Iron John Chapter 11 Meeting the Great Mother on arriving at the Golden Pond

Iron John Chapter  11             The Golden Pond.

How do we find Our medicine, Our Gold this part of the story definitely does not happen in our physical world

What is the Golden Pond? The Golden Pond holds our medicine, our Soul’s gold, and the deep feminine of nature herself, the Great Mother.

This is the place of undifferentiated unity, Cycles of becoming, the seasons, birth, death, regeneration always creating each in its own time in a timeless dance.

Where is the Golden pond? It is that inner part, the inner child who still owns the Goldenball of unity. It is in the very center of the enormous forest where the axis Mundi or the Yggdrasil of Norse mythology tree grows. At the foot of this tree, the pond exists. This part of the story definitely does not take place in our physical world, rather it takes place at the center of Soul in the “enormous forest” of the transpersonal psyche. The same lapsed time rules don’t apply as here. This is that magical land where animals speak, and fantastic creatures exist. In M.K.P it’s where we go to get our animal names, really we only dip our toes in that water.   It’s a metaphor and for the purpose of the story, it is spread over three days, not three 24 hr days rather three periods of time which makes the narrative practical. What the metaphor intends is that we get all the three levels of stories: the personal, the communal, and the collective and importantly it lays out the nature of the Axis Mundi the world tree. The axis Mundi has three levels also, below, middle, and above.

The Narrative: 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 farewell. 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.  

“Thou wilt never see thy father and mother again.” The break between the parents and the child is important as the rules and the reach of the status quo can pull us back from our quest, even across the grave. The quest to become a divine King. Guilt and manipulation are the tools of the status quo and with the best intentions of the parents who don’t trust the Wildness released from the cage of apparent safety. 

“For thou hast set me free, and I have compassion on thee”: Perhaps we still don’t understand what a stupendous effort it is to, firstly steal the Key, and then actually turn the lock. What was risked? everything and yet nothing.   

EE Cumming’s Poem; The hardest thing in the world is to be yourself when everybody else is telling you what to be, how to be,……

The Wildman does not need to be set free, he is always free. However, if we unlock the cage of our heart, Soul (Wildman) is pleased. the redemptive moment has arrived. The Wildman sees our true nature underneath all of the overlays of the status quo. Soul waits until we are ready. Ready for what? For when we realise for ourselves that the bill of goods sold to us by the status quo is hollow and without substance. We begin to cast about and look for something else, something other. We begin to wonder what happened to our golden ball and the roses in our garden entrusted to us so long ago? as in the poem below.

The Wind, One Brilliant Day by Antonio Machado

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

“In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.”

“I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.”

“Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.”

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
“What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?”

Translated by Robert Bly

When the hunter came to the forest with his dog the Wildman grabbed the dog, not to drown it in the pond but to free the domesticated wolf from inside the dog. The Wildman see us as domesticated Wildmen and would free us from the domestication of the status quo.

The story of Huckleberry Fin sets out quite well the need to escape from domesticating Aunts to be free to escape the tyranny of the status quo over Soul. The movie  Huckleberry Fin” a good watch)

The Wildman speaks to the boy, us, the young Ego whether male or female.

“Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the world”: Gold in this sense is spiritual Gold, understanding, and deep memory as we will see late on in the story. This memory has been called the hall of records or the Akashic records. As with the story of “The Devils Sooty Brother,” this gold is unexpected and not valued in this world but, is a foundational resource to navigate this world. An inner resilience and fortitude to fall back on in adversity. 

Mentoring moments: “He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept.” 

Threats and admonishments are not the way of a mentor and a loving Soul King. There is no need for threats or punishment only learning and consequences and re-learn try again. At this point in the story, the boy is about 7 years old. You do not send a 7-year-old child without support out into the world of the status quo. I imagine the Boy (us) was 16 years of age or so before he left the forest. So, what was he doing all that time? 

Departing from the narrative. At this point, I have departed from the narrative slightly. Understanding that this story was in Grimm’s brother’s collection was recorded within the context of that time and its assumption. Assumptions about child-rearing. Children were effectively chattels and did what they were told or they were punished; this is not in keeping with mentoring by a good King. Read Alice Miller on “Child-rearing practices in 10^th century Europe”.

Time differential in stories: As we know from a good story intro we start off with ”Once upon a time, once in that time, there are places where time moves more slowly than here, we are leaving our time now, we are leaving our time now.”

A day in a story refers to a period of time or experience, not the 24 hours. of our world. So, let’s say we spend 7 years in the forest, divided up into three overlapping experiences. We are the sons (all of us) of a divine King and we are in training to take over that role. Remember that Kingship is always sacral and always waiting to step aside for a younger King. (As laid out in the story “Off with the Rats head”.)

The Golden Pond: Is a magical place deep within the wellspring of consciousness. It is the same place that shamans go to get answers. Indeed it’s where Ivan went later in the story when the Kingdom was under attack by hostile forces. It is also the home of the Great Mother where she manifests herself in the direction of below.

Our first Task at the Golden Pond. The first period of time in the forest with the Wildman.

The narrative: The Wildman says to the boy in the morning, here is your task for today. “Watch over this pond and do not allow anything to defile it.”

“Watch over this pond and do not allow anything to defile it.”  What does that mean? Don’t let anything defile it?  This pond is at the center of our being and shares beingness with everything. We need to be careful what we allow into our garden of the heart. At this time of COVID, it is easy to be swamped by sadness, loss, and rage at the inequities we see around us. However, this learning is to engage our inner warrior to guard the boundaries of the pond and practice spiritual discernment. In a way to protect and not allow anything to defile it. Not to do so is to lose our center. It is actually the Ego’s job to do this guarding to patrol the boundaries.

Ego as guardian of the threshold. Because we are a spiritual being in an animal body, we are surrounded by a maelstrom of emotions and beliefs all, competing and clamoring to be heard. As with any Kingdom, there is a walled city where the regent lives. There are guards patrolling the gates and the boundaries who will enquire about your business if you wish to enter. The king then says yes or no.  It is exactly the same in our homes. You ring the doorbell; somebody comes to the door and asks you what you want. Next step “OK sit here in the entrance hall while I check if someone can see you.” If your mission is rejected your told – sorry not interested, or he’s busy, make an appointment – another form of gatekeeping.

If your quest is successful you get invited deeper into the house, a drawing room or meeting room offered refreshments. If the relationship is ongoing then the house is opened to you with the exception of the bedroom. This is the deepest and most sacred part of the house.  This is why it is such a trauma to steal the key from under the mother’s pillow from his mother’s bedroom.

Ego’s right relation to Soul. This is our Ego’s true function and works with Soul as Guardian of the threshold. Only allowing into our being what we can handle. This part of Ego is called the Magician, always bringing up our next step. This is opposed to crisis which is Soul’s final resort channeled through Shadow often.

So, the word “defile” means. Guard the gate, guard the boundaries, don’t let anything in that is inappropriate. If and when that does happen, deal with it.

The Wildman, the regenerative man. The divine King knows what the next step is for us on our journey is. We have left home, father, and mother behind and now is the time for “solo work”. We are carrying our wounds with us to the pond; the wound we received symbolically when we released the Wildman from the cage. In some way we know we have betrayed the Status-quo and disappointed the mother, father, family, and community. Our wound is that we carry guilt around that. If we cannot find time or space to consolidate with the Wildman, we can easily be shamed back into the status quo through guilt manipulation, well-meaning friends, teachers, university professors, and more powerfully, peers, family, and lovers.

 

By Antonio Machado

 

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

The wound of denying Soul. Our wound ruins deeper than this, all the parts of ourselves we split off to be acceptable to mother, and the status quo are swimming around in this pond waiting for us. This is our own gold and we must begin to know its value and not allow anything to defile it. In childhood hood we were dependent on others for survival so we accepted their rules now as self-sufficient adults we need our Ego to protect our boundaries, not the Status quo theories, opinions, and beliefs.

The second level of the Pond. Remember we are training for Kingship, for regency. As a good steward of the pond, what do we need to know about ponds? Everything! Here is an image I hold from my youth.

Imagine this pond absolutely teeming with life in and around the pond. As a seven-year-old, I would be in the wade playing with tadpoles and frogs. Watching boatman skim across the water on the surface tension. Mud squishing up between my toe’s clothes absolutely wet. The air is filled with the sound of birds and animals coming to drink; The air full of earth smell, wet ground, the scent of flowers, the particular smell of the animal that comes to drink. Sitting on the bank that place of betwixt and between, nature is instructing us as to what is needed to keep the pond clean and of pollutants.

We are sleeping next to the pond, through all the seasons and the life cycle of the animals. Animals speak to us about their life cycle and what they need to flourish. Not to survive, but to flourish. Nature herself is so generous with life. She doesn’t parcel it out in dribs and drabs like the status quo.  A fruit tree in the spring has more fruit than we can eat. The fruit is not for sale, it is a gift from nature. There is no waste for what is not eaten goes back into the ground to nourish the earth…..if we will let it. Over this period of time, we are living from the bounty of the forest, honey, berries, fruit, nuts, and the water of life.

The sacred pond. The womb of the Great Mother.  Is a really important detail in the geography of our psychology. We have come to our own very personal and individual sacred pond within a larger pond; this is the wellspring of our deep spiritual history; as this history bubbles up through this sacred pond into our soul for this incarnation.  Everything we need for this lifetime is contained as a potential in this water. This is the water of life, the fountain of youth. Always refreshing itself, always new.

The Great Mother’s womb. This is indeed a metaphor for our mother’s womb, for that which is contained within the sacred pond is the beginning of our journey into this world. This is the wellspring of the deep Feminine contained within Mankind. Indeed, we are going to meet this pond later again in the story as “The Perfumed Garden” in the Kings court

The Great Mother archetype: Birth, Death, and Regeneration.

The great vegetation cycle. The birthplace of Hunan beings. Humus “ Hu” Latin of god What does Hu in human mean? The English word “human” breaks down into 2 parts. “Hu” meaning God and “man” meaning mind. Originally coming from the Sanskrit word “mana,” which is, the mind of the ordinary person. So, in other words, god, and man come together.

English gets the word human from Latin with a similar etymology as the name Adam in Hebrew. In Latin, homo means man, humanus means human, and humus means ground. It should be easy to see the relationship between the concepts of “man” and “ground,” even if we don’t hold these original meanings as literal anymore. Nevertheless, it is interesting to think about these historical relationships and speculate on how they might give us a fuller sense of our own creation. Following this train of thought, in English, like in Hebrew, a human is a “ground man” or an “earth man.”

Why should this interest us? First, humus is the part of the land that sustains life. According to Webster, hummus is “a brown or black variable material resulting from partial decomposition of plant or animal matter and forming the organic portion of the soil.” Humus is full of nutrients that have developed from decaying forms of life. These nutrients are the spawning ground for a new life. Humus is teeming with life. It is a microcosm of the cycles of death and life that are abundant in nature.

Finally, mankind has difficulty imagining the Great Mother outside a psychical context. It is difficult for us to see the aspect of “Mother” that is divine

The way of the warrior. Guarding the sacred Pond. In a way, we are called to step into our warrior to guard the boundaries of our own spirituality and the ensouled potential of this pond. We are now asking our Ego to do its true work, guarding out boundaries. This is hugely important for us, to find our own path through the myriad spiritual teachings, religious, cultural, and societal norms. We have to guard who we are and not be swept away by the should, the oughts and the have-to that surround us. The story implies that this is solo work, best done alone in nature and in silence like a vision quest.

Ritual space The Wildman is holding ritual space for us by simply allowing us to do our work. This is a mentoring moment a simple instruction that does not require complicated action. Guard this sacred pond of your Soul and don’t let anything defile it. This is how it should go if the process were conscious, however, that is not often the case. In that case, the process is unconscious. Without the elder energy present to limit pain, the process can be abusive and destructive. The job of the good King or the elders is to limit pain. To know how much pain is needed for the transformation but not to allow that pain to become abuse.

 

 

Go back to chapter 11                                                   The Journey continues in Chapter 12.