then there's a doing in the uh, warrior, so, and then you mentioned the king is sort of the uniting principle amongst those.
Matt:Yeah, like that would be three, I would say being okay the sovereign is. It's not you're, you're really onto it. Like the sovereign would be being. The magician is thinking, the lover is feeling and the warrior is is doing. Okay, yeah. And and to your question earlier too about how someone can express in different archetypes, I think we we can have our basic stock, say personalities or psychologies or, you know, tendencies, but then these things also get affected throughout life, right?
Matt:so like the magician has this special capacity. I've heard this named one of two things either the safety officer or the oh, what was the? What's the other one? Anyway, what that one does is it's looking well. It's really because it's it's the conceiving Right that helps you to stay safe, right? So say, someone grew up with an abusive father, alcoholic parent or something like that. You know, then, what, like what ways did you conceive, say at a young age, that helps you to navigate around that? Did you figure like, oh, I have to be out of the house when this person comes home, or I have to hide away in my room or do all these things, or create these psychological mechanisms to help me to deal with what's going on around me, you know. So those can be current to that time and sometimes they're relevant, and the magician can look out for times in your life where that may also be relevant, you know, because that may not be the only time where those coping mechanisms can come into play, right.
Angelo:Right.
Matt:But where that can run into trouble is when you are in a place in your life where those coping mechanisms are no longer relevant and those end up playing out. You end up seeing illusions that you think are hints of those real situations that happened in the past. But you have to go back and you have to kind of go in the onion skin of undoing those things or learning new things. And one of the capacities of the magician is it'll reveal what you're ready for at that time. Because if you're just to break your whole, entire mind open, then that could be, frankly, be a lot, you know.
Chris:I think if you're able to channel the magician energy which is the priest energy, right, that's going to afford you wisdom in situations and also insight. But you're right, I mean, you know when, when more and gillette wrote their book. You know just to. I mean, just to reframe a little bit. Um, I was really excited for this talk because I think, if we play our cards right, what we might end up doing is just doing a deep dive into each of these archetypes, because they're really powerful ideas and I think it's important to speak, that we allow these energies and these archetypes to speak to our society and culture, which needs powerful men, you know, to help, just to help. I mean, that's the whole point, or one of their points was to become good men to serve the people around you okay, which brings me to a question is this geared more towards, uh, masculinity, or is there a feminine component to it?
Chris:well, moran gillette recommended another book entitled a goddess and every woman. That was meant to speak more specifically to women and the feminine energies, and I did, I mean actually ran across a copy of that at a used bookstore recently. I should have picked it up.
Matt:We may have to dive back into that one, that's a whole other layer too Right.
Angelo:Does it map feminine characteristics onto the same archetypes or does it come up with new archetypes for the figure.
Chris:I think they come up with different archetypes with different characteristics. But you know, I feel like I'm sort of a midpoint in this kind of situation. I mean, my parents were divorced but I relied really heavily on my mom and my relationship with my mom and she kind of served both functions as mother and protector okay and, um, that was really important to me, uh.
Chris:So I mean, there were, there were things that I read about the king archetype, um, when I was reviewing for this podcast episode, that I recognized my mom. You know, she did those things.
Angelo:I do want to touch more on the king, because I think that one to me seems like maybe the hardest one to kind of get a grip on, because the other ones seem very focused in one aspect of something. But this king is almost like a uniting amongst all three.
Chris:well, the king underlies all of the other archetypes, because what the king energy is doing, literally, it's generating order and it's generating fertility and blessing by the power of its energy and it's living through you Like potential as well. Well, it's all potential until it's actualized, right?
Matt:So when I say it generates, it's actualizing order and fertility and blessing in your life order and fertility and blessing in your life and say we can then go into the different roles that that might serve, like like, let's say, let's take the archetypal system and say you have, you know, the king and queen of a house, right? So say one, is you very focused on nurturing, very focused on, you know, maintaining the flourish and all those? And then you have the generating principle, you know, which allow, and I love, I'm going to, I'm going to dip into, I'm going to dip into a rune reference here, which don't even get me frigging started on runes, you know, but I'll go into this real quick. So, for those who aren't familiar with runes, they're not only an alphabet but they also represent different qualities, right From Norse alphabet, right?
Matt:So you have fehu represents well, not only wealth but abundance, right, and growth, right, and just recently learned about this, like you know, this relationship between pairing different, uh, different runes, like different ones working together. So the next one would be urus. Right now, urus is like the, it is like the generating principle I think about, like if you have the soil and what grows out of the soil, so urus is like what allows the things there to grow, right?
Chris:so it's like the rain that comes down.
Matt:In fact, if you look at the symbol, you know it's the prongs pointed downwards towards the ground, right? So if you think about the ground and then you think about what comes down, like the rain comes down and makes it possible for the growth to occur, right? Same with the sun, the sun's, you know what comes through the sunlight that comes down to earth, that allows that growth to occur. So there's a dynamic relationship between both of those things that are being in our capacity and feeling worthy, in our capacity to perform these different functions, whichever one may, which one may be right for you, which one well and may. Work in those dynamics, say within, you know, within a household. Work in those dynamics, say within, you know, within a household, then that is really tied to your sense of impact and influence.
Matt:And you know importance. And when I use that word worthiness, that's uh. So each one of these archetypes can have a core wound as well that when it's damaged, then you know that's where, again, shadow work comes in, going in and dealing with whatever that is, and you know so for, so, for the sovereign, it would be worthiness, you know okay so you, you would treat these similarly to like maybe something like the chakras where you have one that can be wounded.
Angelo:You have like all of these in you and you can focus on one aspect that's maybe weak or not getting enough attention, definitely, and channel energy into that Right and they are all meant to work together.
Chris:So what I think Matt was talking about and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're talking about channeling that king energy into the other archetypes as needed and necessary, which is great, but also that the king archetype himself has to overcome a darkness, and that darkness tends to be in the image of unworthiness of oneself. Image of unworthiness of oneself. But yeah, the other archetypes also live inside your psyche, your spirit, your soul, your mind, and they each have a wound that they need to. You can't get rid of an archetype. You have to live with all of them inside of you. You just need to focus on one to try to heal each one individually, and some are stronger than others, some are not okay I think you know more and gillette wrote their book in that order, king warrior, magician, lover.
Chris:because the first thing that you have to do is establish the power of the king, because without generating order and generating fertility and blessing for your life, you're dead in the water for everything else, gotcha. So your first thing is to establish good moral character by adhering, by finding and adhering to a set of good principles.
Matt:Wow, I love that you said that too, because, going to the relationship between the different archetypes, so let's say specifically, the king and the sovereign and the warrior, right? So if the warrior is just going around and fighting but doesn't know what it's fighting for and say it's getting occupied with defending the boundaries and just meaninglessly pursuing different things, right, but it doesn't have a code, it doesn't have an order, a thing to fight for, then it can get lost. And you know, talking about the different poles, the inflated pole would be the sadist. That would be one name for it, right? So one that is like cruel to others, a cruel, you know doing cruel things to other people.
Angelo:And that's the inverse of the warrior.
Matt:Yeah, so that would be the inflated of the warrior and the deflated would be the masochist.
Chris:Right so it would be the self-inflicting.
Matt:So it would be the self-inflicting, it would be the self-damaging and again tied to that sense of worthiness. So what can get affected in one doesn't just stay in that one. So that's where I would say the analogy of the chakras you're on the right track. But it also affects the other ones too. So the unworthiness in the sovereign can also bleed into the different archetypes. Right, if you are, if you're destroying yourself, if you're masochistic towards yourself, then that's, that's that sense of not worthiness playing out.
Matt:I mean, it's literally like you, like you're saying, like I'm not, you know I'm so, I'm so unworthy I might as well destroy a be self-destructive.
Matt:You know, like I'm a blight on the uh space that I'm, I'm living and, by the way, that's one of the qualities of the warrior as well is the capacity to take up space you know to say like this you know, the boundary thing is not just like personal boundaries, it's like you know, this, this space that I occupy, the this you know, in a sense, that the space that I can move around in and push things in and influence reality, nice.
Angelo:So what would be the uh? I keep wanting, wanting to call it the inverse, but you called it the uh. What did you call it the?
Matt:The shadow form, the shadow form yeah, the shadow.
Angelo:What would be the shadow form of, like the magician and the lover.
Matt:So for the magician, well, so I'll go into the key emotions, right? So the key emotion for the magician is fear, and it's for a very good reason, you know, again, like to the the safety, uh, we'll call it safety officer, right? Um, it's looking out, it's looking out for what, you know, what is good for this person that is myself. Like, let's like, what is you know, how can I protect this person, how can I scan and navigate and, yeah, yeah, like work my way around around the world, right? So, um, so, yeah, the, the inflated of that would be, let's say like, I would say like cynic, the cynic. I think that's a good name for it, right?
Matt:Well, if I may, there are versions of different names that I've learned Go ahead.
Chris:So the Magician has Wisdom and Insight and the Shadow version also has Wisdom and Insight. It's just using it for a darker purpose. Morin Gillette calls it the Trickster. You could just using it for a darker purpose. Morin Gillette calls it the trickster. You could just call it the manipulator Using power for nefarious purposes.
Angelo:Exactly yes.
Matt:Yes. Oh and that Go ahead.
Chris:The lover, I would say, is so the king energy? The king is about responsibility. So when it overlays over the lover, you have responsible like loving or responsible like sensual experience, experience. And if you don't have that sovereign overlaying your sensual experiences, you become a hedonist. That would be the inverse of the lover. That's the unhealthy version of the lover the inflated, unhealthy version right yes the addict right the addict yes, yes, and so the deflated.
Matt:the deflated side of that. Yes, the addict, right, the addict. Yes, yes, and so the deflated side of that. What would we call this?
Chris:Well, it's the one that the impotent lover is what they more or less call it Impotent, yeah.
Matt:Yeah, no, that makes sense. So the one that you can't feel the sensation of love, you can't feel the, you can't, you can't really even. I mean you feel it feels gray, it feels kind of lifeless, you know, it feels kind of blank and you don't really get excited by anything and yeah, that's really it. I mean it's like the kind of barren ground right where if we think about the ideal center of the lover.
Matt:It's like the flourishing garden, you know. It's like the flourishing, it's like you know. Actually, the Garden of Eden would be an excellent archetype for the lover's domain.
Angelo:Right, and we talked about a garden being a perfect balance between nature and culture or nature and man, because a garden is necessarily tended to, it has a gardener. No gardener means the garden grows wild and no nature, or too much gardening, you could say, means the garden will be, uh, not reaching its full potential in life. It will be withering.
Chris:Yeah yeah, kind of kind of barren. Maybe if you burn too much right too much um, okay, that makes sense.
Angelo:I feel like I noticed there's a sort of relationship, a special relationship between the lover and the magician. Specifically In the beginning you mentioned a relation to East and West, so I almost feel like maybe there's a dual relationship between the lover and the magician, and then also the, the sovereign and the warrior yeah, definitely, and so so I'd like to lead with this too.
Matt:Is that there are um tension opposites, right? So you have the warrior and the lover, so those, those are tension opposites oh, it's the warrior and the lover the war?
Matt:yeah, no, but but there is a relationship. Well, I'll talk, I'll speak the relationship between the magician and the lover as well, right, but, um, you know, the warrior is very, let's say, fastidious, very, is that the right word? Like it's very much about, like the seriousness and going about, you know, seriously committing to action and seriously committing to to doing a thing right, where sometimes the lover, well, let's say like the shadow, you know, lover's shadow, this could even say the impotent, right be like, oh, but I don't wanna. Oh, it's crazy, you know, I want to enjoy the roses yeah
Matt:yeah, which is great, but a little you know too much of that. It's like you gotta, you gotta, get going with it, you know. But, um, but when? When those two can work together too, when you can do your work joyfully, like you know. Here's an excellent example if you're doing, say, household things that normally you're like I don't want to do the dishes or whatever I don't want to, but you know, but you're like whistling and you're, you know, you, normally you're like I don't want to do the dishes or whatever I don't want to, but you know, but you're like whistling and you're, you know, you're, you're singing while you're working.
Matt:That makes it joyful, that brings a levity to what you're doing, right, but you had to synthesize that relationship between those two in order to realize that, right. So the other tension opposite is the magician and the sovereign, right, okay. So the reason for that is well, you know, the sovereign is the ordering one. Well, it also represents leadership, right. So leadership for yourself, also leadership of others, and that can also mean, well, not just like telling other people what to do, but it's like, you know, influence, and you could even say the people learning from, learning from your example.
Matt:Like, say, you just being an exemplary person, you being an example of a leaderly person, people see that be like, oh, like wow. I admire that person. You know, I want to be like that, so this, this can happen automatically for you as you as you are that person, as you, as you move through the world and people, just, you know, people seem to gravitate towards you. People seem to ask for your advice. People seem to you know, want, you know you have a great, you have a great connection between, say, your kingdom and other people's kingdoms, right? So the magician, you know, prides itself on being able to think of things, to conceive of things, to organize and figure things out. Honestly, without the magician, it's indispensable. I mean, it's really in a position where you can't really work without it. I mean you can't really work without any of them, but it's like you'd be totally blind.
Angelo:Would it be fair to say the magician makes the map?
Matt:Maybe, yes, totally blind. Would it be fair to say the magician makes the map? Maybe, yeah, it, yes, I, I think I would. I would go so far as to say it it is, yeah, maps things out. Well, okay, let's put it this way. So, so, as the warrior, you're going out and you're exploring and you were, you know chart, you could say charting the land, like you don't even know what you don't know, until you go out and you pursue knowledge, or you pursue right, exploration, things like that. Then, as you're going around, then you know, as the magician, you're noticing things, you're putting things together and you were, okay, let's say, drawing the map. Right, it's like, let's say, putting, putting the map together as you discover things, right. So so where the magician and the and the sovereign can get into trouble, right, is because the magician can think well, I'm so smart, why aren't I in charge? I'm so smart, why aren't I in charge you?
Angelo:know like I'm so powerful, Like it can go.
Matt:I'm like it's going to go like. I'm so powerful, I know all these. I know all these things right. I'm indispensable. Why am I not the one sitting on the seat?
Chris:Dang it, that's. That's exactly what happened to me, actually. There you go.
Matt:There, actually, right there you go, there you go and it's honestly it's a good, it's it's a good, it's a very good question to ask right, yeah right, but it in itself is not um. The magician does not represent morality, it does not in itself represent order.
Matt:Hold on, Let me finish. So you can be a super. I promise I'll get you a second. But you can be an incredibly smart person, you can be an incredibly intelligent person, but not have a code, not have an order or a vision or a telos Right A telos, no a telos. You could even say that the sovereign represents that purpose and that vision. That's the direction, that's what it's all about. Say like helps the sovereign to realize that Helps the sovereign to, ideally, to paint that mental picture and to be able to put it together and articulate it. But you know, it in itself is not the one that's bestowed with the purpose, that's bestowed with the purpose. So that's for the sovereign to hold and to for the you really put it beautifully for the magician to draw the map right. And the lover sees that vision and goes like, oh my God, like lights up, you know, feels the beauty of that vision. And then, of course, the warrior is the one that goes out and executes the action to make it happen.
Angelo:Gotcha.
Matt:Okay.
Angelo:Okay.
Chris:Great, that's fantastic, okay, okay.
Angelo:All right, so, hmm, so you do you still hold to the the idea that the warrior is representative of the south? Because I almost feel like the magician would be at the south then, because that puts him kind of opposed to the north pointing sovereign right, oh, I see, I see what you're doing with the, with the tension opposites there. Yeah, the tension opposite sort of thing. But I mean, I'm new to this.
Matt:Well, here's another one too. They can also represent different elements, oh there you go.
Angelo:Let me guess. Let me guess. So lover has got to be fire, Right, maybe Passion. Okay wait, lover or no, warrior's got to be fire. There you go. Warrior's got to be fire, magician's probably water. Ah see, it's tricky. Okay, fine, the sovereign has got to be. That's tricky. Okay fine, the, the sovereign is gotta be that's tricky too, because he could be I think I got it air negative.
Matt:Uh well, interesting, interesting guess, okay. Oh, you got it right with this one, right with this one, okay so okay, so this one is all
Matt:all right, just tell me good guesses though good guesses, though I could actually see the logic in your guesses. Um and so for the sovereign. I've heard this. I've heard this two ways, and I'll tell you first the first one. By the way, there's another book on the archetypes, by gentleman rod boothroyd, and that's who what? That's the one that I studied from in my uh, my men's work program right so he proposed that the sovereign represents fire, but my teacher, though, put forth a very good, very good reasoning he thinks that the sovereign represents fire.
Matt:Okay, but my teacher, though, put forth a very good reasoning he thinks that the sovereign actually represents earth. Oh Right, and I'll tell you why that makes sense. It's because it's foundational, right?
Angelo:Because it's Right, that's what I was thinking when. I was going to put the sovereign either as earth or as air, because air is the sort of like high in the sky. Traditionally, wind and air is the foundation of the soul and where spirit is because, it's invisible foundation of the soul and where spirit is.
Angelo:Because it's invisible and a lot of times when you talk about top-down things, a top-down relationship like you would have with a king, you would put the king up at the top, which, uh, was my thinking there. But I can definitely see how earth being foundational and being the source of potential, where things come out of and where things grow, that has to be the sovereign I'm still like fire is passionate love man well, I get it.
Matt:You're right, it could also be the warrior. You know what you're making me think of? Is that, um, that statement which is it's kind of a dichotomy like I'm a lover, I'm not a fighter, but how about this about fighting and I think no keanu reeves actually said this too like, if you're, if you're not fighting for your love, what kind of love do you have? I heard that. I heard that. I'm like, ooh, keanu.
Angelo:Damn. You even said it, like Keanu.
Matt:But, but the warrior. You know that's like that's pursuing, you know that's pursuing what is important to you.
Matt:That's defending what's important to you, you know. So if you have the warrior outside of the garden, like, I'm gonna hold post and I'm going to, you know, nothing is getting in here, nothing is going to invade this garden, I'm going to defend it, you know. And you bring that fire, you can bring that fiery energy into your love, right? Yes, so that? So the you know, the lover, um, represents the emotions too, represents your you know which. Again, okay, I promised I would talk about the lover and the magician, right, which, by the way, the magician is the heir right.
Matt:Okay, so our emotions are very good indicators of our reality, how we feel about things, how we feel about situations, how we feel about people, you know, and it's the dissolution of connection between people, right, which is where you know, again, people can often cross boundaries and not even notice that they cross boundaries Because they're just like, oh, this is where I'm from, this is not even a thing, you know, it's like that sort of thing, but it in itself is not the one that provides the answers or the the analysis to those situations that happen.
Matt:Like, you can have your emotions affected by different things, but your emotions are not necessarily what is um telling you? The full? It doesn't have the full map of what's happening in that situation, right, it's not to say that you shouldn't listen to your emotions, because you definitely should and they have their place, and you should not just suppress them or sweep them right to the side, like they're definitely telling you an important part of the story, right, but make no mistake, you, the magician, is the one that is able to conceive of things, to see, to read between the lines and to be able to see the map, to see the detail. We're going to keep going back to this map thing.
Matt:It's excellent you to see clearly in that situation. But even then, the magician in in of itself is not the one that can come up with the best orderly solutions to things. And that might sound really, really confusing to you, know, if you're like, oh I'm so smart, I should be able to come up with solutions. Well, you know, it could be so smart to analyze and to understand it but it's like the labyrinth right.
Matt:Really. The one that you should be listening to for solutions is the sovereign Right. The sovereign is checking in with all these different parts of yourself.
Angelo:I feel like there's a simplicity with the sovereign right. He gets straight to the point and the purpose and the magician sort of elaborates on it, but without the Sovereign he's I wonder if there's a relationship between the word elaborate and labyrinth. Now that I've said it, Interesting.
Chris:Well, we'll have to look at that, look at the etymology.
Angelo:But that's what I was kind of thinking is with the sovereign he elaborates and without the sovereign.
Chris:So I think I I think I have a fun way that we can kind of play with this idea of the, the idea of the, the metaphor of the elements and the metaphor of the map. All right, so let's think of yourself as some kind of creature that is able to adjust its physiology to become the elements somehow. Okay, all right. So you're, you're this consciousness, you're this creature, and you're in the middle of a land that's uncharted. You're not sure where everything is, so you have to build a home on a foundation, right?
Angelo:that's the king.
Matt:Energy that's the earth correct, okay, so let's build a home somewhere.
Chris:Let's choose our, uh, set of principles that we're going to adhere to, something good, something well ordered, right, like like some bricks maybe, and we'll build this up. We have a shelter now and we're we're here, okay, um, maybe we have some desires, right, some things that our hearts want. That's the flow, that's the flow of the water, river, fresh water, going about the land. We can maybe have some experiences with relationships, right, food, other things people desire. Maybe you have a little, maybe you get like a sense of power sometimes, right, and you can use, like you can build something to generate power out of a river, right, um, so, okay, so now we have our heart, we have our water, we have our earth. Um, you need water, we need some wisdom and we need some insight so we're able to, in some fashion right, maybe fly up in the air a bit. The air has oversight over the land.
Matt:Oh, there you go, oh yeah. Yeah, that's another thing with the magician. By the way, dude, that was beautiful.
Chris:Sure, oh, we didn't even talk about fire yet, because you've got to keep the fire in the fireplace.
Matt:If you let your fire out of the boundaries.
Chris:Right, you have to establish your boundaries, create your fireplace and make sure the fire stays in the fireplace.
Matt:Oh, god, that's yes. Another thing about the warrior the fire thing is excellent because you can. That can become so intense that you can end up burning other people.
Angelo:Yeah there you go, burning yourself, right. That's a really great analogy.
Matt:To have the boundaries for yourself so that you're you know. It's like you know. I've seen this more and more. It's like its own archetype of a character stepping outside of the wording for archetype as we're referring to them in you know this conversation like the four archetypes, but but this character like uh rurouni kenshin, for example, right of rurouni kenshin.
Matt:There you go, there you go like he knows how powerful he is. He knows like if he went crazy then he would just rip people to shreds, right, but he knows that can you tell the story of reuni kenshin for our listeners? Oh, I just oh man you should have said it yeah, that might be, might be more.
Matt:Here we'll do a brief okay, well, basically, uh, okay, to give a background, he historically was this awesome badass warrior referred to as the Batosai right, yeah, so the Hitokiri Batosai was a Japanese samurai assassin during the Edo period, I think.
Chris:If I remember correctly, is this a real person. No, it was based on a manga.
Chris:Oh, it's um but I mean there there were like people of these factions that really did exist. But this character, reuni kenshin um, he gives up his, he decides like once and for all, after the war is over, never to kill or assassinate ever again. So he holds his power inside of himself and he has in his sheath the sakabato, which is a reversed blade sword, so that when he goes to strike he never kills anybody. If he ever has to and of course people all over Japan try to find him, hunt him down, kill him, and he faces all kinds of challenges, kind of establishes a little like family in a dojo, uh, takes on a student and they kind of are like freedom fighters in japan. But he never kills. Interesting, he never breaks his like batman, he never breaks his one rule, but yeah, so he has that warrior energy, he has the ultimate fire going around japan and he never unleashes it right, he's got, he's got a code and he's just like I just want to live this peaceful life.
Matt:And he, yeah, he, I mean he has limit, he placed, he has, I mean he has self-imposed limits on himself. So because if he knows like, if he gets to that point like he's like I've got a long-ass fuse.
Angelo:But if it gets to the end of that fuse then watch out. You know, kind of reminds me of Dexter Morgan. Dexter is that TV show of the serial killers. He lives by a code and he necessarily has to live by the code. And if he ever breaks his code or goes outside of it, all hell breaks loose and he's just a normal serial killer, I guess.
Angelo:Yeah, I mean he's not like a heroic serial killer, you know what I would say the first five seasons. A heroic serial killer, you know what I would say? I would say the first five seasons are pretty good. There's only five seasons no no, there's like eight, maybe nine, now that I think they made a new season. That's really recent I don't know.
Chris:At some point I just had to. If you haven't seen season four.
Angelo:you're're missing it Because that's the best season. That's got John Lithgow.
Chris:Lord Farquaad, I did not like that season at all. That's the best season.
Angelo:What are you talking about?
Chris:Anyways, getting back to the four archetypes, analogy.
Angelo:Where I thought you guys were going with the fire was I thought it was going to be something related to protection of the boundary Thinking if there were wild animals, what element would you use to ward off those animals?
Chris:Well, that I would call it the king generating order is the one that establishes the boundary of your realm, your kingdom, that you're ruling over.
Angelo:Well, I mean mean initially in the conversation. Matt was talking about the warrior being the one who comes out when a boundary is crossed.
Matt:Sure, okay, so you could say it's the the warrior is like the yeah you could say the warrior is the foregoing one when a boundary is crossed, right, so the, the sovereign is the one that is actually establishing what that order is. Right? So, saying, like you know, asking this question like what's good for the realm, you know? Like what's good for, like the realm is in yourself, the realm as in you know, your family circle, the people who are close to you, the things that are important to you. And actually I don't know if you've seen this movie.
Matt:There is this, really this awesome quote, this movie I think it was 10,000 BC but there is this one moment where this character says something really profound that like, basically, essentially, that the size, the size of the circle that you draw around yourself, is the size of your life, or the size of your realm, or that or something like that. Right, so say, you know if your circle is like this, you know if it's a really small circle, right, if that's consciously chosen, if you're like I just want to live a simple life and I just want to take care of my family, I just want to you know this is this is my realm.
Matt:That's an honorably chosen thing, you know. You could say that's, and you could even say that that's foundational to anything else that you want to do outside. You know you mentioned, like social justice people earlier. Right, there's at the core. I can see how there's a lot of good intention in that too, at the core, I can see how there's a lot of good intention in that too. But it's like that you have to be able to also deal with the things within your small circle, like you could want to go out and have.
Matt:It's really natural to feel like I feel very powerfully about these things that are happening in the world, these things that I want to go out and I want to have an impact.
Matt:I want to and I want to know that I'm meaningfully making a difference in the world. You know that's a really good and pure and intentional thing, right, and a lot, of, a lot of um the self. You know, sovereign, leaderly type people can also do that, and then you can also lose sight of what's right under your nose at home, right. And that's not to say that those things have to be mutually exclusive, it's just that that's something that often happens, you know. Here's another example is, like you know, a lot of spiritual leader type people and I've seen I won't name names, but I've, you know, seen this happen within you know, my own life, within people, people I've seen this happen within my own life, within people I've encountered right when you're really good at going out and making an impact in all these other different places but then it looks like crap at home. You're not taking care of the home space. Right, you've got to do both and you could even say that.
Angelo:Perhaps that's why the Catholic Church doesn't allow priests to get married and start a home life, because they want them focused on the communal, yeah Right.
Matt:But if you do that, though, like if you marry the right person, like if you have that partner who supports you and all these different things, and say you've got your, you've got your interpersonal stuff figured out, like you have, you have really good dynamics and you're able to, you're able to work well together. You, you know you get along. You, you know you've got your home, you've got your home base stuff covered right. Then it's like, okay, well, you know, we came together because we want to do something. We we came together, say, for a, for a really powerful visionary purpose. Then let's work together on what does that look like? And then that person could end up helping you individually with your vision. Say, they have their own vision, you can support them in different ways. It can end up being like a 60-40 type situation, or if you're completely aligned in one direction situation, or if you're completely aligned in one direction, then that makes it really simple, because you're literally going the same way. You could also have a partner who is deeply inspired by whatever it is that you're doing and say supports you by, you know, giving your, giving you space, giving you resources, introducing you to people who can, who can push you, who can be a buoy for you in that direction, right, so then this person ends up well, and so this is really important to.
Matt:It's a really important point too, because with the sovereign, there's so much this tendency to think that that's you know, you mentioned hierarchy like that's the person at the top, like, literally, like the leader is the sovereign, there is the sovereign. It's just not a right way to think. I mean, I get it, but you can be a supportive sovereign towards somebody, and we think of the base, we think of the foundation, like the platform that you can stand on so that you can then do your own thing, like say, that person doesn't, it doesn't really care as much about being the center of the you know the face of the face of the business, right, the like I just love what you're doing, I just really want to help you in any way that, uh, that I can, within reason right so then that person is then helping to generate, helping to provide flourish to what you're doing.
Matt:Say, you could be the one going out and doing these different events for yourself and this person is helping you to plan them out. This person is helping you to refine what it is that you're doing. You to refine what it is that you're doing. This is something that is a really common dynamic between, like, creative businesses, right, is, you can have the person who is like really full of ideas and full of imagination and full of all these concepts and, oh my God, I'm like I got to make all these things happen.
Matt:Right, you know speaking of potential, right concepts, and, oh my god, I'm like I gotta make all these things happen. Right, you're you, you know, speaking of potential. Right, you got all these potential things that you're just like I just have to give life to these, to these concepts, right, uh, but you can go so far and so distracted with speaking personally, right, I've like I'm, you know, being blessed and cursed with, not cursed I said that jokingly with so many different ideas. Right, I've like I've, you know, being blessed and cursed with, not cursed I said that jokingly with so many different ideas right, I think any uh creative probably relates to that.
Angelo:Oh yeah, where you, you come up with a million things and then you get sidetracked oh, god, you have a like a hundred unfinished projects seriously, no, seriously, and then it can be super.
Matt:It can be super helpful. And there's challenging also when you have the person who is the one who's able to look at that from outside and go like which ones of these are taking priority, which ones of these are helping you to organize your thinking, helping you to be able to see from outside and helping you to refine what it is that you're doing, and so you have to have some humility there and you could see things that that person doesn't see. But that person can also come in and see things that you don't see. So that's your sovereign and magicians working together, you know.
Angelo:It'd be funny if they made like you ever seen that movie Inside Out, where you have all the little emotions, the. Pixar movie. Yep, it'd be funny if they made like a Four Archetypes version of it. Oh my god.
Chris:I would watch that movie I wouldn't watch the hell out of that movie so heck yeah, I didn't watch inside out, but now I'm interested because I'm like maybe it's something kind of like that.
Angelo:That's quite it's quite profound somewhat they, they go based off of the I think it's five core emotions, and and then they just made a sequel which they throw in some anxiety and embarrassment in there, and I forget what the other one's called Ennui, which is like boredom or something.
Matt:Yeah, I really love the concept of it.
Angelo:Yeah, like the four archetypes that live within you.
Chris:Yeah, and it makes sense. I remember, you know, earlier in the talk, when you said that the magician is like oh, I'm so wise, I'm so insightful, why aren't I in charge of this whole deal? Yeah, um, and well, I mean referring back to that uh, map environment metaphor. I mean you can't live in the air, even if you're a magician or your priest or whatever you want to call. That energy is really wise and insightful. You can't, you can't just live there, you have to live on the ground, you have to be down to earth, right?
Matt:yes, yes, interesting, very well put very well put, yeah, which, speaking of archetypes and also like mythical figures, so odin I'm like very, very fascinated with with. In fact, I'm creating an odin piece right now, um for for those who aren't familiar yeah, oh my god, he's I can't wait to see it, he's, he's, he's like a hardcore odin fans odin, like I've got all I've got stories to read.
Matt:It's fantastic. Yeah, love me some, odin. Anyways, did you read American Gods? I watched the first season of the show. Okay, yeah, I won't do the spoiler about Odin.
Chris:I didn't watch the show. I read the book Very good. Oh, that's very cool.
Matt:Well, I'll have to read the book now, thank you, but so Odin has actually five, but I'll focus on four. That he's associated with Four creatures, right, he has two ravens and two wolves and, by the way, like my wife listens to this podcast, she's like, of course, talking about freaking Odin.
Chris:It's like anyway.
Matt:So he's Hugen and Munen, which mean thought and memory, right, so they live in the air when we think about thought and memory traveling around you. You know, flying around you could and like the, so that the bird's eye view of things.
Matt:Think about the magician and the bird's eye view of things right and that is very useful when you are in a situation and say you, you know you could be too down in it, too fired up with, with what's happening around you. This is, you know, one of the things where I would even say that this may even be a safety officer thing right is to is to mentally elevate you above that so you can look down and see the pieces moving around and see how you know, learn to conceive, however, how it's all working together, right, and then use that map to figure out, you know, and decide as the, as the sovereign, like what's the best orderly course of action here? Right, so you have? So you have the ravens.
Matt:Then he has two wolves, uh, geri and freki, which are translate to greed and hunger, right, which sounds kind of dark here, but they're. They're the ones who go out and get things, they're the ones who are navigating the land, they're the ones who are out and get things. They're the ones who are navigating the land, they're the ones who are. So you have the two who are above, up in the air, and then you have two which are on the ground.
Matt:Right Two on the ground which are navigating and seeing all these, right, and they come back to Odin, and Odin of course holds a whole bunch of wisdom, right, and of course holds a whole bunch of wisdom, right. So if you have, if you have these four creatures which are assisting you and going out, covering the air, looking around in the air and covering, covering the ground as well, and okay, so I'll mention this fifth creature, slip near, which is an eight-legged horse, which, which is the fastest horse, right so, traveling all around all the nine realms on the fastest horse in the universe, basically so covering all this ground. So we could see that these are like ultimate ideals of these different archetypes, of these different, of these different functions, right? So, powerful warrior, magician, I mean, he's got a spear that never you know that never misses that never that, never that, never stops, basically, until it hits its target.
Matt:Right, it's got the you know, it's got the wisdom which they had. The translation of wisdom is like mental ability, like knowing of lore, knowing of spells, knowing of you know, knowing of lore, knowing of spells, knowing of you know, knowing of knowledge, knowing of you know, and wisdom in the sense that we would think of it right as being able to connect the dots and knowing you know, ideal course of action for different situations, right?
Chris:Okay, you could almost I think you could almost take this idea that maybe this archetype of the Norse god, odin, and write your own spirituality book on Norse spirituality Maybe, I don't know. It's interesting, that'd be fun, it's really interesting. It's taking these ideas and then just kind of transplanting them onto Odin. For sure, these ideas, and then just kind of transplanting them onto, uh, onto odin. I did want to ask um, at what point in your life did you come into contact with the archetype ideas, you know, the of male psychology, the king or the magician and the lover? And then, what was it like doing that shadow work and what sort of um, like practical things happened in your life as you were doing that work? Like what changed?
Matt:big questions um so, um so I first came into contact with them through my wife, helena, and she's familiar with, like the archetypal system.
Matt:The Enneagram Insights is another, but the archetypes and Enneagram, specifically, have been like common languages that we've been able to call to understanding each other because we're you know, we are who we are and it's how we work, work together, right? But my first, um, I would say, embodied experience with the archetypes was going through men's work program that created by very, very dear friend, scott harris. He created this brotherhood of kings program, which is a 10-week online program. Literally, there was like a there were, uh, there were three of us, right, uh. So he was in canada, the gentleman was in australia and, of course, I'm here in colorado, right?
Matt:and so we'd meet every week for these, these two hour sessions, and uh, we'd have, you know, these workbooks, worksheets, like how the archetypes appear in our lives. So, every week we would have our worksheets, like how the archetypes, you know, appear in our lives in an inflated, deflated sense. And when we got into the sessions we would do this shadow work thing where we would, you know, the thing would be like sitting to one side, like physically orienting yourself in a certain position, like over here, I would sit to the left, this would be I think that was the inflated and then sit to the right. That would be the deflated, like we would act them out.
Matt:It can feel a little weird at first, you could feel like you're maybe forcing it, but the more that you learn what those voices sound like and familiarizing yourself with them, then you can understand oh, this is inflated, this is deflated. And, by the way, there are things that there are definitely things you can learn about yourself, and things that I would even say are useful in the polls, and like there are actually reasons why you have them. They're not just, they're not just like bad, you know. I mean, definitely you want to be centered, but they're. But you know, like you know, chris, like you said earlier, there is a wisdom. Uh, there can be wisdom in the inflated magician.
Matt:Like you can, you know, you can definitely see things right, it's, it's not talking just nonsense, right, right. And you know, by the opposite token, by having your head in the sand, right, you could be guarding yourself from things that could actually be damaging to you. Sure, you know, interesting.
Chris:So there is that right. What were the practical effects then, after you were doing the workshop for so long?
Matt:I mean, I definitely got very I remember getting very, very fascinated and in tune with the sovereign and what, what that means, what, like the sovereign, the sovereign is just so interesting. It's out so fascinating and seeing how, uh, how, I align with the different archetypes in different ways, like, like, in what way am I going? And you know, committing action like, what is the like? What does that capacity look like for me? How do I see that showing up in my, in my real life? You know the lover I picked up guitar again.
Chris:Oh, there you go. Yeah, I started playing.
Matt:I started really loving guitar, you know.
Chris:So you became more in tune with yourself.
Matt:Yeah, oh, yes, yes, in a nutshell, that's absolutely what happened. Okay, absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, really exploring again like what the relationship of the sovereign is like is like for me, like you know, and I definitely got into that place where I felt it had to mean that I was leading a thing or leading other people or that sort of thing, and just you know, it's really been a journey with that one um, because it can be quite mysterious. A lot of people can get lost in what the sovereign means. You kind of have to find your way with it awesome.
Angelo:Well, I guess, on that note, it'd be good to sort of end there. Thank you all for joining us. Uh, we hope that you liked this podcast and that you got a lot of value from it. If you feel like supporting us, please comment, share, like and subscribe. Feel free to donate to our Patreon and join us next time.
Chris:It was great Find your way in life.
Matt:Right on. Thank you everybody, and I hope that you're able to find some useful parts for yourself, be inspired, and that this has been meaningful for you. So thank you. Thank you everybody.
