The dancer is elegant, strong, and graceful. Her attention is turned inward to both the beauty and the darkness she finds there. Through fearless inner exploration, she tames the inner beast and brings light to the darkest areas she finds there. She has little interest in teaching and guiding others, preferring to express her path through her dance. She knows that others will learn much if they care enough to watch. As a Track 2, she is focused on the passionate inner world and the beauty she finds there and cares less about going out and exploring the outer world.
Below you can find the light- and shadow-side characteristics of the A2F archetype.
Light
Think of both Belle and the beast (in the story of Beauty and the Beast), wrapped up into a single person. The dancer works to see past the horrifying exterior of the beast to the beauty within, and in so doing finds harmony, brings that beauty to the surface, and dances with it.
To fully encompass the light side of this archetype, it's necessary to encompass all of the items in this list and to be comfortable with all of the items in A2M. As you develop these items, all of the characteristics of the holy child must continue to grow stronger to provide a solid base for these.
- • Female
- • Inner beauty, gentle, compassionate
- • Has tamed the “inner beast” and turned it into a powerful prince
- • Has discovered wisdom in the process
- • Shares this wisdom freely with those who ask, but doesn’t usually seek out students.
- • Graceful, she acts without strain
- • Because of her mastery of the inner turmoil, she has developed an awareness of and respect for spirituality.
- • The power that motivates her springs from that spirituality
- • While she has tamed the inner beast, she has not slain it. If anything it’s grown more powerful. As a result she has powerful inner drives which motivate her life.
- • Has recognized and embraced the “dangerous” or “scary” parts of herself.
- • Uses these in constructive ways
- • Encourages expanded awareness in others
- • Because of her inner work, she understand her own emotions and thus has great patience and control over her own emotions/personality
- • Loves freely (children, animals, strangers, …)
- • Very comfortable with her lovers, intimate and strong. She knows what she wants and helps her lovers to discover their own desires
- • She will teach, but prefers demonstrating by living her own life to preaching
- • Understands and shares the way of self-mastery to creating one’s own ideal life.
- • Both personally and spiritually strong.
- • Successful in what she sets her mind/heart to
- • Encourages success in others
- • Has a great deal of integrity, honest, real
- • In touch with her own desires, hopes, dreams, …
- • Feels her world is shaped by her own unconscious drives and thus she can change her world to suit her
- • Looks, feels, and lives deeply.
- • Passionate, intense
- • Open to new ideas, able to look at things in new ways
- • Physically tall. Even if small, she will seem big
Shadow
Think of a critical old hyper-religious women with a pinched face and a constant look of scorn. She lives with a huge chip on her shoulder, a disturbingly powerful “holier-than-thou” attitude, and a complete willingness to (constantly) tell everyone what’s wrong with them.
The shadow side of this archetype can show any or all of the characteristics in the following list and all of those from still out-of-balance A0 - The Holy Child.
- • Female
- • Controlled by inner compulsions
- • Keeps inner self secret/hidden. Ashamed of it
- • Deeply neurotic, driven, uptight, obsessive
- • But, because of her need to keep her inner self secret, she may hide the neurosis/obsession/etc.
- • She mocks all things spiritual, though she will likely have some obsessively held set of (usually socially acceptable) beliefs. She will criticize all beliefs and expressions of spirituality that (in even the slightest) disagree with hers.
- • Constantly seeks power over others, often by guilt, shame or social manipulation
- • Intense out-of-control inner drives control her completely. Every action is motivated by these. She has no control
- • Makes a great effort to appear safe, normal or “respected”
- • Is driven to destructive acts, often hurting those around her and even ruining lives.
- • No integrity and no regard for integrity. She lives claiming to follow some rigid set of rules but in fact enslaved to inner parts she cannot even face
- • Her personality, like her actions, is enslaved to her inner “dark side”
- • Incapable of love, or even caring deeply. No sense of responsibility or family
- • May use the words “love” and “family” and “responsibility, but uses them to manipulate and control.
- • Controlling, distant, and often critical to her lovers
- • Spiteful or even hateful about sex, touch or any physical things as they can awaken passion or inner energies which stimulate the hidden darkness she is terrified of
- • Can compensate by acting hyper-sexual (many partners, out-of-control), but refuses to let passion or emotion come from it
- • Preachy, hyper-critical
- • Criticizes, derides, attacks in order to control others
- • Terrified of change, she seeks control over every tiny detail
- • Driven by inner pieces, however, she can be chaotic in her life, constantly forgetting where she put things or what details need attention
- • Emotionally she is very weak and fragile. Easily frightened, she will drop into “poor me.” The moment someone gives into her “poor me” however, she will tend to lash out with the intimidator.
- • While A1f’s attacks tend to be like a scalpel or claws, A2f’s are more like venom
- • Fails at most things she tries. She ignores all her failures and will often brag about the few successes
- • Sees herself as a victim and loves to talk about her health problems or how hard her life is
- • Does her best to cause others to fail
- • Refuses to ever look at her life, to feel, to honestly evaluate. She lives a constantly lie and is thus a pathological liar (she cannot help but lie)
- • She represses all her desires. They express as obsessions for safety, religious certainty, control, wealth, …)
- • Deeply repressed, neurotic, shallow
- • Usually obsessed with rituals, traditions and other irrelevant surface structures
- • Often passive-aggressive, sometimes bi-polar, paranoid
- • Always an addict to something (substances, religion, trends, social movements, …)
- • “pissy”, “pissed off”, and other urine references. This can show up as urophilia (commonly, a fascination with golden showers)
- • Bitter, there is a sense of something “vinegar” about her.
- • Often but not always small in stature
Last edited 2012.08.13
