Radiant Joy Brilliant Love

by Clinton Callahan

  SECTION 11-C

  Magician

  As we discussed in Chapter 9, in Section B, Archetypal Masculine power comes from being Nothing, as hard as this may be to imagine. Being Nothing means that no matter what occurs, no matter what feelings arise, no matter how visible your faults are, without logic or reason you contextually understand that Nothing, by its very nature, is bigger than Everything. If Nothing were not bigger than Everything, where would the Everything be? Archetypally, your essential Masculine being is vaster than Everything. You take up more space. Whatever approaches, you contain it, own it, hold space for it and take responsibility for it.

  This does not mean you will have all the solutions to all the problems. What it means is that, when things get wild, which they will, especially if you are partnered with a wild woman, you simply say to yourself and stand in the realization: “I am bigger than that.”

  “I am bigger than that.” You can say this when your child is having a tantrum in the restaurant, when the priest asks you why you have not been to church lately, when the neighbor lets his dog shit in your yard again, when you forgot to get the oil changed in the car, when the insurance bill is greater than the balance in your checking account, “I am bigger than that.”

  “I am bigger than that” does not mean you are a dumb doormat, a wet rag, feeling nothing, or ignoring your dignity. “I am bigger than that” does not mean, “I am stronger than that,” “I am smarter than that,” “I am better than that,” or “I am beyond that.” It simply recognizes the essential Archetypal Masculine condition: Nothing is bigger than Everything. Let the experience sink in. It can save you a lot of grief. Open to the knowledge that Everything in the world – all put together – is not bigger than the Nothingness you represent. The Nothingness is your wealth, your treasure. As Nothing, you have access to Everything. This is where your Archetypal Magician’s nonlinear creating comes from. It comes from the Nothing. What is present in the space of Nothing? Nothing. What is possible in the space of Nothing? Everything. If there is nothing in Nothing, then there are also no assumptions, no conclusions, no expectations, or no restricting beliefs in Nothing. Therefore, in Nothing there is immense possibility. Everything starts with Nothing.

  The classical stage magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Before reaching into the hat, the hat was empty. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is making something out of Nothing. Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is no different from looking in a near empty refrigerator and figuring out what to make for dinner, or looking into a near empty bank account and creating a way to still take the wife and kids out to movies and popcorn.

  Our lives are so full of details that, when approaching the situation happening in this moment, you can fail to recognize that you do not have the Nothingness you need to create out of. The working space that you require to create out of is already filled with preconceived notions, previous plans, pre-made decisions or ancient resentments – ancient, meaning “anything older than three seconds.” Before you can make something out of Nothing, you must first be able to, and often need to, make Nothing out of something.

  For example, it could be that your woman is holding onto a story about the way things should be, or about why she is feeling a certain way, such as, “You know I can’t sleep when the neighbors play their music so loud!” Before you can bring in an alternative way of being together – one that offers more intimacy – you will first need to “vanish” what is already there taking up the space. You might allow your shared stories about the thoughtless neighbors to be subsumed by a newer story, for example, “I’ve had a change of heart about those neighbors, Honey. I saw the father talking with his son the other day and they looked so happy together. I want to be more with our children like that. The music reminds me of how they love being together.” Vanishing an old story is the work of the Magician Archetype. Please note that the above example done without the vulnerable Nothingness of the Magician is reduced to being one of the twelve communication roadblocks mentioned in Section 6-O. The not-knowing is a crucial alchemical ingredient.

  The Magician starts with feeling fear because he always does not know how to do what he has to do. Even if he has done the exact same thing a thousand times before, he starts with not knowing how. Then, the slate is wiped clean. If he started with already knowing how, he himself would not be in the present. He would be in the past, trying to resurrect a previous circumstance, and his already-knowing-how would fill up his Nothingness. He would have no access to possibility, so his results would be dead. Without being at the edge of his Box, he would not be afraid. If you are not feeling afraid then you are not creating.

  Initiating your Magician Archetype happens when you (man or woman) transform your relationship to the energy and information of fear. Again, such a process can take many months of work, perhaps even years. The process requires getting yourself into an initiatory environment, a training, which is specifically and intelligently designed for the purpose of waking up your Magician Archetype. The space must be so safe that you are able to experience and express maximum Archetypal fear, and go on and on until the fear stops by itself. In the ensuing internal silence, you discover that you, without anything, are bigger than maximum Archetypal fear. It is not an idea. It is an irrefutable experience. You have become bigger than the territory of fear itself, and your future is forever changed. You have gained the capacity to consciously experience maximum Archetypal terror and still function. You have awakened the Magician.

  After expanding, so that you contain the fear and the fear does not contain you, you will find that you can be completely at risk and still take actions to create whatever is wanted and needed. In the previous example, the results were vanishing an old story so that you and your partner both could have access to Nothing and could create something different together. Vanishing a story (from your woman, your boss, your child, your parents, your neighbor, etc.) may include these steps:

  1. Listening to the story without being hooked, then

  2. Having a meta-conversation about the story, then

  3. Assessing the purpose of having such a story to see if the purpose is still in alignment with what the other person wants to create now with you, or

  4. Recalling the incident at the origin of the story, and,

  5. If the incident involves you, surrendering your payoff and honestly apologizing for your actions, asking the other person to forgive you, or

  6. If the story originated long ago, asking the person to differentiate between you and whomever the authority figure was in the story that they are equating with you.

  Trying and failing to vanish a story does not prevent you from immediately trying again in the next moment in a different way. Even if you fail altogether, working in the Magician’s domain is at least a different game than was probably being played before, and could eventually lead you into even greater opportunities, such as Womanmaking.

  Womanmaking

  Making Nothing out of something is a magical action, and is often the place where the Pirate Magician King Spiritual Warrior Man begins Womanmaking. Womanmaking (the same as with Manmaking) is a show, a series of gestures that fit together to form scenes in a conscious theatrical performance. The Man’s Womanmaking show is an authentic show, because something actually happens. It is the same as when a gymnast performs a routine on the parallel bars. The gymnastic routine is a show that has been rehearsed over and over again, but the routine actually happens. The audience can appreciate and be changed by the show. The performance of the actions produces impactful results, even though it is just a performance.

  You start Womanmaking by placing your attention on your woman. Not as a boy places his attention on his mother. Not at a lizard places his attention on a fly. Not as a mouse places his attention on a snake. Place your attention on your woman the way Renoir placed his attention on a flower, the way Einstein placed his attention on his equations, the way a wine connoisseur would place his attention on the sound of the cork coming ou
t of a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes 1787. By placing your appreciative Archetypal Masculine attention on your woman, you flow Archetypal Masculine energy into your woman’s four bodies. This catalyzes the chance for an astonishing Archetypal transformation of the woman. Human attention, as we discussed at length in Section 8-D, is one of the most delectable substances in the universe. It is the sweet nectar she has been longing for, her entire feminine life. If you skipped over this section about attention, or don’t recall it, please review it now. Having a handle on your attention is essential to what follows.

  SECTION 11-D

  What Is Woman? You Ask

  What are Women anyway? The patriarchy has trained us men to regard women from the surface: makeup, clothes, how much skin is showing? How big are the bulges? What jiggles? What curves? In show business they call it “tits and ass.” That is the usual limit of a man’s attention placed on a woman. “What would she be like in bed?”

  But what is a Woman really? What is a Woman underneath the surface? Where does Woman lead to? What does Woman represent? We men rarely experience deeper qualities of relating to Woman because we lack the discipline to notice the Feminine invitation. Our patriarchal immaturity impedes us from entering Feminine worlds that are rich with experience beyond our wildest imagination, a healing balm for wounds we’ve been too immature to face.

  There are “Woman spaces” so clear with awareness and piercing with intelligence that nothing of your being is left unseen. If you have any secret embarrassments or faults, they are no longer concealed. The Goddess sees all. There is no chance to turn away and hide. You are terrified to be so exposed, but through finally being seen, you find that you are accepted completely as you are. No judgments come from the Goddess at all. Here is where the healing of the false mask takes place. She sees your false mask as exactly what it is: your false mask. You think you can keep this a secret but she already knows. The secret is only for you. Perhaps you need to use the mask. She accepts that you need to use it. Your inauthenticity and your childish antics are clearly seen and accepted as your own uncertainty, and your uncertainty is also accepted. The healing happens because, since you cannot hide the false, you gain the courage to be true. All your efforts, whether they fail or succeed, only receive the Loving Goddess’s smile that sees and recognizes and accepts.

  There are Woman spaces as hot as the nuclear furnace at the core of the sun. Woman’s fierceness blasts forth, rips off your skin and sears the meat from your bones like dry dandelion fluffs blown from the stem. Your hair smokes. Your eyes squint in the roar of the flames. You wobble so much you can barely stand. No defense can protect you. All that remains is knocking bones; your trembling crackling skeleton shaking in its hollow shoes. It is then that you realize that nothing of your pain could possibly ever equal the pain experienced and now being expressed to you by Woman. If you can bear the pain that Woman now risks sharing, and if you do not wither in its presence, or blame her back from your own weakness, you are recognized for your strength and courage, and you achieve a great victory. You are worshipped by Woman in a way that makes your juices surge, simply for listening and witnessing. The vulnerable appreciation, by Woman, of something so simple as your listening, is even harder to bear than her nuclear storm.

  There are Woman spaces so wise and magical that poetry drips like sparkling dewdrops from her lips, answering every question you dare or care to ask. She stands before you, a naked oracle nymph, who only wants to caress your mind with sweet assemblies of clarity and truth. Here, wonder prevails. In the presence of such easeful wisdom, it is no longer necessary to defend yourself with sane sounding reasons, or to profess that you know. A great healing takes place, because you are permitted to fully relax into not knowing, and, for the first time, the wondrous present opens up for you and becomes truly habitable without fear. You can start to play. And the faeries play with you. Joy abounds and the joy is intensely endless.

  There are Woman spaces so safe and sensual that all of your inhibitions vanish as if they never existed. Nothing is naughty. Nothing is forbidden. You discover an openness and fluidity of movement within yourself that you thought was impossible. Her willingness to flow, blend, roll and play overwhelms you with simplicity and kindness. There never was a need to be strategic or clever, never a need to manipulate to try to get what you wanted. Just ask. Just try. The healing intimacy is far far deeper than thinking. Experientially, you are led to discover how easeful sexuality is. The tacit innocence is irresistible. Everything works. Everything brings you closer. The mind just drifts away from lack of use, and only touch guides you both further and further into delight in being naked and refreshingly alive.

  There are Woman spaces so stark-raving insane that the world shatters around you into a million terrifyingly-sharp razor blades. Nothing fits together and everything makes you want to scream in fear and rage. The more you thrash, the more you get cut to shreds and bleed. Staying still is no answer, because then you are only an easier target for vicious vampire entities. You bodily perceive the unending and twisted depths of Feminine horror. Insanity reigns. There is no way out and no way through. Nothing and nobody could prove that anything else is true. Death would be better than this. Devouring demons rip out anything that is holy or sacred from your soul, and shit on it until it suffocates before your eyes. Nothing remains. And yet, after some time, the Nothing that remains has some persistence. No matter what else there is, there is also the Nothing. A healing arises out of the molding spittle slime. The healing is that, even in the depths of insanity, you find that you are okay. You find a new home in Nothingness, and that home is discovered to be already everywhere.

  There are Woman spaces so warm and nurturing that boundless Love caresses the hidden sour pockets in your soul. Nectar reaches into your tissues and smoothes away all your rough edges, everywhere. Never more must you stand alone. You have arrived. The gates open and you are enfolded in the Garden of Paradise. She has only been waiting for you to come be-with her there. Nothing is expected of you. You do not have to pay. You enter her glance and crumble into her welcome. You should never be worthy of such sweet warmth and loving acceptance, for you know that you have sinned. You know that you have hurt women, even indirectly, accidentally. Women are such fragile tender creatures. And children, you have hurt children, only by ignoring their request for a touch, a smile, a glance. So precious are the children, and you have hurt them. You do not deserve to be welcomed into the Garden, and yet she begs you to come and only be held by her Love. Your heart breaks, and in the breaking, your heart becomes real and is healed.

  Words cannot begin to impress the actual experience of a man accepting the invitation to go through the gates and explore the worlds of Woman, hand in hand with, his woman. You have to work for this. It is hard work.

  We can still ask, what is Woman? What does Woman represent? Where does Woman come from? Men are rarely allowed to learn. But Men can learn. Men can learn when they transform their woman into a gateway for Woman. Woman becomes a gateway when presented with authentic masculine presence (see Section 8-D.) When Man places his conserved, Archetypal-energy attention on the woman, with respect and wonder, the Goddess herself is drawn into the space where the woman once was. It is the Goddess who takes your hand and leads you on the journey further exploring Archetypal Manhood. A Goddess has a rare touch, a touch worth working for.

  The journey is endless and the journey is always the same. The journey commences when the Pirate Magician King Spiritual Warrior Man establishes intimacy in Archetypal Love. That Love opens a joyous meeting of beings in a sanctuary through which the Masculine and Feminine Archetypes can do their work in the world – the real purpose for relationship between Man and Woman. In this “high drama” of conscious Archetypal theater, you, as Man, have a precise and thoroughly engaging role to play.

  From the Glossary

  Holding Space is the act of being responsible at the level of space. Holding space implies conscious intention. Bef
ore you can hold space you must first declare space into existence as a distinction between what is in the space and what is outside the space. Space is declared either as an eight-pointed box or as an amorphous bubble. Space is held through using a percentage of your conscious attention to dedicate the space to serving Bright Principles. When you first try to hold space you might use control, domination or manipulation, but these are Shadow Principles. Holding space is a core skill. Once you can hold space you can learn to navigate space.

  SECTION 11-E

  Holding Space For Woman

  When you, as the Archetypal Masculine, set your Box aside and hold a safe enough space for your partner to set her Box aside, then the Archetypal Feminine may appear. It is the Archetypal King who holds space with joy for his Woman, but this is not as easy as it sounds. There are treacheries to contend with, both internally in the man (his Box and his Gremlin) and externally in the Man’s Kingdom (Gremlins in the workplace, neighborhood, family, and circle of friends). Without his Spiritual Warrior, Pirate Magician, and loving communicator to serve him, a King is but a figure of speech.

  Here is a first-hand example. One evening, I invited a new male friend to stay as a guest overnight in our house. The man was surely a King, but his Gremlin was not fully recognized by him. Almost immediately, his Gremlin subsumed his faculties and commandeered his behavior, and for several hours his Gremlin voraciously flirted with my partner-woman (see Section 17-C, about “Psychic Sex”). As you could well imagine, all my faculties were alerted. Driven by immediate anger at the sensed disrespect, my Warrior raised my two-edged sword of clarity. My Box wanted to use the sword only on him – one of its favorite strategies being to feel betrayed. But the sword of clarity is ruthlessly neutral. It first demanded that I clarify: Was it my own neurotic jealousy, or was this truly dishonorable? When the answer became clear, my Pirate-Magician-King-Spiritual-Warrior-team unhesitatingly sprang into action. Undaunted by my Box’s immense fear of what I was about to do (the “good boy” aspect of my Box, that is), the Magician broke all rules of hospitality and politeness to suddenly intervene between the man and my partner. The Warrior made that interference uncompromising, calling a complete halt to their interactions. The Pirate King took the man into the kitchen and sent my Woman to another room. By now, my friend was on complete alert with all his Gremlin forces, and my Woman had her own opinions, which were addressed in private later. The man and I entered a fiercely honest conversation that precisely confronted his actions and their purpose, even at the most subtle level. And, when the situation was fully exposed, I sent the man out, alone into the night, away from my home, without the slightest compunction to rescue him. This was not the first time this man had been sent away from a couple’s home. During the conversation, my King understood with compassion the attractiveness of my Woman to such a Gremlin, so the conversation was held with a degree of tenderness that would rationally seem uncalled for, given the circumstances. But the proof of the Kingly nature of this event is that this man remains a good friend of mine, although he has never been (and may never be) permitted back into my house. This story exemplifies one aspect of how Masculine Archetypes work integrally together in holding space for a Woman.