It is James Hillman that reminds us, that behind every behavior therein lies a fantasy. More specifically an archetypal fantasy; timeless, irreducible, and cyclical in nature. In previous reveries I have spoken to the idea of developing a sense of “story awareness”. Another way to understand this awareness, is the pursuit to find the myth one is living, to become aware of it, and to embody it. One might even come to understand it as the myth being lived through oneself. Depth Recovery is no different, beyond its philosophy and approach therein lies a myth, a God. Depth Recovery is grounded in the rebellious, initiatory, and radical spirit of Prometheus.
The name Prometheus means forethought, a consideration for what is to come; the anticipation of something new. Atop Olympus looking down on earth, Prometheus saw the human race in need—a collective dry and thirsting for something. It is only natural that part of the Prometheus myth entails aspects of destruction, of betrayal, of liberation, and revolution. Depth Recovery follows the dictum of Archetypal Psychology, “stick to the image.” There are many in the myth, but let us stick to three main images here.
Prometheus betrayal of Zeus and his theft of fire, his inevitable punishment chained to a rock at the edge of the world, attacked by an eagle daily, and his inevitbale freedom via Hercules completing his labors. All three images display what we might call the “stages” of Depth Recovery; a breaking away from a collective story of recovery, the painful experience of a post-recovery, and the inevitable embodiment of one’s true mythos, where the experience of depth returns, turning the familiar traingle (trinity) of recovery into the needed square (quaternity).
Here, we have picked up a familiar thread that was first initiated with Jung and his work on Christianity, which has deep roots in what I refer to as collective recovery…
