Sacred Contracts - Part 2

A note before the last part of my article. Out of the blue my best friend from Lethbridge, JZ (who I blogged about before - I tried kissing her when I was 21) e-mailed me. We'd been out of touch for five years. It's so great to hear from her. We are soul mates. She's so dynamic and fabulous! It's strange how this past week three people showed up from my past, out of the blue. I love that!

Today I went to the department meeting; a very suave move on my part. It was marks review. I didn't need to attend, but I thought I'd show up and say hello to my Department Head and Assistant Dean, and other important people. Since I decided not to go back in the fall, I wanted to do it on good terms. So I said hello to everyone, they were glad to see me, and asked me to apply again next year after I'd had a break. They really like me. So that option is open in the future.

I made myself the most delicious, juicy cheese burgers for lunch. I cut up a green onion, 1/4 cup of feta cheese, salt & pepper, Worchestersire sauce, and mixed it together with regular hamburger. I grilled the burgers with gouda cheese, then slathered garlic mayonnaise on them and a garlic dill pickle, and sat it on a bed of Romaine lettuce. I was so full, I had to sleep for 40 minutes. Why is it that I can always make better food than what I eat at a restaurant? I've know several incredible cooks, who make food better than I've ever tasted at a restaurant. Maybe restaurants need to appeal to a middle range of palates, so they go bland? I don't know. But I've never had a better burger, better salads, better stir-fries, better salmon and chicken, better everything than what I and my friends can make. I also had sugar-free fruit jello. I can't eat any more today. I'm stuffed. I even worked out and did aerobic exercise. I think I've already lost five pounds after a week. And for those of you who are concerned, I've had excellent bowel movements since using Psyllium.

I also got my second bedroom for my new roomy ready. I took apart the futon and frame bed, took off the shelving from the wall, filled all the holes, scrubbed the walls, sanded them and spot painted it, vacuumed, dusted all the floor boards and doors and now it's ready for him. He moves in on Friday.

I've been thinking about RA, since my date with him on Sunday. He really does have many qualities that I admire and like. When I think about it, he has qualities that I loved about BC, except he has morals and values. For instance, he knows how to do "construction-type" things. He's built houses. He knows how to repair things. For me, this is an intense turn-on. It's very blue collar, except he has a white collar job. BC knew how to do all those things, plus fix cars. I get more turned on by this, than someone who can volley academic intelligent bullshit with me. I think this is true...I've never actually had a really intelligent boyfriend who could engage me in fascinating intellectual conversation without being droll. All my female friends are super intelligent and sophisticated and can meet me on this level, and I love being with them. But I've honestly never been friends with a man in the same way. Perhaps Toddo can do this...I've had some great, complex communications with him.

I guess it's about my father again. My father was brilliant. A photographic memory. He won the Governor General's award for highest academic achievement when he graduated from high school. At one of the top colleges in the U.S. on a full scholarship he finished two master degrees suma cum lade (sp?). He once failed a class because the professor didn't believe such a young guy could write such a brilliant essay, and accused him of plagirism. My father also learned to speak Latin and Hebrew. But he was so humble, he never really showed his intellect. He once told me that it's more important to speak on the same level as everyone else, so he spent great pains learning to communicate very complex ideas with very simple language and using common parables to make a point.

So I've always been attracted to humble guys, with very little education. Even RA told me he left high school in grade 11, and didn't finish it until he was 24. Same with BC - weird coincidence. Both never had college education. Both have expressed a difficulty with the academic environment, in terms of learning. That is so opposite to me, I can't tell you. I loved school and academia. I guess my father expressed himself as an average Joe most of my life, until he pulled out obscure references to certain things when I pushed him for an answer on something. Even when I tried to trap him into giving me a definite answer on something, he would never give me one. He'd tell me all the different schools of thought on something, then leave it to me to make up my mind. I admire him for this, of course. He taught me to be an individual thinker.

I feel very blessed. I've met two interesting guys lately, both of whom I want to get to know better. I hope they're willing to just be friends for a while. I'm tired of diving into major sexual infatuations (like BC). I'd like to get to know them as people first. I'd like to do things with them as friends. Go camping, do weekend trips, hang out, make them dinner. Have fun conversation. And if it doesn't go beyond friendship, I'd be happy. And if something more happens, that's okay too. I'm a little afraid that they want sex sooner with me, rather than getting to know me first. I guess that's the chance I need to take, because I tell you - that's what I want right now.

In the meantime, I might meet someone else. The X-Factor. The guy who has a hot body, can meet me head on intellectually, who is my equal, rather than my compliment. A man who is like my female friends. This summer should be interesting... especially with my new body. I can't wait to strut the beaches in my blue/white/yellow swimming thing.
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POWER IS A COMMON THEME in Myss' writings. For her, becoming empowered is about breaking away from the tribe mentality, which involves various stages of risk and courage. Our first test involves overcoming family-of-origin beliefs, such as religion, politics and other ideas about the world, that suppress our individual passions from being fulfilled. The tribe extends to the group influence, which may be cultural, national or global in origin, and makes us believe in the illusion that power comes from our ability to control the outside world. In these instances, our value is measured by worldly successes. But at some point, she writes, everyone is disappointed with this outwardly driven striving. In our suffering, we turn inward, and learn to define success by our own, more spiritual estimations.

Spiritual empowerment involves making the decision to never give away our spirit for the security or approval of others; and to stop living in the past of resentments, or the promises of the future. In the process, we lighten our psychic load, and our spirit has more energy to invest in inner guidance. We no longer give away our power to others or outward things, but use it to manifest our highest potential. "Creating synchronicities doesn't come cheap," she says. "You require a great deal of energetic reserves to be able to trade it in for opportunities. Miraculous opportunities that bring you closer to your highest potential, and puts you on the fast track to fulfilling it."

Myss' newest contribution to self-empowerment is to identify your personal archetypes, and then using a method of 'chance,' cast your archetypes onto a wheel that resembles an astrological chart. For many years, when giving intuitive readings to people, she often saw a symbol for the client in her mind's eye. Myss learned that the archetypical symbols she intuited, represented an aspect of the client's psyche that required self-awareness, in order for healing to occur and empowerment to be realized.

While the term "archetype" is difficult to grasp, Myss reminds us that we use archetypes in our daily conversations. "Isn't she a Princess," we say about a woman who feels entitled to special treatment. Or, "Who does he think he is - Don Juan?" we say when criticizing (or perhaps admiring) a womanizing man. From decades of popular psychology, we're all familiar with our inner "Child," and the games of the "Victim, Rescuer and Saboteur." Myss includes a whole index of archetypes in her book, Sacred Contracts, and asks us to identify a total of 12 that we relate to on some level. Complicating matters somewhat, each archetype has a sacred aspect, and a shadow aspect. For example, if you tend to sell your spirit and dreams in exchange for the safety of material comforts, you're the Prostitute. But once you identify and become conscious of how you play out the behavior patterns of the Prostitute archetype, you can choose to not play out its dynamics. Then it becomes the Sacred Prostitute - the holy aspect of yourself that reminds you not to 'sell out.' By discovering your shadow patterns, and acknowledging your sacred ones, Myss purports you can become more aware of your behavior patterns, and make conscious choices that are more in sync with our spirit.

After choosing twelve archetypes, the fun begins with "casting your wheel." Myss 'reinvents the wheel' with a 12-sectioned circle called "houses." Each house is numbered, and corresponds to an aspect of self and life:

* ego and personality
* home
* creativity and good fortune
* occupation and health
* marriage and relationships
* other people's resources
* spirituality
* highest potential
* relationship to the world
* the unconscious



By writing your archetypes on individual pieces of paper and placing them in one pile, and the numbers one through twelve on other individual pieces of paper and placing them in a different pile, chance is used to place your archetypes in each house. Once you've stated your intention and put yourself in a meditative state, then you select from the first pile an archetype, and match it up with a number that represents the house it belongs in. Myss writes, "Your archetypes will be guided into their appropriate houses by the energy of simultaneity, coincidence, spiritual order, divine paradox and destiny."

By matching archetypes with a house, Myss explains that new insights and connections are made, increasing self-awareness and the potential for making choices that are self-empowering. By avoiding decisions that complicate our lives, we make room for "energetic reserves" that can be used for fulfilling our sacred contracts - our highest potential and the purpose for our lives.



QUEEN MYSS IS WINDING DOWN, coming to the end of her lecture, and already a line-up is forming near the pulpit for devotees to pay their respects and - just possibly, be endowed with her royal signature. The Rebel in me, which landed in the house "My Relationship to the World," loves the irony involved in listening to a new age preacher in the sanctity of a Christian church. But my butt is hurting from sitting on the hard pew, and the Hedonist archetype — found in my "Ego and Personality house" — is complaining.

"You'll never be able to live an empowered life without hurting someone," Myss says. "You need to learn self-authority and not be afraid of independent thought and action. And only then will you receive visionary insight, and high-powered intuition." I glance at the people in the line-up, wondering if they're taking in what Myss just said. I notice the anxious, dark-haired woman I spoke with earlier. She's clutching a copy of Sacred Contracts to her breast, looking eagerly at Myss.

"You'll find yourself following the most absurd guidance. After all, you only follow logical guidance when you're afraid." Myss says, with a wicked grin on her face.

I find myself sneaking out of the pew, stumbling over seated people's feet and purses. I feel drawn to say something to the dark-haired woman, but I don't know what I'm going to say or why I'm doing it. All I hope is that I don't embarrass myself. Suddenly the audience stands clapping, giving me cover.

She sees me coming toward her, pushing through the crowd, and breaks into a smile of recognition. "What am I doing?" I think. "I can't believe I'm doing this!" But I smile back and hear myself saying, "How did you enjoy Caroline Myss' talk?"

"I loved it!" she squeals. "And she wasn't as scary as I thought she would be."

I want to tell this dear woman that she's as powerful and significant as Myss; that her sacred purpose is equal in importance; and she needn't feel so victimized by the world. Perhaps it's the Teacher archetype in my "Spirituality" house.

But all I say is, "I'm glad to hear you say that."

I touch her on the shoulder and with a silent blessing turn toward the exit.