Creative Pathways Course

to healing and Meaning

Creative pathways

Addiction recovery through the Archetypes

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The Four Archetypes Guide

Which Archetype would you like to explore?

The Lover Creator

The Lover Overview

Key Words

Poem Introduction

Homeplay Practice

The Lover Poem

What's in a Picture

The Lover Film

Personal Stories

Overview of the Lover Creator

Purpose: Connection through feeling.Connects with oneness, being. Looks ‘up’ to Spirit and ‘down’ into Soul. Sensitive to the needs of others. Nurtures self & others. Breaks through into deep emotions. Welcomes sexuality & sensuality. Playful & spontaneous. Believes in the power of loving. Trusts in closeness & touch. Creative force – creative connectionAccessed through sadness and griefShaming message / wound: I don’t love right.Deflated: Stoical, difficult to feel or be open.Inflated: Overflowing with emotion.Associated instinct: the bonding instinctElement of water

Sadness

Creative Expression

Spontaneous

Sexuality

Opens into Grief

Sensuality

Playful

Up to Spirit

New Beginnings

Connection to Feeling

Down to Soul

Nurturing

Introduction to the Lover Creator Poems

The Lover Creator at its heart is about connection, creativity, imagination, play and new beginnings.The following poems have been written with Lover Creator themes at their heart. Read the poems twice in each sitting or watch the film poem version or both, whatever works. See Rite to Freedom YouTube Channel: Creative Pathways: Lover Archetype.In the first reading, seek the poem out; what it means to you, what you understand it to be. In the second, allow the poem to find you. Let it seek you out and find the place in you that connects to feeling and imagination. What images arise. Journal or draw your discoveries.Return to the poems regularly through your Lover Creator Homeplay. See what changes for you in each reading; what stays the same; what thoughts and feelings arise.

Lover Creator Homeplay Practice

The following 'home play' exercises offer you three weeks of home based practice.We encourage you to bring a retreat style approach to your daily home play practice. Creating and making time for yourself to step out of the ordinary, everyday into a sacred, reflective and quiet place for you. Phone off.Create time and space to explore your archetypes healing journey deeper.Connect regularly with your existing practice and support network.We encourage you to make, create or buy something beautiful for journalling and curating your Lover Creator explorations."For the love of you, for the love of us"

The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Week 2

Week 2 – A Prayer for Life Walk at half normal speed for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Inside or outside. Notice what’s around you. Notice how you feel and think in relation to it. Journal. “Holding gratitude in one hand, grief in the other, bringing your palms together and creating a prayer for life…” ~ Francis Weller, author of ‘The Wild Edge of Sorrow.’ Grief and Gratitude Cairn Follow this exercise over a week. A minimum of 15 minutes each day. Creating a shrine out of natural materials in your home or (preferably) outdoors.

• Find a minimum of three objects you feel drawn to. Each object will relate to a loss in your life that has changed you in some way. Please note - if the remembrance of this loss is too painful, gently say ‘not yet’. Keep the object separate to your shrine and move onto the memory of another loss that you feel easier with and ready to be with and let go of.
• Gather your objects into an area that feels special to you and can be private and protected. Indoors or outdoors.
• Lay each object of loss down, forming them into a cairn or pyramid shape.
• Say a prayer of thanks to the lesson and each object and the loss it represents - as much as you are able. Reflect on each loss from the perspective of change – as a rite of passage. Acknowledging this was an essential part of your life.
• With each loss you reflect on, close your eyes and try and connect to the feeling of the loss e.g. joy, sadness, anger, fear, shame, freedom.
• When you are complete, sit in silence with your cairn for at least five minutes. Write down a line or two about each object and the story behind the loss connected to it. Keep a focus on the gratitude and thanks around each loss. You may not feel it in this moment. You can return to it and see how this shifts over time.
• If on a given day you don’t find and place a new object, sit with your cairn and go over your appreciations and reflections and awareness of the individual and collective loss and learning.

Week 1

Week 1 – Nature Connection Look for a tree, a shrub, a bush or plant that you feel drawn to; from your window, your garden, park or if you can, further afield. Choose it for the way it looks, feels; simple curiosity, whatever draws you to it, trust the feeling. If you feel comfortable with it, make physical contact. Bring your thoughts and feelings to it. Be curious. How did it come to be where it is, grow, flourish? It may be dying or in a dying back phase. What do you notice about it? Journal your thoughts and feelings in response to it. Practice this each day for up to a week for a minimum of 5 minutes each day. Follow same guidelines each day. Notices what changes – what stays the same. Journal. At the end of the week create something to encapsulate the process and journey with this other species; this other life: a poem, a story, a short film, a drawing, a photo, craft – whatever you feel drawn to create.

Week 3

Week 3 – A Compassionate Life Walk at half normal speed for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Inside or outside. Notice what’s around you. Notice how you feel and think in relation to it. Journal. Metta – Loving Kindness Meditation 'Metta' means loving kindness in the ancient language of Pali. This practice invites us into an idealised desire for the world and ourselves. It is about us wishing ourselves and all beings health, happiness and love, human and non-human; knowing that we are each imperfect, doing our best in any given moment. Meditation Guide Find a quiet, comfortable place. Tech off. Close eyes half or fully. Feel your body in the room and what it connects to. Bring your attention to your breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Trying to make the out breath longer. 1) Picture the earth from above. To all beings - human and non-human: May all beings be well, be happy and be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May all beings experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May all beings be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 2) Picture someone you don’t know but encountered recently in passing (in a shop, the street etc): May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May you experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May you be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 3) Picture someone you are seeking peace with or feel uneasy around. Make sure you feel ready and safe and comfortable to do this in relation to this person in this moment: May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May you experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May you be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 4) Seeing yourself in your mind's eye: May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May I experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May I be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. Picture the specific people you have been wishing well in this meditation; standing or sitting in a circle, looking at each other with soft, kind eyes: May all beings be well, may we be happy, may we be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May we experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May we be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. Sit for a few moments. Come back to the breath. Place your hand gently on your heart area. Breathe into your heart, gently with affection. Thank yourself for your work and your effort and your care and your love. Feel into the awareness of your body in the room. What it connects to physically and energetically. Back to the breath. Open your eyes gently. Breathe. Sit. Wait. Rise gently.

The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Week 2 – A Prayer for Life Walk at half normal speed for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Inside or outside. Notice what’s around you. Notice how you feel and think in relation to it. Journal. “Holding gratitude in one hand, grief in the other, bringing your palms together and creating a prayer for life…” ~ Francis Weller, author of ‘The Wild Edge of Sorrow.’ Grief and Gratitude Cairn Follow this exercise over a week. A minimum of 15 minutes each day. Creating a shrine out of natural materials in your home or (preferably) outdoors.

• Find a minimum of three objects you feel drawn to. Each object will relate to a loss in your life that has changed you in some way. Please note - if the remembrance of this loss is too painful, gently say ‘not yet’. Keep the object separate to your shrine and move onto the memory of another loss that you feel easier with and ready to be with and let go of.
• Gather your objects into an area that feels special to you and can be private and protected. Indoors or outdoors.
• Lay each object of loss down, forming them into a cairn or pyramid shape.
• Say a prayer of thanks to the lesson and each object and the loss it represents - as much as you are able. Reflect on each loss from the perspective of change – as a rite of passage. Acknowledging this was an essential part of your life.
• With each loss you reflect on, close your eyes and try and connect to the feeling of the loss e.g. joy, sadness, anger, fear, shame, freedom.
• When you are complete, sit in silence with your cairn for at least five minutes. Write down a line or two about each object and the story behind the loss connected to it. Keep a focus on the gratitude and thanks around each loss. You may not feel it in this moment. You can return to it and see how this shifts over time.
• If on a given day you don’t find and place a new object, sit with your cairn and go over your appreciations and reflections and awareness of the individual and collective loss and learning.

Week 1 – Nature Connection Look for a tree, a shrub, a bush or plant that you feel drawn to; from your window, your garden, park or if you can, further afield. Choose it for the way it looks, feels; simple curiosity, whatever draws you to it, trust the feeling. If you feel comfortable with it, make physical contact. Bring your thoughts and feelings to it. Be curious. How did it come to be where it is, grow, flourish? It may be dying or in a dying back phase. What do you notice about it? Journal your thoughts and feelings in response to it. Practice this each day for up to a week for a minimum of 5 minutes each day. Follow same guidelines each day. Notices what changes – what stays the same. Journal. At the end of the week create something to encapsulate the process and journey with this other species; this other life: a poem, a story, a short film, a drawing, a photo, craft – whatever you feel drawn to create.

Week 3 – A Compassionate Life Walk at half normal speed for a minimum of 5 minutes per day. Inside or outside. Notice what’s around you. Notice how you feel and think in relation to it. Journal. Metta – Loving Kindness Meditation 'Metta' means loving kindness in the ancient language of Pali. This practice invites us into an idealised desire for the world and ourselves. It is about us wishing ourselves and all beings health, happiness and love, human and non-human; knowing that we are each imperfect, doing our best in any given moment. Meditation Guide Find a quiet, comfortable place. Tech off. Close eyes half or fully. Feel your body in the room and what it connects to. Bring your attention to your breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Trying to make the out breath longer. 1) Picture the earth from above. To all beings - human and non-human: May all beings be well, be happy and be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May all beings experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May all beings be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 2) Picture someone you don’t know but encountered recently in passing (in a shop, the street etc): May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May you experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May you be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 3) Picture someone you are seeking peace with or feel uneasy around. Make sure you feel ready and safe and comfortable to do this in relation to this person in this moment: May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May you experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May you be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. 4) Seeing yourself in your mind's eye: May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May I experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May I be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. Picture the specific people you have been wishing well in this meditation; standing or sitting in a circle, looking at each other with soft, kind eyes: May all beings be well, may we be happy, may we be free from suffering. Repeat three times to self. May we experience abundant health, happiness and love. Repeat three times to self. May we be at peace with life with death and with desire. Repeat three times to self. Sit for a few moments. Come back to the breath. Place your hand gently on your heart area. Breathe into your heart, gently with affection. Thank yourself for your work and your effort and your care and your love. Feel into the awareness of your body in the room. What it connects to physically and energetically. Back to the breath. Open your eyes gently. Breathe. Sit. Wait. Rise gently.

What’s in a picture?

The following artwork has been created collaboratively between artist Philip Harris and R2F artistic director Caspar Walsh for this guide. The image is a unique and personal take on the meaning and symbolism of the Lover Creator. It includes key themes associated with the archetype. The image is designed to elicit a starting point of inspiration; to reveal further layers of understanding and connection with each viewing. You’re encouraged to return to this image regularly as part of your Lover Creator journey. As you move deeper into your Lover Creator discovery and healing process, your understanding and feelings around your own Lover Creator will deepen.The image is intended to inspire and to be used as an aide memoir – a tool to help you connect back and deepen into your journey with the Lover Creator - both consciously and unconsciously. Let the layers of image and meaning unfold in their own good time. Find a place where you can see and connect to the Lover Creator image regularly throughout your journey.

You Waited

You waitedfor the longest timedidn’t youas you were broken apart, piece by pieceway before you’d even got a footholdbefore you even knew what it meant to have a choiceso you headed up into the hills - aloneno mapthrough bramble thorns and thick black earthdeath and winter everywhere you looked.Through the seasonswith a cautious, unfolding loveyou weaved a new world for yourselfand the decades and days slowly lifted into life.Finallyyou made it backto th firesidhands raised to the heatand you grieved for what was lostwhat you never receivedloving at last, what is in front of you now -a new family deeper roots.You did this this difficult, beautiful thingfor the love of youfor the love of usyesyou did this…

Personal Stories

Ali Chapman

Ali Chapman Rite to Freedom Residential Lead Facilitator and Programme Co-ordinator Clean and sober since July 2014 “And we grieved for what was lost, what we never received” As a child, as is with most young children, my need to connect was strong. With me it seemed heightened, akin to a craving, a desperate need, whether the connection was positive or negative. I wanted to reach out to it, grasping it until those imagined arms of love and warmth would wrap themselves around me and tell me everything was going to be ok; that I am loved unconditionally. I grew up with a fractured, distorted sense of love. My mother was someone who would either emotionally suffocate you or repel you. There was never any real indication of which way it would be - push, pull, push, pull; emotional stability cracking a little more each time. A significant early memory of where I believe this wounding began seems to be fairly innocuous but it began a massive state of insecurity about not loving in the right way. At bed time I had many bears that I would kiss goodnight. My mum would take great pleasure in telling me that I kissed one particular bear longer and that all the others were jealous. I would then have to begin again and again until it was felt all bears had equal love. Next it would be my parents, ‘You kissed daddy longer than me, do you love him more?’ By the time I went to bed I was emotionally wrecked, full of the guilt of getting it all wrong. That some of my bears wouldn't love me as a result and I must try and get it right tomorrow. This was a theme that carried on throughout my life: I don’t love right, I must try harder, I mustn’t question what doesn’t feel right to me. I was a child full of emotion, wild and excited by life, full of love energy. I also had a spectacular anger that could blow like a pressure cooker at any second. In our house, any expression of feeling and emotion other than being happy and obedient was quashed. To a hot headed 6-year-old this left me without a way to express and name what I was feeling. I had no voice. The anger began to be bottled up. This inability to articulate, name and connect to feelings, led me to self-harming in my teens and into adulthood. The words and feelings I had been denied spilled out of me through cutting into my skin. These spilled words of blood were for my ears and eyes only. They told me that even though I felt dead inside, I could connect the physical with the emotional. I could prove to myself that I was alive. The element associated with the Lover is water. It’s interesting that from an early age I found being in the ocean or rivers was a way to reset myself. To balance the flow of emotions and feelings, allowing me once again to connect to myself, to the natural world and to others. In water, I can physically feel the negative chatter of my inner critic and tensions literally slip away, dissipate, diluted, where I can become one with the water. “Finally we made it back to the fireside, hands raised to the heat…” Working with the archetypes has opened up a new way of looking at myself, of acknowledging where the shadows lie and how I can draw on inspiration and support from the other archetypal quarters to support me. In order to keep myself more balanced in my Lover energy, I’m discovering that calling in the Warrior archetype, setting clear boundaries and having greater clarity with my ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, helps me move forward into what feels like more settled waters. I have a voice today and that feels liberating. To connect is to be fully alive - up to the heavens, down into my soul, I connect.

Noel Gilmore

Noel Gilmore Rite to Freedom Staff Volunteer Clean and sober since October 1999 “before we even knew what it meant to have a choice…” Long before I ever drank alcohol, I had the “ism’s”. The loneliness I felt constantly. In my teens, I developed OCD and paranoia. I was trying to internalise a control I felt I didn’t have in my external life; a pattern of intense anxiety around people. Especially if I was in the spotlight. Relief always came when I was on my own. My sobriety date is October 15, 1999, my primary addiction was alcohol. I had been trying to get sober since 1990. I’d been looking for a solution (to what, I wasn’t quite sure) for many years. The physical effects of alcohol soon began to worsen. My body was in constant withdrawals, combined with desperate loneliness. The first person I met after my first ‘drying out’ period was a counsellor, a meeting I will never forget. It was the first time I’d heard about alcoholism. It was also the first time I felt understood. The alcoholic trajectory chart she showed me described my descent into hell perfectly. It also mapped a recovery process. I came away with hope. It was the start of making connections with people - without alcohol. I found a sponsor who opened his heart to me, which made it easy for me to open to him. He took me through the 12 Steps. I felt great. I had met someone who understood. Sadly, he passed away all too soon. I kept going to meetings but the isolation was back. I felt it more so at recovery meetings than in everyday interactions but I kept going. I felt I owed my life to the recovery meetings. The feelings of not fitting in was just like it was back in school. I was always researching about different aspects of recovery and early on I came across books by Carl Jung. I read with interest about the different archetypes but I was unable to apply it to my recovery. The loneliness and lack of connection was always there. I was afraid to reach out. I was introduced again to the archetypes through my work with Write to Freedom. The Lover archetype was the first one I encountered. I could relate to it immediately. I could see where, in many ways, I let my shadow Lover dictate so many areas of my life. It helped me at the time but at a cost to the other archetypes, in particular my Warrior archetype. I fell in love with ideas. I could see where my Lover had given me the imagination to dream and to hope. A longing for travel to distant lands helped me bounce back after my many “slips”. I could put on some music, and I was off, leaving reality behind me. I could dream of escape. My favourite book in recovery was a Hazelden volume titled “Each Day a New Beginning”. It had a daily reflection together with inspirational quotes by famous scientists, philosophers. My Lover archetype fell in love with all the ideas and people in this book. “Loving at last, what is in front of us now -a new family, deeper roots.” The Lover allowed me to break out of isolation and create relationships with people who shared similar ideas and interest to me but if anyone displayed displeasure or lack of interest, fear gripped me again and I would withdraw into myself. To break the cycle, I needed to become comfortable with my Lover archetype before I opened up and shared how I am feeling with other people. By consciously giving time and space to the Lover archetype, I became more confident in what it had to say and how it could help me to connect meaningfully with others. I treat the archetypes like rooms in a house, my work is to open the windows and let the light in, to allow fresh air of healing to circulate.

Caspar Walsh

Caspar Walsh Rite to Freedom Founder and Creative Director Clean and sober since August 1988 If the Lover archetype finds form in childhood, its deepest roots are born out of individual and collective imagination. Too many of us were forced from childhood way too early. There is grief in our hearts for that. From this place of loss, we are left with a deep sadness; and the seeds of addiction are sown into the fertile ground of our unmet grief. In place of hope and renewal, we choose a life of disconnection, diminished imagination and the slow dying back of hope. “So you headed up into the hills alone, no map…” There was plenty of pain and grief in my early years. Layers of it, calcifying, one over the other. Constantly blocked by my Magician archetype’s protective, predatory mind. Despite it all, there was also joy, connection and love in my life. More than enough to keep me going through the darkest nights. Storytelling and the magical possibilities they held were at the centre of my being from my earliest memory. These adventures sustained me and fed me. The characters, poets, warriors, kings, queens and magicians in my stories were my guides. The journeys we travelled together were a compass point of familiarity and safety. I returned to them again and again looking for a way through. Like Tolkien’s Star of Elendil, they were a light to me, ‘when all other lights went out’. “With a cautious, unfolding love we weaved a new world for ourselves” I took Gandalf, Frodo and Aragorn on long country walks alone, through all seasons. They were fine company to a teenager trying to find his way through the bramble thorns and dark forests. I didn’t know it at the time but my most loved stories were a mirror to my psyche; a map to find strength, inspiration and connection. What I saw on my TV, in the big black spaces of the cinema and the panels of my torch lit comics, kept me going. Helping me stay anchored to the wider world when the wide ocean of isolation often seemed a safer bet. If I drop the script that gives my dark shadow Lover permission to stay disconnected from the world, addicted, ragged and empty eyed, avoiding the risk and hard-won rewards of love, I come to feeling, back into my centre; seeing the beauty in the everyday. Feeling the gift of new beginnings. I connect daily to my Lover archetype through story, films, cooking, conversation, books, plays, music, poetry. Through my body. Long walks in woods and valleys. Up into the hills of Dartmoor. Along the crooked coastline of Devon and into the ocean. The edge of the wild. Grief is with me every day. What I’ve lost, what I never received and what I will, at some point, lose, which is everything, everyone. We all will. This truth connects me to the moment. To my body, my mortality. To warmth. Dinner on the table. The music playing as I type. A beautiful, comfortable home. A loving partner. Our dog by my side. Grief helps me land. Open. A fresh eye on the world; part of the fabric of everything. Addiction for me was born out of a desire to simultaneously connect and disconnect. To anaesthetise the intense pain and the sensitivity in my system. An intensity and sensitivity I was born with and into. Addiction is the dark, deflated side of my Lover. It is a sign post out, to freedom. My feelings can be a guide, a thread I can follow back. When I stay close to my Lover, I get to see more and more of the creative force of life at play, more connection, more love. It’s too easy, too familiar to dwell on the dark, forgetting or ignoring the beauty in day to day life. In connection we get to turn the compost of loss into something beautiful.