This is our final episode in our Warrior Archetype series. Let’s see if we can pull all the threads together and make this come to a conclusion that makes sense.
Now, we started with the ancient Spartans at Thermopylae, particularly at Thermopylae, as a representative of the purest expression of the warrior archetype in the sense of a battle that was entirely defensive against overwhelming odds for a noble cause. We moved on from the Spartans and their whole culture of warrior-hood to Alexander and his conquests, and we said that while the Spartans were the supreme example of the collective expression of the warrior archetype, that Alexander was the supreme expression of an individual, warrior, and king.
Then as we got into Alexander’s conquests, we began to enter a kind of a dark area, an area of massacres and depopulations of entire regions and of the conquest of taking over and subjugating people against their will. We began to see that the warrior archetype in and of itself needed something more, a moral dimension. That it could lead to pure evil.
Then we talked about the Bhagavad Gita. We talked about Krishna and the great warrior, Arjuna, and the idea that the warrior virtues of courage, fidelity, obedience patience, love of one’s comrades, the willing embracing of adversity could be used to fight not just against exterior enemies, but to fight the inner war against the enemies inside ourselves.
The enemies of arrogance, greed, and ego, and complacency, and all of those other things that would stop us from evolving to our higher nature. Then we talked about the concept of the archetypes themselves, that this came from Jungian psychology and the idea that our brain when we entered this planet, this material dimension, was not a blank slate, but contained a kind of software. And in that software were these kinds of super personalities that embedded themselves into our consciousness and kind of dominated us from time to time as we evolve.
For instance, starting from youth, the divine child, the youth, the virgin, the wanderer, getting up to the one we’re talking about, the warrior, and moving beyond the warrior archetype to the father, the mentor, the teacher, the artificer and on up to the highest archetypes, the king, the sage and the mystic. What’s interesting to me in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna and Arjuna, was we were talking about two completely different archetypes, Arjuna representing the warrior archetype and Krishna, i.e. God in human form, representing the highest archetype, the divine archetype.
From there, we talked about the way a human being matures from archetype to archetype, according to Jungian psychology, and the idea being that as one archetype succeeds another, we move through those, and that one archetype is higher than another as we evolve. As the king, the sage and the mystic are higher than the warrior and the youth, and the virgin, and the wanderer. We also made the point that the virtues of the lower archetypes, as we evolve beyond it, stay with us and become the foundation for the next archetype.
For instance, the virtues that we talked about that were so positive in the warrior, aggressiveness, fidelity, courage, obedience, the willing embracing of adversity, love for one’s brothers stay with us as we evolve into the teacher, the mentor, the king, the sage and the mystic.
So how can we wrap this whole thing up? What to me becomes the key question in the warrior archetype is what happens when it goes wrong? Because we can see that many of us live in the warrior archetype today. Anybody that’s heavily into fitness, into anything military, first responders, police, anybody that is an individual governed by discipline and aspiration is in the warrior archetype. And this can go definitely wrong when it’s not governed by some kind of moral restraint. For instance, the soldier becomes the stormtrooper and the commander becomes the tyrant or the despot. And how do we control that within the warrior archetype?
I was watching “Game of Thrones” the other night and there’s a wonderful scene towards the end of it, the second to last episode, I think, where Jaime Lannister knights Brienne of Tarth. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll tell you the gist of it. He does that thing with the sword that queen Elizabeth does when she knights somebody where she’s kneeling before him. “Brienne”, he says- and puts the sword on one shoulder, and he says, “May the warrior give you courage.” And he touches her on another shoulder, “May the father give you justice.” And he touches her on the other shoulder and says, “May the mother guide you to protect the innocent.” And what he’s talking about here, those three are archetypes. He’s calling upon these archetypes to integrate a moral dimension, the moral dimension of protecting the innocent, which sounds great.
Unfortunately, we have seen whenever there’s anything like genocide, and when the warrior archetype runs amok, what happens is the people who are being persecuted by this warrior archetype, the Gestapo or the stormtroopers, Stalin’s secret police, you name it, they are not thinking of the people they’re rounding up and sending to extermination camps as the innocent. They’re thinking of their own people as the innocents and those people that they’re rounding up as the devil in some form or another. So, when I think of that in moral terms, I say, how can we get around that? Invoking the archetypes doesn’t seem to work in the warrior situation. So, to me, what gives me hope and what I’m trying to bring this whole series around to, is that when we mature beyond the warrior archetype and we move on to the mentor, the father or mother, the king, the sage, or the mystic, we move to a higher level in terms of inclusiveness.
The warrior archetype by its own is an ego-driven archetype. It’s a tribal archetype. It’s an “us versus them” archetype where we say the bad guys are out there, we’re the good guys, we’re gonna take it to the bad guys. But when we move beyond the warrior archetype, when we mature to the next stages our thinking becomes more inclusive. And we move out of the realm of the ego into the greater Self, with a capital ‘S’, and we begin to be able to see the other, our enemies, our former opponents as human beings like ourselves. And we begin to be inclusive and to have compassion and empathy for those other than ourselves. And hopefully we move beyond just our former enemies into the environment, the planet, the future generations. And in those higher archetypes, we begin to be able to act with true moral virtue, beyond the simple warrior virtue of kicking butt on the enemy.
So that to me is my hope for the future as far as what the warrior archetype can evolve to. But beyond that, I find myself coming back again and again to the Bhagavad Gita and to Krishna’s instruction of Arjuna. Remember, this is the archetype of the warrior being instructed by the archetype of the divine. And what the divine is saying to the warrior is, take these virtues, courage, patience, love for one’s brothers, the willing embracing of adversity and turn them not against external enemies but the enemies inside yourself, the inner wars, what we’re now talking about. And in my own life, I feel I’ve been fighting the inner war for a long time. And I’m thinking of friends of mine right now. People coming back from deployments, people who are stuck evolving from one place to another, and they’re fighting that inner war too against the dark side of themselves, against the side of themselves that wants to be lazy, that wants to be complacent, that’s ego-driven, that wants to take things out on other people, that wants to hate, that wants to be narrow-minded.
And so my hope to myself and to everybody who’s watching this is that we can take the warrior virtues that originally were meant outward and bring them inward to fight the inner war of evolving to our own higher natures. I’ve been sitting here with this, a replica of a Roman Gladius on my lap, and this is really the symbol of the warrior archetype. But a sword can mean a lot of things and metaphorically, it can mean that which cuts between the evil and the good, that which cuts between folly and wisdom, that which cuts between ego-driven and self-driven activity. So my prayer for myself and for all of us is that we as warriors can learn to use this sword to fight the inner war and to fight the war that brings us to our higher nature and out of our lower.
Thank you for participating in this, for sticking with me through all this. We’ll be doing more in other areas, but for now this is our conclusion of the warrior archetype series.
Steve,
I have known you for many years. “Many”. I think we met around 480 BC or so. Thank you for sharing the hard-earned wisdom that has to be taught over and over again. Thank you for teaching it to me. I thought I was listening the first time. I wasn’t. Thank you for putting yourself and your beliefs out there for the world to see.
Me? Telamon and Ruth looked back at me for just a second and paused. I smiled and grabbed my pack. I am going with them…
Thank you for helping me come home.
Strength and Honor for all-time,
Jim
Jim, my great friend … I will be with you and Telamon and Ruth. Look for me on the trail. I’ll be packing everybody’s kit!
On Steve “packing everybody’s kit,” I made a margin note… something about “what aspect of Steve is embodied in David?”
Steve: “…a combination of discipline and aspirations.” Sounds like how I spent my first 65 years. Moving from Leonidas to Sikundar Gul to Josey Wales and present times; what a thoughtful and enlightening series.
Now let’s see if I can use it as a roadmap for my next 65 and repay the time and effort you put into showing us the way.
Andrew
PS-and I’m hoping to encounter Brian, Joe, and the others along the trail!
Thanks for everything, Steve. Looking forward to the new book.
Steve, well-done. You took this group on a journey. If some people said “you shouldn’t be glorifying war and warriors,” you telegraphed, “Hold on. Stick with me. We’re going to be transcending something. We’ve evolving into something. We’re taking the exterior and turning to the interior, where the answers are.”
Look forward to seeing Telamon and Ruth come out of the gate.
Joe,
I have been watching and listening.
Thank you.
Jim
Thank you Steve, I’ve enjoyed the series. Mark
Thank you Steve you have enriched my life with this series and I look forward to your next series. I appreciate these words of wisdom. All the best, Carl
Steve,
I am filled with equal parts gratitude, and a sense of sadness. This video series has brightened my week for the past 6 months, educated me (both your heroic contributions, as well as the thoughtful insight from others–Andrew, Joe, Jim, and Navy Doc recently poked her beak into the fray).
Thank you. The effort, courage, and class with which you nakedly entered the arena before the Gods and us was the best thing to happen in 2020/2021. I think I”ll go back and start anew tomorrow.
Please continue this thread. The war is internal. Without reminders, both of my own making and external ‘True Norths’ on which I can shoot a resection; I remain a skinny, hairless (mostly) monkey who is as likely to poop in my hand to throw it at someone as I am to subordinate those impulses to create goodness, invoke kindness, and be of service to my community, our nation, and mankind.
I love the friendships I’ve developed. I love the mature, thoughtful, courageous posts from others.
This series has helped me be a better man, and for that I am eternally grateful.
I’ll be just behind you, Jim, Telamon, Ruth, Joe, and Andrew–someone’s always gotta be last, and it is likely that I forgot to give the cats their medicine before heading out the door! Don’t wait, I’ll catch up.
Thank you. From all of the best of me, thank you.
bsn
Brian,
Side by side brother…side by side.
PS Bring your cats along.
Jim
1COR13:1-2
Jim,
Roger. Love the Scriptural reminder. I haven’t perfectly memorized it yet, but will be end of week.
Are you in Seattle? I was working with Mark Koopman and Mark Saichompoo recently. Good dudes. Small tribe. If you’re local, would be great to share a cup of coffee sometime.
Thanks.
bsn
Steve, thank you so much this wonderful gift of yourself. I have been inspired on many levels and the path in front of me has opened up. The summary of this series, crystal clear; grateful.
Steve, once again….Thank you so much for giving us all the gift of this video series and your work as a whole. You’ve played an integral role in my developing my “warrior sage” and I’m still walking that path. I share your prayer for all that we can focus on service and stand for those who cannot defend themselves, gain wisdom from adversity and let love rule over all.
Love and Courage to you brother…..I’m still slinging the lumber and fighting the good fight.
Robert G~
Brian,
Shoot a flare. We will link-up for sure…
Jim
1COR13:1-2
Jim,
[email protected]
bsn
Ajlubin@earthlink net
Thank you. This was a brilliant series. I love how you developed the idea of archetypes, and brought home the meaning of being on the path as we develop through them . And thanks everyone for the comments, too. So much to learn. Blessings on the journey.
Jim, Brian, Andrew, and y’all…
An examination of warrior archetypes shouldn’t omit characters in “Battlestar Galactica,” which Jim’s comment about “bringing the cats” brought to mind.
There’s a recurring exchange between Commander William Adama (call sign Husker) and Lt. Kara Thrace (call sign Starbuck):
“What do you hear, Starbuck?”
“Nothin’ but the rain, sir.”
“Grab your gun and bring in the cat.”
https://youtu.be/zmqdsFq9fgs
Seriously, BSG is frackin’ good. As long as we’re on it, here’s a favorite scene (still on the warrior theme). Starbuck went down in a dogfight and the crew believes she’s dead. She crashed on a planetoid, as did a Cylon raider she shot down before crashing herself. She was able to repair the Raider (which is partially biological) and then climb into its guts, flying it by manipulating “nerves” and “tendons.”
She’s got to find a way to make it back to the battlestar without getting shot down as an enemy craft. (Backstory notes: Starbuck and Adama have a rarely-spoken father/daughter relationship. Apollo and Starbuck have an unexplored and unconsummated love between them.)
https://youtu.be/8e55amCTCEA
And careful with Battlestar Galactica… it’s easy to get sucked in:
https://youtu.be/AyHXzYTuLi4
This whole series makes you feel like some tribal elder–not necessarily long in years but long in experience– has decided to ruminate about certain life lessons, and we were the lucky ones who just happened to be sitting around the campfire to take it in. One gets the impression Steven produced this series to help explore and organize these thoughts for his own understanding. If so, hope that was successful for him. It was also fun to enjoy the perceptive interactions with other minds around that campfire. Thanks, Steven.
I did not recognize this yesterday. This feeling I have is familiar. Seeing this series come to end leaves me with the exact same feelings I’ve had leaving Summer Camp, Basic Training,Officer Candidate School, and combat zones. I’ve made great friends, the experience was deeply meaningful–full of laughs, surprises, and profound lessons.
As each of us go back to our home towns, next duty assignment…the real world–there is this sense of loss. This ride wouldn’t have been as enjoyable alone. Like Jim has mentioned so a few times here, 1 COR13: 1-2.
Paul didn’t say this explicitly–but we need SOMEONE to love. There may be a time when consciousness is recognized in all living things–who knows, maybe even in rocks–but loving nature is different (at least to this primate) than loving your fellow man. The mutual respect and admiration for Steve, and the fellow commenters filled my cup each day.
Brian,
Well said. Very well said. It is a feeling of the heart.
Good people, very good people come here to…read? Think? Gather? Share?
In a very real and unexplainable sense…we have truly been doing it together.
I believe that there is collective consciousness…this collective consciousness can be evil or goodness; darkness or light. It is this powerful collectiveness that makes our individuality so powerful. If, I get ‘off-course’ and behave in a manner that is contrary to the ‘better nature’ within myself, I not only hurt myself and those close to me – but I, as an individual, add to the collective darkness. It is so hard to influence the collective. But we can and we do.
Every. Single. Day.
That’s what went on here. This feel like the end for me for many different reasons…but I assure you it is not.
“What can one man do?”
Strength and Honor,
Jim
1COR13:1-2
I like the way you’re thinking, Jim.
I’ve been quietly following this series since inception, and appreciative of the quality and insight.
I think that we all find, given enough time, that the internal battle that must be waged is often far, far more pernicious if we don’t allow ourselves to evolve and strive to be something better than any external challenge that we face. Certainly, life in these pandemic times has been a stark reminder of many things, and truly highlighted not just the fragility, but the transitional nature of all things. No matter how hard we may cling to things, both positive and negative, they will be torn from our grasp, and it is our ability to adapt and to overcome that is the test of our character and ability to make peace with ourselves.
Steve’s closing comments on the nature of the sword remind me of a quote from the novelist Takashi Matsuoka, whose two linked works (so far as I’m aware) I discovered quite by accident at the Beverly Hills Library perhaps 15 years ago. Set in Japan as it is opening to the West, in the first, CLOUD OF SPARROWS, is the following passage:
“Words can damage. Silence can heal. Knowing when to speak and when not to speak is the wisdom of sages.
Knowledge can hinder. Ignorance can liberate. Knowing when to know and when not to know is the wisdom of prophets.
Unimpeded by words, silence, knowledge, or ignorance, a fluent blade cuts cleanly. This is the wisdom of warriors.”
All these years later, that’s written in one of my writing notebooks.
Jonathan,
Like a sword. Straight through bone. Leaves hard earned blood:
“Words can damage. Silence can heal. Knowing when to speak and when not to speak is the wisdom of sages.
Knowledge can hinder. Ignorance can liberate. Knowing when to know and when not to know is the wisdom of prophets.
Unimpeded by words, silence, knowledge, or ignorance, a fluent blade cuts cleanly. This is the wisdom of warriors.”
Thank you. I, too, will write this down. In silence there is a priceless and unheard chord. That is how I will write it. Again – consciousness expands.
Pray for me brother and I’ll see you on down the road! (Cody Jinks – Cast No Stones!)
Jim
Awesome series, enjoyed it tremendously, and thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight so generously.
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Thank you Steven
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Which probably only buys us some time. If we don’t help, the Goa’uld will eventually see this as the threat it really is.
I have been watching and listening.
For You By Us! Tell us what you want out of your vacation
and as your personal travel experts, we shall arrange it all for you.
Well, you have the secret–and perhaps it still matters–even if people are being cancelled and censored all over this country and the world. I am just not sure justice will end up prevailing these days. “Truth” and “virtue” may be subjective more than we realize. You don’t seem to address this. You think they are absolutes. As well as “morality.” Your talk seems so simplistic in regard to all this. But “Inclusive” is not a descriptive word–the word itself is being used in hateful ways– it does not represent compassion and empathy–and can actually mean something exactly opposite these days. Instead of common ground, it represents the battlefield which is not a way to achieve your goals. It is not a place of common ground. A free expression of ideas, hopefully compassionately, is a prerequisite to real interaction. Kind of disappointing you don’t realize it. I would have hoped you would come up with terms less divisive. It’s not even that the words themselves (like a gun or a sword) are the problems, but it’s the wielders of these terms — “inclusion” and “equity” are purposely being used to divide. That’s the political purpose of them–and they are not at all accomplishing what you mean. Language has been hijacked here. I still think you are too insulated in your Hollywood realm. Again, even though you understand the key to life, you just misunderstand the nature of the “war.” You are right that the enemy is inside us, though, and you are right there needs to be a universal connection to something bigger (universalism is dead — I have been teaching creative writing — do you understand that now teachers are teaching our students that there IS no universal human desires we share — that for a student to tell another “other” student that they understand because they can relate to something in their own lives — is now shut down — it is now marginalizing the “other.” Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is what they’re doing. It’s our shared human traits that first allowed us to appreciate the uniqueness and worth of “others.”) It’s a horribly sad time. And you are just out of touch at what is happening in our universities. Too bad.
thankyou
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That is Great
We are experiencing it too, regardless of the background—as in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 64, for example—the scene, the day, and the universality of it. If Shakespeare didn’t feel that way, he couldn’t have written Sonnet 64. We remember him because, as he told us in everything he wrote, he is just like us.