Iron John Chapter 12 Finding the Gold in our hands “When a finger turns to Gold”

Iron John Chapter 12. The first day at the pond.

When A finger turns to gold. Robert Bly has written most eloquently about this in his book on Iron John. About firstly elevating our wound so that it doesn’t throb or we put it in our mouth that other warm, wet, place of soothing.  What is this wound; the one we sustained when we forced the lock to turn and made the blood sacrifice to the feminine? To elevate the wound is to hold it up for inspection, to make it public, and acknowledge the shadows we have brought from the Status-quo. This is what happens in an “I” group within M.K.P. The “I” group or other 12-step processes allows us in this world to bring bits of our shadow up in consciousness and to integrate that energy back into our being, instead of it being a split-off part, slowly going toxic within us.

When we place that wound (our shadow) into the golden water, we release all those bits of our 360 deg person we denied, repressed, and projected in order to be acceptable within the status quo. Shadow is not our enemy though it is often portrayed as such in this world. Mainly because it pops out in an uncontrolled way causing havoc in our lives. Remember that the function of Soul is to constantly crack open the cage of Ego so that we can grow. At the pond, we remember all of who we are.

Our wound is now our Gold and we understand many things all at once.

The narrative says “Thou hast dipped thy finger into the water, this time it may pass, but take care thou dost not again let anything go in”

This is like the “Blue Beard” story. Don’t go into the room where the small key fits” It almost guarantees human what a human being will do. The Wildman sees that this phase is over and sets us the same task at the next level of being which we will need for our Kingship, the level of community.

So we have to do this work while we live in the world of Ego consciousness in Johannesburg today. This forces us to do it secretly, away from the prying judgemental eyes of the alliance. The solution our culture has created for this is the peer group. The peer group is a secret society that the Empire at large cannot penetrate. It pontificates about the effect and behaviors of this group, but as to a deep understanding of the psych dynamics, they leave that to experts in the psychology field who endeavor to describe behavior in terms of a material understanding. However, as an axiom, we can never determine the process by behavior. Without some sort of elder presence, the peer group can descend into a gang violence very easily.

Elders can be individual people and can also be values held by individual people in leadership roles. In the story, it is the Wildman, the regenerative man, the healer of souls and nations alike. In Jhb. it is in part the collective values of the citizens. I have to use the word citizen because we have so many different cultures all living side by side. We know that a collective value exists, or all peer groups would become gangs.

The story tells us that the boy (us) aged 7 or 8 approaches the cage. I noticed as my children grew up that a curious thing happened beginning at this age and continuing until the early 20’s. The children began to flock together like birds on a wire. Parents became embarrassed, the shadow of the parents became apparent and there was a realisation that death was a reality and awareness within the children of their own mortality. That there was a vast difference between what the parents said and what they did.

In some traditions, this is expressed as the children leaving the cloak of the mother and moving into the realm of the masculine represented by the father and behind him the elders of the community. In watching my children grow up this was a natural progression. The children expressed a desire to go with me to work to see what I did. They spent a lot of time on building sites playing in the building sand, in and out of bakkies. Being with workers eating their lunch. My Daughter, who came first, and later the three boys all did this. None of them followed my footsteps, they all took their own path. This was a phase until about 14-15 years. 

What are the children waiting for? Like the birds on the wire, they are flocking for protection in their vulnerability While waiting for their spiritual inheritance which the elders hold for them until they come of age. 

At the Malls the younger teenagers stand in groups not interacting with each other as though they are waiting for something. They are waiting in vain for the Grand fathers and Grand mothers, God parents, and Elders to bring them their spiritual inheritance.  They don’t know what’s missing they just feel a craving. When that craving is not satisfied then the peer group took over and of course computer games. 

Back to Separating from Mother and Father. When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy down from his shoulder, and said to him, “Thou wilt never see thy father and mother again, but I will keep thee with me, for thou hast set me free, and I have compassion on thee. If thou dost all I bid thee, thou shalt fare well.

We have already seen some of the journey into incarnation from Soul to the Castle Quo. While our western traditions are not very explicit about this process fortunately other cultures and traditions that are. One of these is the Waldorf schooling system sometimes known as Steiner schools after the founder Rudolf Steiner.

The pre-natal time to about 7/8 years is described as being within the cloak of the mother, the influence of the mother. The child is WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. If the child is hungry, uncomfortable, sad, or mad there is no doubt about what’s happening. During this time there is tremendous bonding with the Mother as well as protection from outside hostile forces including the father who may or may not represent the Giant tyrannical forces of the Status Quo. The image of Chronos eating his children applies here. (Link to Jack & beanstalk and Giants)

Much socialising takes place within the mother’s cloak. The norms and morals of the culture are taught by osmosis. The child is inculcated into the family, the family hierarchy, and family mythology. The family’s place as part of a community, culture, language, religion, state, and country. Many of the sexual roles and sexual orientations are also inculcated at this time.

The Child begins life totally dependent on the mother and by extension the social group, the need for love nurturing, and acceptance is so strong that those parts that aren’t accepted are repressed and denied. These cut-off parts don’t wither and die but go to live in what has come to be called the Shadow by Carl Jung or the long bag we drag behind us (Robert Bly). The other idea could be that they return to the enormous forest and live there which is why the Forest came to be labeled such a dangerous place.

The second phase 7 to 14 or so years.  Now a very natural movement takes place the child discovers the outside world, that world over the fence, outside the car windows. This is a great discovery for the child and full of wonder. The child now naturally becomes interested in the Father’s world the world of the male of things and the masculine expression.

This can be a hard time for the mother to let go and see her world and the Feminine turned away from. Never fear there is a  Cliché that says “The hand that rocks the cradle guides the plow” is never more adept. When the child is injured or hurt, it’s straight back to Mum for solace. “Dad be blowed.”

How can this separation happen in single-parent families where the family is abandoned by the father? The child becomes rebellious, wanting the fathering, waiting for the spiritual inheritance to arrive. When that doesn’t happen the child turned inwards and does violence to itself because it feels valueless. The teenage sneer and disdain for all things is an expression of inner abandonment.

TURNING our fingers into Gold. When a finger turns to gold.

The Narrative.

Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the world.” He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the next morning the man took him to a well, and said,

“Behold, the gold well is as bright and clear as crystal, thou shalt sit beside it, and take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will come every evening to see if thou hast obeyed my order.”

The boy placed himself by the margin of the pond, and often saw a golden fish or a golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in. As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron John came back, looked at the boy, and said, “What has happened to the well?” “Nothing, nothing,” he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the man might not see it.

 

In the last chapter, Chapter 11, I tried to lay out the nature of the Golden Pond. In this chapter, I want to explore what it might mean when a finger turns to Gold. Of our relationship to the Golden Pond.

What opportunity are we given to learn at the Golden Pond on the first day?

1. Guard the pond against defilement
2. Discover the gold we have in our hands.

What does this mean – to turn our finger….fingers……or whole hands, into gold? This is where and when we discover for ourselves what we are capable of from the inside out. That our hands are creative and can work magic in the world, Our hands, a single finger is a metaphor for what we can create in this world.

The old idea was that each came into this world with gifts for the community in which we incarnated. That we each held Medicine for each other, every birth was important. The genius of each of us is celebrated at birth and on every successive birthday.

This first stage at the pond is where we become conscious of our talents and gifts and how we might bring them into the world. Sometimes our gifts are not in our careers, They could be in our hobbies, those things we do in secret because we fear the response from a harsh and Ego driven, judgemental world of the status quo. Like the singers, musicians, and others in “America’s got talent”. They are waiters, car mechanics, nurses, homeless people, jailed people from all walks of life. They come on stage and share their gifts and are seen and admired for the first time and witnessed. After that, it’s hard to go back and hide.

How do we know when our first lesson is over?

Actually, the question may be reversed.  When we realise there is gold in our hands through what we can bring into this world then our hands turn to gold. We, the Wildman and the pond know it at the same time. Then it’s time for the next lesson.

That’s when our finger of the story turns to gold. When we realise that the gifts and our genius are gold for the community. They have value and are worth protecting against the defilement of the status quo. Who would rubbish it, scoff at it diminish it and reject any value in it. May even persecute us for it and deny us access to resources as punishment? In extreme cases, we could die protecting our Gold.

The women healers of old were burnt at the stake for their Gold. Galileo was excommunicated for his gold, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for his Gold. We have ourselves Welcome Witbooi in MKP, who left the 28 gang and prison and then shared his gold and continues to share his Gold.

When we realise that the gifts we can bring into the world with our hands are Gold.  

Remember the Basque prayer “Oh may this be the one who will bring forth the good the true and the beautiful”. Our voice, our art, our coding skills, our compassion for our fellow man, our creativity. The family and community we build, corporations and companies, when they are focused on service first, profits second.

A Conscious Initiation.  It is through conscious initiation that we discover our Gold. Until now it has been a story about unconscious initiation, a heroic journey brought about seemingly by chance. Or secretly conceived and connived by the unseen forces of the deep Feminine the Great Mother.

In the Iron John story, just after the place where we stop the story on the M.K.P. weekend, the wild man carries the boy to the golden pond where he spends three days and four nights.  In this time the wild man acts as mentor and King. Nurturing, blessing viewing and reviewing, while providing the environment for the boy’s next step (our next step). 

There is also a warrior element as the boy must guard the golden pond against defilement. The boy sees three different aspects of his gold in the pond. Also what is not mentioned in the narrative is what happens during the four nights.

Turning your fingers your hands into Gold.

From seven years of age, the child needs to bond with the father, who is an earthly expression of the masculine. In the time of ancient Greece, there were people called Pedagogues. They took the child from the women’s compound to explore the masculine world. The child was returned to the women’s compound at the end of the day or when the child had finished at a particular temple. In the Old Greek way, each temple was dedicated to a particular God. For example  Mars for anger, goal-directed energy, warrior work, etc. The belief was that when we were angry, we were possessed by that God. Time spent in the temple taught us how to deal with that energy or that possession.

Rites of Passage. These visits to the various temples were Rite of passage for the youngsters. These visits and instruction from the priests drew out from within the child what they had brought with them into this world. There were tests and trials to pit against so the individual could discover their own inner strengths and weaknesses.

This was the Old Greek concept of conscious Initiation.  Turning our finger into Gold is the same thing; to come to understand the strengths that we have within each of us. Instead of being told constantly what to do and how to be.

This is the point on an M.K.P. weekend “on the carpet” when a man realises his strengths and gift and consciously acknowledges them and has them witnessed. This is further strengthened by the Animal name which is a Soul ally for the Man.

From the Vision Quest book by  Steven Foster and Meredith Little

ISBN: 0-67176189-7

In modern times the “old ways” are glaringly absent, dismissing indigenous old ways as superstition or primitive, and as having little relevance to an automated life, prescribed by consumerism.

There is a creeping numbness that overcomes large numbers of people who live life as victims. A burden to themselves and the community. Lacking the inner resources developed from living a meaningful life we often nurture a negative picture of ourselves, which becomes a self-fulfilling philosophy. With that belief system in place, we are then forced to look outside of ourselves for deliverance.

The government should or must. “Should” and “Must” are both the names of Giants. (See the list of “Giants” names in Jack and the Bean Stalk.) Someone else must be the heroic person who will set things right, instead of embarking upon the journey of self-discovery and pushing through ourselves.

Even the archetypal experience of physical birth, our first initiation, our first experience of having to push through, has been diluted by fear of pain, putting our safety into the hands of “those who know better”.

By convenience. (Gynaecologist has booked a holiday in Mauritius next week so needs to caesar you this week). Has this set the model for the rest of our lives? The way we entered this world?  Stan Groff believes that our prenatal and birth experience has a profound effect on the way we see the world. He also believes much of the birth trauma or triumph are carried forward into our adult lives.

Laurence van der Post “the Heart of the Hunter” I suspect it was…the old story of the implacable necessity of a man having honour within his own natural spirit. A man cannot live and temper his mettle without such honour. There is deep within him a sense of the heroic quest. Our modern way of life, with its emphasis on security, its distrust of the unknown, and its elevation of the abstract collective has repressed the heroic impulsive to a degree that may produce the most dangerous consequences”.

WHEN FATHER-ING IS ABSENT,

 What happens to the sons? What happens to the world?

A descent into identity politics and political correctness.

The missing father is not your or my personal father.   He is the absent father of our culture, the viable Senex The elder who provides not daily bread but spirit through meaning and order.   The missing father is the dead god who offered a focus for spiritual things.   Without this focus, we turn to dreams and oracles, rather than to prayer, code, tradition, and ritual.   When mother replaces father, magic substitutes for logos, and son-priests contaminate the Pure spirit.

Unable to go backward to revive the dead father of tradition, we go downward into the mothers of the collective unconscious, seeking an all-embracing comprehension.   We ask for help in getting through the narrow straits without harm; the son wants invulnerability. Grant us protection, foreknowledge; cherish us.   Our prayer is to the night for a dream, for a love, for understanding, to a little rite, or exercise for a moment of wisdom.   Above all, we want assurance through a vision beforehand that it will all come out all right.

Without the father, we lose also that capacity which the Church recognised as “discrimination of the spirits”:   The ability to know a call when we hear one and to discriminate between the voices.

The mother encourages her son: go ahead, embrace it all.   For her, all equals everything.   The father’s instruction, on the contrary, is: all equals nothing – unless the all be precisely discriminated.

 from James Hillman    “The Rag & bone shop of the heart.”

ARumi Poem about the missing boy. 

Has anyone seen the boy?? By  Rumi.

Has anyone seen the boy who used to come here?

Round faced trouble maker, quick to find a joke, slow to be serious,

Red shirt, perfect coordination, sly, strong muscled, with things always

In his pocket, Reed flute worn pick, polished and ready for his talent.

Do you know that one?

Have you heard stories about him?

Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world collapsed for such a Joseph.

I’d gladly spend years getting word of him even third or fourth hand.

 

Back to Chapter 11                                                                                 Continued Chapter 13 When a single hair turns to Gold.