Iron John Chapter 06 Who or what is the Wildman

The Wildman In the Iron John story.

Who and what is the Wildman?

This chapter is not a place to unpack the Great Mother though she is mentioned often. Rather let’s meet her at the Golden Pond on our first day there.

The Wildman is first mentioned in the story when the strange hunter goes to the enormous forest to find out what’s so dangerous there.

So, let’s begin there with the Wildman.

Who or what is this wild man?  Here is what the narrative says and what the story implies about the strange goings on in the forest until the discovery of the wild man.

The narrative says: There was once up on a time a King who had a great forest near his palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a huntsman to shoot him a Roe, but he did not come back. “Perhaps some accident has befallen him,” said the King, and the next day he sent out two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away. Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said, “Scour the whole forest through, and do not give up until ye have found all three.” But of these also, none came home again, and of the pack of hounds which they had taken with them, none were seen more. From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest, and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it.

There is something strange and magical about this forest which has an eagle and a hawk flying over it. For those who have read Carlos Castaneda’s “Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan” there is an understanding that in this landscape, every detail is communicating with us, dogs, hawks, eagles even the forest itself, watching, how the two birds are flying. Where they come from, where they are headed, how they are flying and how high how low they are flying. All of this and more flood the keen observer with information. In the same way nature (the Great Mother) speaks to us on a medicine walk before a vision quest and on the Vision Quest itself. In our Ego eccentricity, we discount communication with the natural world around us. We disassociate with nature at the cost of our emotional and psychological health.

In this poem, we are reminded and instructed about the nature of this forest.

Firstly. “Stand still. Wait long enough for the forest to find you.”

Secondly the word “here” is not so much a place as a state of being. Here, being present to the moment. This is a forest of Soul or the heart, the place we left our inner child for safety as we traveled to the Castle Quo of Ego. Our child and our Soul wait impatiently for the redemptive moment or moments.

“Lost” by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. you must let it find you.

by David Wagoner, from Collected Poems 1956-1976

 

The narrative says: This lasted for many years, (people did not go into the forest. It was banned by the King) when a strange huntsman announced himself to the King as seeking a situation and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The King, however, would not give his consent, and said, “It is not safe in there; I fear it would fare with thee no better than with the others, and thou wouldst never come out again.” The huntsman replied, “Lord, I will venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.”

“This lasted for many years”, until it was time for the boy (us) to leave the protective cloak of the mother and join the Masculine world. This is the time a male initiator steps in the guise of the strange huntsman. The Queen seems to have a double agenda here. To be queen in the Castle quo, and for her son to realise his birthright and ours as well. That is to become King in his own right. Our own birthright as well.

The Great Mother plays her role through the Queen who is her representative on earth. You will notice from this moment forward in the story the deep Feminine of the Great Mother drives the story forward. Why? Because the Great Mother is always seeking a suitable consort with which to continue creation. Symbolised by the mystical marriage at the conclusion of this story and possibly our Mystical marriage as well.

The narrative says: The huntsman, therefore, betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to pursue it; but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of the water, seized it, and drew it under, When the huntsman saw that, he went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bail out the water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his knees. They bound him with cords and led him away to the castle.

The question is who or what is the Wildman?

Perhaps we can only understand the answers from within the confines of the story.

The Wildman is the archetypical lover of the Great Mother, the consort of the Great Mother. The Wildman comes before the formation of the Axis Mundi as the progenitor of all the other Masculine archetypes. If you’re interested in archetypes, try this simple but incomplete definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

When does a stereotype become an archetype? When enough people believe it’s true without question.

As men involved in Men’s work, we would love to believe that the Masculine has always been there.

However, this is not so as Erich Neumann set out in his two books “The Origins and history of Consciousness” and “The Great Mother”. Bollinger series N0 42. Princeton press ISBN 0-691-01761-1

A quote from the face page of the first book by Goethe:

He whose vision cannot cover.

History’s three thousand years,

Must in outer darkness hover,

Live within the day’s frontiers.

 

The masculine itself derives from the Great Mother and does not exist before her. She seeks a consort, a lover with which to continue creation. We find this still true in the matriarchal herds in the animal kingdom. Horses, lions, Elephants and many more. The young males must leave the herd and make their way on their own until they can challenge the current mate of the matriarch for the right to cover her.

Males must be strong enough to separate from the great mother or she simply recycles us. Understanding that every child in utero starts off as female and that the extra Y chromosome comes later. Being male it seems is still an experiment of nature and that extra Y chromosome.

The Wildman is not a single man as we would understand. But rather ancient energy that flows through the Masculine and out into the physical world by anybody capable of carrying that energy. Male or female. Men it seems are hard-wired for some of the Masculine traits. Women can express it strongly equally as well.

Who among us is going to carry the divine water? Are we strong enough? Is the hollow bone hollow enough and is the bone strong enough? Wildness is what we should aspire to not necessarily being the Wildman. Kingship always being sacral. To embrace Kingship is to be ready to sacrifice your life for those who follow. The Wildman has made this choice, to become the Wildman is to accept that choice.

Poem Bread and Wine.

Bread & Wine by Friedrich Holderlin.

Oh, Friends we arrived too late. The divine energies are still alive, but isolated above us, in the archetypical world.

They keep on going there, and apparently, don’t bother if humans live or not……..and that is a heavenly mercy.

Sometimes a human’s clay is not strong enough to take the divine water. Human beings can carry the divine only sometimes.

What is living now?

Night dreams of them.

 But craziness helps, so does sleep.

 Grief and night toughen us.

Until people capable of sacrifice once more rock in the iron cradle, desire people, like the ancients, strong enough for that water.

In thunderstorms, it will arrive. I have the feeling often meanwhile it is better to sleep since the guest comes so seldom.

We waste our lives waiting, and I haven’t the faintest idea how to act or talk…in the lean years who needs poets??

But poets as you say are like the holy disciple of the wild one. The one who used to stroll over the fields and through the enormous forest through the whole divine night.

 

For the purposes of the story, our Ego understands the Wildman as a single male. Only later we realise that this story does not happen in our world, rather it takes place in the world of imagination and timelessness right next to ours, connected by Soul. With Soul being the relating part of our being that crosses these boundaries of time and place.

1. Why is the Wildman sitting supposedly passively in the pond?
2. Why does he allow himself to be taken to the Castle?
3. Why does he allow himself to be caged?
4. Why does the king want him caged in the courtyard?
5. Why Is the Queen keeping the key?

The narrative says: There was great astonishment over the wild man; the King, however, had him put in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened on pain of death, and the Queen herself was to take the key into her keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the forest with safety.

Why is the Wildman sitting supposedly passively in the pond?

The Wildman as the lover of the Great Mother. She is interested in each of us becoming King in our own right and thereafter her lover as co-creator after the mystical marriage The great mother is forever looking for new lovers with whom to create with. Another way of saying this is Soul is always trying to crack open Ego to deepen Ego’s experience of the world as well as Soul’s participation. Soul does this best by creating crisis in our lives.

She, the Great Mother reappears at the end of the story as “The girl who loves Gold” whom the young man (us) takes to wife after he (Ego) has been thoroughly prepared. Initially by the Wildman at the Golden pond for three days. And our further adventurous journey to the second castle down the road less traveled. In this way, creation continues afresh.

Why does he allow himself to be taken to the Castle?

Why does he allow himself to be Caged?

The Wildman is waiting for us! For the conversation around the Golden ball. He needs the huntsman to get him to the Castle. He relies on the King’s need to contain wildness so that the Castle Quo can be safe. And from this time forth every one could again go into the forest with safety. And to lock him in the cage of the courtyard where we can find him and be accessible. That is a wild idea about how important we are and the importance of the Hero’s journey to the end of the story.

As we are today in our daily lives, he is bound in the cage by the theories opinions and beliefs of the status quo, which create our modern version of reality. We live in a consensus reality a construct that our agreed projections create. The key to all of this is held by the Queen in her double role. She plays the role of the midwife of the status quo, but she is also part of the deep Feminine. The Queen is deeply influenced by the Great Mother, whose wish is for the process to go forward at the proper time. In the past I had thought the Queen played a double game now I realise when one of these great archetypes comes close to us humans. We automatically do its bidding, believing it was our desire all along.

The Queen did not destroy the key, nor give it to some traveller to carry it far away. Nor did she give it to the blacksmith to meltdown. She kept the Key under her pillow, Where she dreamed of great things for her son as all parents do.

Question 2,3 & 4. Why does he allow himself (the Wildman) to be taken to the Castle?

The answer is simpler than it seems   For us. For You and me

The Wildman is his making his Kingship sacral. True Kingship is always sacral. Always dying to allow the younger king to achieve Kingship. To renew the lover of the great and eternal Mother who needs that physical Masculine to re-create the world in on ongoing process.

OK, so how does that help us, mere mortals. The Old King thought it was a good thing to keep the Wildman caged in the courtyard for several reasons.

1. It showed how powerful he was. To be able to cage the dangerous wild thing.
2. He, the King had made the enormous forest safe, and people could now travel there.
3. The Wildman’s presence in the courtyard reminded the people who was protecting them.
4. It reminded people that to remain safe it was best to have a King who could cage and contain the dangers of wildness and tame the forest.
5. It was a daily reminder not to be tempted by wildness.
6. It reminded the King that he out-ranked wildness. Very satisfying and flattering.

What the King doesn’t realise that during all that time the Wildman is waiting for us to throw the Golden ball into the cage. I have unpacked the why and how of this in previous Chapters,     so we will move straight on to the conversation with the Wildman and Wildness.

The Golden ball of Soul once rejected by the Ego must return to Wildness, to the Wildman of the story, to undifferentiated unity from where it came, The direction of below. In the narrative this happens once, in our life it happens in small chunks until its effectively gone, just a small spark remains. For us to rekindle the flame from.

The Wildman’s response is always the same. A Psychic truth. “YES” “You can get your Golden ball back” “If you let me (wildness) out of the cage”.

This not a truth for that moment but rather a universal truth. “If you want your Soul back, your Golden ball back, your inner child, then wildness, our wildness has to be uncaged from the chains of the status quo”. We must see the great lie of the status quo and realise the truth of the line in the next poem “Which mankind has chosen too scantily.”

The great lies of the Status quo.

1. Two lies rolled into one here. You must compete with each other as resources are scarce.
2. To get your share you have to grab it irrespective of who you have to trample over to get it.
3. Resources are scares and there is not enough to go around.
4. We have conquered, nature and now we are separate from nature it is there for our use.
5. If you subscribe to our rules, we will keep you safe from everything except death (which we will not talk about)
6. If you give up your rights and notions of individuality, we will grant you herd protection. Your safety is assured, and you will live happily without a doubt in your mind.

In this poem, there is a lament about the loss of individuality, life purpose, our inner child, and Soul. It is a lament about accepting the deal with the status quo as set out above.

A Poem. I am not a mechanism. By D.H. Lawrence.

And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly,

that I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.

I am ill.

I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self. 

and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help.        

and patience, and a certain difficult repentance,

A long and difficult repentance, the realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing of oneself

from the endless repetition of the mistake

which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify!

 

Stealing the Key. Can you do that? Are you prepared to go against everything your Mother and the status quo stands for and be ready and willing to steal the key?  BIG question? Look around you, this does not end well for most people.

Our Mother did not destroy the key. It’s there, it’s available. Which was always the Great mother’s intent.

We need to be ready and willing, and we need to be stealthy. We need to have skin in the game and perhaps prefer death to living without our Golden Ball or be prepared to die in retrieving it. Death in this instant does not necessarily mean a physical death but the readiness to die to something within us, to allow something new to be reborn. To be re-connected with our Soul.

To steal the key is a huge task and very few people manage it completely. Mainly because we don’t realise what stealing the key actually entails. In our lives we may steal the key many times. Small thefts as we gradually wake up to the lies of the status quo. Unleashing different aspect of Wildness bit by bit. In the narrative, the task is easy because the story needs the process to go forward in a line or two.

So, in the story, the lock is approached with stealth (we don’t need do-gooders sounding the alarm) Remember the Key has to be stolen (no deals, no negotiation) Remember at our 21^st birthday we are given the Key to the door as our parents symbolically want to get rid of us, out of the house. (In my culture) Our parents put their own lives on hold to bring us into this world now it’s time for the rest of their lives, their hopes, dreams and wishes. Steal the key or accept it at 21 years. Stealing is the preferred method for rite of passage work.

It’s clear that the Wildman is only willing to exit the cage through the open door. A door that is opened by each of us individually . That we, you and I must turn the key. A small blood sacrifice is required to the Great Mother as it is in many traditional processes, A drop of blood, a sip of wine, some small sacrifice to honour the Great Mother that drives the process ever forward. Remembering the three blood mysteries of the menstrual blood, converting blood into milk, turning blood into physical life.

The blood is spilled, the lock turns, the door opens, and our access to our Golden ball is returned. Heady stuff. Now suddenly we realise we are truly alone and unprepared for what may come next. Everything we have been taught and have come to believe so far in life is totally useless. We have burnt our bridges behind us, Fear may come in at this point.  “Wait” we call to the departing Wildman, “Oh, wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!” The wild man turned back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps into the forest. 

The Wildman carries us on his shoulders to the enormous forest. He feeds us with the food the forest provides and makes us a bed of moss to sleep on. We are now sleeping in the arms of nature, the Great Mother, as we dream of our future and what is lost. What we have just left behind at the Castle quo.

After our three-day sojourn (not three 24 hour days but three periods of time) the Wildman sends us on the next part of our journey with a blessing and a truth. “You know a lot about Gold now, but nothing about poverty” and so we embark on the rest of our journey down the road less travelled. The road to our destiny, both in this world and the next.

Finally, with the blessing of the Wildman and the Gift of the Great Mother we come to a school where the lessons of spiritual and Soul Poverty are taught. The planet earth. Remember the blessing of the Wildman, “Of gold and wealth I have plenty. If you ever need me, come to the edge of the forest, call my name three time and I will assist you”

Now we find ourselves travelling down the road less travelled to get into this school. There is only one way, down through the birth canal of a physical woman, a part of the Great Mother, and into life as we know it. Our Ego is a clean slate, our physical mother socialises us into how to survive in her world. In this way, the Hero’s journey begins the battle between Ego, Soul, and Shadow. Remember “we know a lot about Gold”. To heal the wasteland, the bi-product of the creation of Ego. We need to go to the enormous forest and “call out three times, Iron John, Iron John, Iron John” he will come! as we were promised.

The Wildman is our Godfather and holds our spiritual inheritance in safekeeping. The Wildman still lives in the enormous forest of the psyche, still waits for us to reclaim our Soul which is our spiritual inheritance. He waits for us in the enormous forest and for the redemptive moment.