We often hear about the 'wounded child', yet the Child archetypes that live within and through us also include the 'magical child', the 'nature child', the 'divine child', and others. To resurrect these parts of our Child is to resurrect joy, creativity, a sense of awe and wonder, magic, curiosity, hope, imagination.
In an Apple Farm Community blog entry, Irony and Innocence, appears the following:
"The archetype of the child has to do with the wonder of all beginnings
and the wonder of beginning again. We are led by it to imagine being in
the world as on the first day of creation, seeing the world for the
first time. The child embodies and encourages spontaneity and joy,
imagination and celebration.”
These facets are similar to those associated with the Feminine, so perhaps what gets squelched is the Feminine or 'Magical Girl' child, which would exist within each one of us, regardless of gender. Resurrecting what's been squelched is about wholeness...becoming whole again and bringing the gifts of that wholeness into relationship, parenting, work, and community.
Who, and what, kills the Magical-Divine-Nature Child that is so fundamental to wholeness, and to living from our innate joy of being? What is its opposite?
The out-of-harmony 'stern father' archetype -- the drill sargeant, Saturn, or the Herod/Pilate of the Apple Farms blog entry. This archetype appears in many myths, often slaying the child, or giving the child away, or demanding that the child renounce her magic and innocent and joy to conform and sacrifice her essential nature as a duty to the community.
The 'stern father' or 'stern leader' is all about law and order, rules and regulations, conformity and standardizing, perfectionism and rationality. The magical, chaotic, creative, wondering, inquiring, spiraling, relational, associative Child is an anathema to it. And that's what makes the Magical -Divine-Nature Child the perfect medicine for balancing (and healing) the out-of-balance Patriarch.
The Magical-Divine-Nature child is within, alive and well, if needing perhaps to be coaxed out, exercised, and let splash around in the puddles and play in the sun (or under the moonlight).
This is the magic that's dying to be born. It wants to be resurrected. It wants to play.
Blessings on the Way,
Jamie
* Photo/Image Credit - The beautiful work of Gilbert Williams/Gilbert Williams Gallery