The Happy Animal

I'm bringing an archetypal lens to the conversation about any kind of response (in ourselves or others) to a situation or circumstance that doesn't seem to match.We all know the more usual interpretations of this - trauma, bias, emotional immaturity, lack of relational skill, etc. - but I want to add the archetypal perspective.Sometimes the "excessive" or "weird" response (noting those are judgments worth questioning) is because of the way a particular archetype is perceiving and responding to the circumstances.That response is entirely consistent with the values of that archetype - even when those values don't appear to line up with what's happening.Having a better sense of the archetypes and peoples' archetypal nature can help us understand, support, and engage more skillfully with these moments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm so happy to get this episode out in the world, as I think this is one of THE most underappreciated and misunderstood archetypes in my system!The most important thing to understand about The Happy Animal is its simplicity.In many cultures, not just white patriarchal western/ized "culture", this archetype is really punished and unappreciated, because it's just exactly what it appears to be, and because it values simple and uncomplicated ways of enjoying life in a body in the ordinary world.We tend to interpret this energy as "less than" - it's not as good as the faster, louder, more ambitious or driven archetypes, or fluid spiritual archetypes, or really pretty much ANY of them!This is a MISTAKE.I hope learning about the gifts of this archetype help you to see places you've absorbed that "faster is better" and "ambition is admirable" from modern culture, and how you might have been judgmental about Happy Animal energy in yourself or other people.The deceptive simplicity of The Happy Animal is honestly what we all need more of in today's world, and whether you have this in your nature or not, you can at least learn to appreciate it more fully through this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the most common - and most problematic - claims of astrology is that your chart tells you "who you are".But the chart only points to our essential nature - it cannot know how our socialization shapes our essential nature. That happens as we live the chart we have in the circumstances we inhabit - all the factors of our embodied life interact with our archetypal nature.To put it differently - if 2 people have the same chart but all their key demographic factors are different, like race, gender, socioeconomic status, class, ACES score, nationality, cultures, neurotype, disabilities, etc., they will express MARKEDLY different presentations of the same archetypal "building blocks".There's nothing wrong with frameworks - but skillful work with people means knowing what your framework doesn't see, and making sure you see it beyond your framework.This applies to anyone working with people through any kind of framework, but astrology has a special ability to do harm in this way, so it's extra important for those of us working astrologically! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an archetype that I think is quite misunderstood and unappreciated, so I'm very glad to be speaking about it and helping y'all to understand it more clearly!The Peacelover/Diplomat is easy to see as "weak" or "lightweight", or (because like other archetypes the shadow side is easier to meme) "people-pleasing" or "a doormat".This is disrespectful - and also wrong, because this is the archetype that, alongside the Visionary, operates on principles first and foremost.Try going against a human holding this archetype, when it's a question of principle, and find out just how "people-pleasing" they are.They don't like conflict, that's true - they have a great appreciation for grace, harmony, beauty, and elegance, and those are deep gifts to the world when they are held in a healthy way.But when this archetype is operating cleanly, fairness and principled choices matter more than anything, and this archetype sees that if we were to all operate with those priorities, peace would automatically result.Obviously that's not the world we live in. But we need an archetype that can hold the ideal of it, or we'd lose our way entirely, and that's the deepest medicine this figure brings.I hope you enjoy deeper insight into this very important figure, and for those of you Peacelover/Diplomat people out there, I hope you feel seen and appreciated! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this one I talk about why I created Paradox School and how that ties in to my whole worldsense that I'm slowly laying out through the podcast.Paradox School begins every year in late June, so if you're interested in checking it out you certainly can: www.theparadoxschool.comBut understanding why I've created the School, and how it reflects my archetypal framing of human nature, is key for anyone interested in my work.I talk repeatedly about not focusing on the how but the what - what are we really doing?Most of us mistake the what for the how - we think how we're doing it is actually the substance, the essence, and it's not.Paradox School is perhaps the deepest and most articulated expression of what it is I really do, so even if being part of it is not for you (and it won't be for most people) it's useful to hear how it brings my work into form and life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is such an important archetype, but also one that can be very tricky for many people.The Challenger is always driving forward, excited by taking risks and trying things that don't seem easily doable (or doable at all!) so it can find out what happens.That "excitement of the unknown" is what makes a challenge - if you know you will win, it's actually really boring, and if you know you will lose it's both boring and discouraging. The Challenger would always rather win, but not without a good hard struggle, and it would rather give it everything and lose than win automatically.Remember too that "win" and "lose" are not mostly about other people - it's just the sense of pitting your will against a desire, and driving hard to achieve it and either getting there or not. No matter what happens, the Challenger's next response is, "On to the next one!!"This archetype is very restless, gets bored easily, prefers short, intense bursts of experience, and is entirely sure that rules and limits are for other people and that it can do whatever it wants.This can be glorious, inspiring, fun, powerful, improbably effective - and it can also lead to serious overextension, a list of unfinished goals, difficulty sustaining long-term commitments, and sometimes active aggression.Everyone with a moderate or strong Challenger also has other archetypes, so pay attention to the "plays well with" section to notice where you might have archetypal tension.Also remember that our socialization affects how all the archetypes show up - but this one is more gender-influenced than most of them, so that people assigned a male gender will generally get praise and tolerance for expressing the Challenger and female-gendered, non-gendered, and gender-fluid people will often get criticism, pushback, or hostility for expressing the Challenger.I hope you enjoy learning about the Challenger and for those of you who recognize yourselves, I hope this helps you to have a better relationship with this part of you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the Pluto Cohort episode was SO well-received, I decided to go on and do the Neptune cohorts as well. Where Pluto is describing a collective survival urge, Neptune is describing a collective urge for redemption.This is a weird word for us, because it has specifically religious connotations, but redemption is actually an archetypal experience that goes beyond and beneath any specific religious or spiritual belief framework.Listen to the Mermaid episode for more on that - I talk about it quite a lot in there, and if you're not familiar with the Mermaid archetype, that might be a very helpful prelude to listening to this one.Basically the Neptune cohorts are a kind of collective Mermaid - a particular way (through the sign Neptune is in) that we feel that longing to be merged, to be saved, to be redeemed (bought back), to have our sense of sin and wrongness washed away and made clean.Needless to say this can and does have HIGH CHARGE for people, just as high (or in some cases higher) than the Plutonian instinct toward physical and psychological survival.I work through all the Neptune cohorts for humans that are still possibly alive, starting with Neptune in Leo and working up to the current transition from Pisces into Aries just in the past 12 months.I talk about the prevailing trends and movement of the zeigeist, the collective unconscious, during the 13-14 year periods of Neptune in a sign, and also talk about what gets "stamped" into the people born during that Neptune sign, which they then carry through their lives.I am really enjoying bringing this collective view of some of these archetypal energies to you all, and I hope you are finding these useful - I've gotten tremendous feedback on the Pluto cohort episode so I'm hoping this one is equally illuminating! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Swinging back to the up-and-out archetypes with the Adventurer/Seeker/Believer!This inner figure is full of optimism and enthusiasm - I often refer to it as "Tigger" - so it's easy to think it's just all fun and "let's do it" and continually seeking out an unfolding sense of the meaning of life. It certainly can be all of that, in really beautiful ways.It also has a shadow that can be quite destructive, as all the archetypes do, and I think it's well worth remembering the damage that can happen underneath the bright, cheerful face of this figure.When it's healthy, it does more than any other archetype to help us not be crushed under the weight of being human. When it's in shadow, it can do a lot of the crushing itself.I hope this episode gives you a deeper sense of this very important dimension of human nature! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The sign that Pluto is in, for anywhere from 12 to 34 years, forms a very particular vein of our archetypal nature - it tells us some essential things about what collective survival looks like for each group, and in a broad way, for each individual in that group.Because generations tend to be in different Pluto cohorts (even though they're not actual generations), these different survival imperatives can directly contribute to friction and conflict between people.Nothing activates us faster than this - it tends to be a part of us that, once it's switched on, makes it very difficult to keep perspective, see other points of view, be flexible and open-minded, or consider other possibilities. It's SURVIVAL - even when it doesn't "make sense" in any rational way, it has tremendous urgency.These differences can of course also crop up between siblings, partners, coworkers, and other important relationships in our lives. They leave an imprint on larger collective movements like politics, and show up in everything from media to fashion to finance.I don't go through every nuance, of course, but I go through a basic shape of each of the Pluto sign cohorts that covers people alive on the planet right now (Cancer through Aquarius). Pluto moves so slowly (246 years to orbit the Sun) that only a handful of Pluto signs are ever alive in humans at one time.This bit of information has turned out to be deeply useful and insight-generating for many people, and I hope it will be for you too! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One year ago today, the first episode of Human Equals Paradox came out.With the help and encouragement of MANY people, especially my producer Mattia Mauree, I made 18 episodes last year and kept them coming in a pretty steady flow.I have a background as a data analyst, and when I realized we were almost at this year mark I was fascinated to see that those 18 episodes had been downloaded over 3,200 times in FIFTY-FIVE different countries. :-OAnd that's just from my podcast host - that's not including those of you who listen from the Patreon.Forty-four of those countries have repeat listeners, and 27 have more than 10 downloads.These are TINY numbers compared to most podcasts, which I totally get - but for me it's really a big deal. I'm not out promoting it, trying to drive up numbers. I don't run ads. If new people are listening, it's because someone told them about it, and that's the most incredible thing to me.I never thought I'd do this at all, and to know that there are more than a handful of people out there who find these ideas interesting, helpful, and worth giving time and attention to? That's WILD. Entirely wonderful and still wild!This thank-you ep is about 23 minutes and I talk a bit about how I got here, and what it means to be here, before having a fun time with the location data and giving many shout-outs to many places around the world who have dipped into my work.I'll be back to the archetypal goodness next episode - but for now, THANK YOU. Thank you. Thank you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.