You know, most Czech Decembers have some sunshine. Late Novembers too as I recall. Yet this year, it has been day after day of dreary gray, misty and gloomy wet cold days. Oh, I’m not complaining. I’m actually wondering if by invoking Morana, goddess of death and winter, I have altered the weather? The day I started this new esoteric adventure, it snowed for the first time this season as well……. Honestly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

That first meditation and invocation produced instant results. Actually, I find this is often the case. Then, it is hard to repeat anything nearly as near to as deep and informative as that first attempt. You can read about that here. However, I will say this. The crows are back but strangely, it is the squirrels that seem to no longer have any fear of me as I walk silently focused on the goddess. They run within a meter of me and stop and stare from the side of the path. I haven’t yet found a link between Morana and the squirrel though. Perhaps the Squirrel’s forage for nuts is a sign of her arrival? It represents saving up, planning and stockpiling and I found one site that told me from a shamanic point of view, they seem to teach us the value of getting rid of our physical and mental loads to move ahead in life. Hmmmm. That could be useful given how I feel about the world at the moment.

Actually, I have quite a few pages of notes and impressions in my diary already. Strangely enough though, it is the idea of unconscious mind that has most intrigued me so far. Death and sleep have many things in common. Dreaming is done is sleep and, according to some psychologists, life may be one long set of dreams that we are only consciously aware of when asleep. So as winter approaches, so does sleep. Life retracts and is pulled into the Earth itself. Into the underworld. There, it continues to dream. As life retracts, it leaves something of itself in the physical plane – this matter rots and decays ready to fertilize new growth in the Springtime. That materials represents experience though in some way doesn’t it? The leaves, the stalks – this is life’s experience. I see that the goddess collects this experience in some way – especially emotional experience.

In this, I also see the Hero’s story but from a different angle. The Hero’s story myth is a structure that we see in many myths – Arthur, his knights, Jason, etc. etc. Most movies follow the Hero’s journey as well as do most stories. In a way, the tarot follows it as well. Here, in these myths, we have a collection of magical experiences preserved. I also see the Hero’s journey as the Consciousness emerging from the Unconscious – from the bitter sea. The Hero (or Heroine) journeys to a place of danger. – the underworld or the Unconscious – where he is tested and meets various archetypes. Usually, he escapes back to the world with some prize – a changed person. Initiated. As I invoke Morana, I see her representing the unconscious and the Hero’s journey as a cycle that continues to infinity. This is a them that not only is coming up in my sessions but I am suddenly seeing everywhere. For example, I subscribe to Jordan Peterson’s newsletter where just this week, he promoted his daughter’s podcast in which they talk with Wim Hoff. Out of the blue, what does Peterson start talking about? Yes – the Hero’s journey.

Yesterday, I was looking for something on the Hero’s Journey and, came across a lecture by the same Jordan Peterson on it and Jung. I listened fascinated by the man. I pricked up my ears in shock though, when I heard him say that humanity learns through imitation and that this imitation goes across generations (ancestors if you will). These patterns of imitation produce figures of imagination that are distillations of the patterns of behavior. These have content that is NOT you. These figures of imagination can therefore reveal reality to you. Think about that a bit….. It is a Jungian description of how meditation and invocation provides knowledge isn’t it? When I say it is like receiving a packet of information that unfolds in my mind…. that is a figure of imagination (dreaming, meditating etc.) that reveals information about reality to me. Note that above, I made the claim that the goddess ‘collects’ this experience….. isn’t the goddess Morana also a figure of imagination in psychological terms?

What is even more intriguing is that there is an as yet poorly understood link between the imagination/mind and the body according to Jung, Peterson and so on. Peterson refers to it in the Wim Hoff podcast and refers to cellular activity that is related to the ancestors. Wim Hoff himself has been working with medical researchers to understand how the body functions that are unconsciously controlled can in fact be consciously controlled. What these two gentlemen are talking about is nothing more than magic. Isn’t it.