Off with the Rats head. Cutting off the heads of the slave girls. Chapter 8
Off with the Rats head. Cutting off the heads of the slave girls.
The narrative.
In the morning, you will take a slave girl each out to the green place, and your swords and you will cut off their heads, and you will report to us what the King’s son does.”
The raven once again overhearing the conversation, flew to the King and said: “The Priests are saying this and the Priests are plotting that, and the Priests’ sons are going to do this and the Priests’ sons are going to report that.” And the Chief said, “How better a man can dance if he already knows the tune!”
So the King once again called his son to him and said “Tomorrow you will once again go with the Priests’ sons and you will do whatever they do.” And so it was the next morning, the Priests’ sons and the King’s son set out to the green place.
When they arrived there the Priests’ sons cut off the heads of the slave girls and the King’s son did likewise.
Remember we are still on the Night-sea-journey, our visit to the underworld, and like Jonah, inside the whale, we have things to face.
This is the most difficult test the Hero within us will face, we have to face this test before sunrise of the new day, as we all do every night. We will need to bring forward what we have learnt in the trials so far to face the final dilemma, the final test.
This part of the story highlights the relationship between the Masculine and the Feminine, not the sexually identified war between the sexes, but the relationship between these two energies and how to bring the expression of these two energies in expression, in life.
It also brings into question issues if you are reading this as a woman so I want to address that first. There is a huge difference between the way women are wired as opposed to men. A Woman’s path through life is different and is largely directed by their bodies and the emotions that are deeply connected to their body. (I know I’m in big trouble here already.) However, women have Egos as well as men and it is the Ego part that has to go on this journey. Whether you’re a man or a woman.
The relationship between Ego and the story and the process the story describes is the relationship between Ego and Soul. The ego is a masculine aspect of Soul. Understanding that both the Feminine and the Masculine are not about plumbing but rather about energies that are expressed through our actions. It is the Ego that must go on the Hero’s journey, or the night-sea-journey, to ready itself for the meeting with Soul.
The story is about bringing us (our Egos) to Kingship. Kingship is an ideal, for which we could also use the word sovereign, which takes the sexist label away. However, the concept remains the same. To move truly into Kingship requires the cutting-off of the internal heads of theories, opinions, and beliefs that we are enslaved by. These theories, opinions, and ideas are what separates us from our Kingship.
This is why cutting off the heads of the slave girls is the final test of the Magician priests. This calls us to transformation, to the Hero’s journey.
To understand the depths of this we first have to come to an understanding of how Ego is formed and who does this forming. This chapter is written as an introduction to the Iron John story but will help with an understanding of the energies at work here. Of course, we have used the word Soul as well without defining what we mean so here is a chapter on that.
Between our Mothers and the environment, our understanding of the world is largely determined by the impact on us of those two factors. Ego is not our true identity Ego identity is the result of titanic forces that require us to fit into the environment we are born into. Because Ego is a construct that by and large denies Soul, Soul requires that the Ego undertake this Hero’s journey to reunite with Soul. This is the call home to spirit in the second phase of life.
To cut off the heads of the “slave girls” is to step outside Egos conditioning by the Status-quo. To do this is to defy the dictates of the status quo. This is no easy thing.
How do we know where we “Male Egos” have enslaved women?
In almost all advertising, we use images of women to sell stuff, especially in male-dominated goods like cars, machinery, tools, food, health care, and so on.
Where men have denied women rights over the reproduction process, and their right to participate equally in their community.
How we view the planet, which is really our spaceship, with an atmosphere only 50mile thick. A sobering thought as we live as though there is no tomorrow only a never-ending today.
The next Chapter 9, being accepted as the King’s son.