I've been thinking a lot about the archetype
of the orphan child these last few days.
In classic literature, the orphan has to have the experience of abandonment
in some form or another (vis-a-vis: Harry
Potter, Luke Skywalker, two more recent popularized orphans), in order to
experience strength and self-reliance.
In the study of Caroline Myss' Sacred
Contracts, everyone is born with a child archetype that they work with as part
of their 'contract'. Orphan is one
that is often chosen because many, if not most, people recognize that they have
repeatedly felt abandoned over the course of their lives. The dark side of the orphan is either
about creating needy surrogate family situations or pretending to not need
anyone (the "I am a Rock, I am an Island" scenario, sung by Kenny
Rogers and others). A healthy
orphan experiences a strong personal sense of self-reliance, including the
awareness of successfully working, living and succeeding solo, and at the same
time does not shut others out. An
orphan working with light attributes finds themselves more in the realm of
interdependence, capable of comfortably working singularly, and also capable of
working interconnectedly, but without demanding excessive participation from
others.
One of the stories told by orphans is that
life is hard and they have to struggle to obtain or achieve anything that they
might desire. The funny thing about orphans is that they can be wildly
successful, and they have had to really, really, really work hard at it. Nothing can ever come easy to an orphan,
because .... well, it just can't.
Nothing is allowed to be easy, because then the orphan story might be
recognized as the story that it is, and not the truth that it isn't.
I had a challenging and somewhat
disconcerting interview this past week and was wildly successful (see the bread
crumb trail?). As I settled in for
the night, I was ruminating on that particular series of events, because I also
know that as a spark of the Divine Mind, I create or at least co-create every
event in my life. In the wee hours
of the morning, I awoke with the sudden and overwhelming realization that the
orphan story, which has been a predominant story in my life, was just a story
and was not actually the truth. The
truth of my being is that I am a beloved child (or adult) of God and that all
things work together for my good, no matter what I may have previously
experienced or thought.
So I got busy reframing my story, recognizing
myself, first and foremost, as a divine spark, one for whom the world is a
joyful open book with loads of cool possibilities and luscious
opportunities. I was even mostly
able to remember that when the cable company managed to delay the installation
of my high-speed internet, again.
And so it goes...
