Imaginal Journal
Imagination is Medicine
Phases of Descent to Soul - Enactment
#5
Enactment
This is the fifth part of a five-part Musing (
The Descent to Soul is a psychospiritual expedition into one particular precinct of the underworld — the precinct I call Soul Canyon — and, if fortunate, the eventual emergence from those depths having been radically transformed by an encounter with soul. My names for the five phases of the Descent are Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment.
The fifth and final phase, Enactment, is when you learn to embody your mythopoetic identity in acts of service to your community. It’s when you activate or switch on your giveaway, when you begin to wholeheartedly perform your vision for your people to see. It is when you start to deliver your mature gift of love-service to your world.
Enactment supports, amplifies, and deepens your Metamorphosis, but for many people their Metamorphosis phase can go on a long time before they move into Enactment. Most people begin Enactment while still in the life stage of the Cocoon (and still primarily identified with the archetype of the Wanderer). But Enactment continues into the next stage (early adulthood) of the Wellspring (and its archetype of the Soul Apprentice) and beyond. In one sense, the Enactment phase of a Descent to Soul is the rest of your life.
As noted in the first Musing of this series, a Descent to Soul always ends with an ascent from Soul Canyon, but do keep in mind that once the ego begins being rooted in soul (by way of our first Descent), we never really leave those depths. Our everyday lives in the Village world above the Canyon become expressions of those depths. As our lives unfold — as we continue to grow — our ego is rooted ever deeper in the mysteries of soul as our center of gravity spirals down always closer to the core.“
Content from SoulCraft Musings, Animas Valley Institute
Phases of Descent to Soul - Metamorphosis
#4
Metamorphosis
This is the fourth part of a five-part Musing
“The Descent to Soul is a psychospiritual expedition into one particular precinct of the underworld — the precinct I call Soul Canyon — and, if fortunate, the eventual emergence from those depths having been radically transformed by an encounter with soul. My names for the five phases of the Descent are Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment.
The fourth phase, Metamorphosis, is the shape-shifting of your ego in light of and in accordance with your revelation or vision. To become a true adult, the ego needs much more than a spectacular vision, much more than a cognitive revelation, much more than a blueprint for a mature human. The ego needs to actually be reshaped, reconfigured, metamorphosed. The dismembered adolescent ego must be re-membered into its adult form. This re-memberment takes place in part as a result of your efforts to embody your mythopoetic identity — your new ego, your new self — by showing up in the world as the person who occupies the unique eco-niche that you do. Metamorphosis, however, does not require you to engage in acts of service (which is the “ of the next phase). There are many other ways to support and intensify the soul-directed refashioning of your ego. In fact, this shape-shifting will take place even without your cooperation — possibly even in the face of your active resistance.
Metamorphosis takes place while you are metaphorically on your way up from the depths of Soul Canyon on your way to the Rim on the opposite side of the canyon from which you descended.
Metamorphosis, it should be noted, can take a while. You wouldn’t want to rush it. Plan on a couple years though it might be quite a bit less.”
Content from SoulCraft Musings, Animas Valley Institute
Phases of Descent to Soul - Soul Encounter
#3
Soul Encounter
This is the third part of a five-part Musing
“The Descent to Soul is a psychospiritual expedition into one particular precinct of the underworld — the precinct I call Soul Canyon — and, if fortunate, the eventual emergence from those depths having been radically transformed by an encounter with soul. My names for the five phases of the Descent are Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment.
The third phase, Soul Encounter, is what happens if you do reach the depths — namely, visions and/or revelations of your unique ecological niche in the greater web of life. But this experience is not anything like a textbook description of species, habitats, food sources, and ecosystems. Rather, it is a glimpse of a pattern or image that metaphorically encompasses or characterizes or connotes that niche. It is more like a poem or a myth, or a dream. It is the revelation of your mythopoetic identity , a phrase that Geneen Marie Haugen and I coined many years ago to name the way that human consciousness experiences soul. And what this vision or revelation does is root your ego in the mysterious soil of soul. The seed of you cracks open and you begin to draw your life from a realm much deeper than you had ever imagined, a realm that turns out to hold your destiny for this lifetime.
From another angle, while the previous Dissolution phase was a type of dying (to an old identity), the Soul Encounter phase is a type of being dead (relative to who you had been in your human community).
How long must you be in these hazardous and often terrifying depths? How long, that is, do you get to enjoy these peculiar and rare ecstasies? Maybe a day. Maybe a few weeks. Maybe years. In an ideal cultural setting, alas, probably not very long. But let’s be clear: Although the Soul Encounter phase is the time when something of your mythopoetic identity is revealed, you are forever after drawing on and living from this revelation.”
Content from SoulCraft Musings, Animas Valley Institute
Phases of Descent of Soul - Dissolution
#2
Dissolution
This is the second part of a five-part Musing
“The Descent to Soul is a psychospiritual expedition into one particular precinct of the underworld — the precinct I call Soul Canyon — and, if fortunate, the eventual emergence from those depths having been radically transformed by an encounter with soul. My names for the five phases of the Descent are Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment.
The second phase, Dissolution, comprises the psychospiritual descent itself, down into Soul Canyon. This is not at all your mere or temporary separation or severance from your everyday community and social roles. No. What happens during this plummet is the conclusive dismemberment of who you had believed you were; the unconditional disintegration of everything you believed the world was; the definitive end of the story you had been living; the unqualified dissolution of the identity, the persona, the mask you had been walking around in, everything that enabled you to get the things done that you thought essential to who you were, who you could become, how you could serve your people. Everything.
With this phase, you step across an invisible existential threshold and enter a ritual space of liminality, a kind of identity indeterminateness . You are in a state of suspension. You are not an active agent who is trying to solve anything. Rather, your goal is to be dis solved — by Mystery. You can cooperate, but you cannot make it happen. It happens to you.
This phase, in understatement, is challenging. It may, theoretically, last only a week or two (although I’ve never witnessed it so short on a person’s first Descent), or it might go on for months or years. Not everyone who departs reaches the bottom of the Canyon — or even very far down. I believe that in a healthy cultural context and with the support of guides or elders, this phase might last only a few weeks or months, even on a first Descent.
Dissolution is the first of the three central and liminal phases of the Descent to Soul, the three phases in which the initiate has no fixed identity in the everyday life of the Village (and, in many traditional contexts, is separated physically and socially from the Village).”
Content from SoulCraft Musings, Animas Valley Institute
Phases of Descent to Soul - Preparation
#1
Preparation
This is the first part of a five-part Musing
“The Descent to Soul is a psychospiritual expedition into one particular precinct of the underworld — the precinct I call Soul Canyon — and, if fortunate, the eventual emergence from those depths having been radically transformed by an encounter with soul. My names for the five phases of the Descent are Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, and Enactment. These are not at all the same phases as identified by Arnold van Gennep for rites of passage, nor are they the same phases as identified by Joseph Campbell for the hero’s journey. The Descent to Soul is not a rite of passage and it is not a Campbellian hero’s journey.
With the metaphor-image of Soul Canyon, a Descent to Soul always ends with an ascent from the Canyon, but do keep in mind that once the ego begins being rooted in soul (by way of our first Descent), we never really leave those depths. Our everyday lives in the Village world above the Canyon become expressions of those depths. As our lives unfold — as we continue to grow — our ego is rooted ever deeper in the mysteries of soul as our center of gravity spirals down always closer to the core.
The first phase of the Descent, Preparation, readies you developmentally and psychospiritually for the journey and supports you to ultimately arrive, for the first time, at the Rim of the Canyon, from where you can gaze down toward the incomprehensible, intimidating, and alluring mysteries that await you below. There are several realms and dimensions of personal development that you will need to address in order to arrive at the Rim and be able to descend with a good chance of not only surviving but of being blessed with an encounter with soul. This kind of preparation is something you would have been provided, as a matter of course, in a healthy (ecocentric and soulcentric) culture during your everyday routines of living, learning, and loving. But these are realms and dimensions of development that are at best absent from contemporary egocentric societies and, at worst, actively suppressed.
Although it can be said, without exaggeration, that your entire life before the moment you first peer over the Rim has been your preparation, nothing less, please do not fool yourself that you are therefore ready to descend now. In our current cultural context, the specific Preparation for the Descent usually takes several months or more. You will need to engage in practices that support you to develop in ways you are not likely to have addressed in contemporary Western society. The Preparation phase, for example, is not a matter of what the Western world considers to be psychotherapy or the healing of emotional wounds. It is not something you would have gained through even years of meditation, contemplative prayer, yoga, healthy diets, or nonviolent communication — as valuable as these and other practices are. It is not a matter of journal work, ceremony design, physical conditioning, or the clarification of intentions.
The majority of contemporary people are never adequately prepared for the Descent. The historical and religious evidence suggests this may have been true, at least in Western culture, for several millennia.”
Content from SoulCraft Musings, Animas Valley Institute