Hi guys.

Mmmm, what to make of your reply, well, i'm fortunate that I have a "hhouse manager" to take care of the cleaning, dishes, whatever!

As for me,  , dishes,   , doing washing and   for any ironing whatsoever!!!!!

Being an admin nightmare (my auditor, is always on my back), it filters the same throughout my home as well. My hubby is more the "cleaning" type and if our maid is not in on a Sunday, would kindly jump in and do the dishes, sweeping and the other chores is that for the other staff, on "weekend duty"

As for your view on archetypal lifestyles, shit, you wouldn't want to stay with me at all. Everyday is a next adventure, and something like Gimangi--the movie. Although i'm a hybrid between a simentaler bull and a jersey cow, make no mistake the "logic" and pigeonhole effect is very real. I have a tendancy to look at life in a 1+1 way. But 1+1 may be two or when you count the symbols actually three! Which way should we see this "Yur-Anus" planet or one of the Moons wich I may visit at times? BTW this is a planet totally undiscoverred and in a very far galaxy. Thank God, we are but a few inhabiting that pigeonhole. Maybe the "Barnyard"could give you an indication of some of my ancillary "activities" not the dancing!

Gay relationships and to get it to work beyond three years, (this is per a reticulating process of surveys), is a miracle and let me tell you, very hard work. We have a very real "power struggle", continuously and never-ending!!

And, the most common question always asked is; Who's the man, and who's the wife?---ridiculous! One takes the lead, and the other doesn't blindly follow the rules laid down by the leader! It is more an interactive, roll-play and the most important is, that as you said, cycles. You must follow our discussions on the Hebrew Alphabet and you will see how every small piece of the puzzle, has it's own place. It depends on how many pieces you are dealing with!

In this sense, i see all relationships to be a matter of balance and harmony. It takes two to Tango, it takes two to argue. go to Tarot Topics and you will see, that in the two's, the thought in the one's, moves into a container, with no size. Then as you contain any Aleph in Beth, you also change the container and the practical output or result, we see in the three's.

You specifically said that no relationship or person can be Archetypal, I disagree with you. The road traveled from one to ten, is which is followed by each and every person, they may experience it in a different circumstance or personal influence on others, notwithstanding their own perceptions. Again in Tarot Topics, have a look at the numeric attributions of the Celtic Cross. This spread virtually deals with the different aspects of the road traveled by all of us, and yes, unfortunately, archetypal, or recurring cycles, that is why the CC tends to be more informative. Yet, then a reader needs to have the understanding of the numeric importance in creation--the 1+1 effect, interpreting symbolism on the cards and a host of other small detail, that comes by "off-chance" or lucky "enlightenment" and discoverings.

As far as i'm concerned, MEN are difficult to understand, the lot of them. Specifically in a relationship. They are either loose canons or farting against thunder!! Sorry my fellow "tools bearing" individuals  . At times I truly think we need a cheap set of tools--Mediumsized sockets and as a vitally important "management tool" Elbow keys, or elem keyes. That helps to set the timing or firing order. Consider than many spark plugs in cars, fire blanks into the piston  . In this sense the running costs become "pricy"!!!!

So then, where are we? Firing blanks or in a different firing order, if you catch my drift!

CHALLENGING  .

Blessed be.

Archetypes... are but an abstrahation of one possible aspect of a person's behaviour/way of thinking/personality/physique, etc. A person has many more aspects than one. Moreover, I think we have selective memory when it comes to "female" behaviour and "male" behaviour. If I react heavily emotional to a situation, then it will be identified as female drama. If my boyfriend reacts heavily emotional then it's just an emotional reaction. If he doesn't talk and is sitting silently watching tv after some negative experience then that would be called typically male behaviour to work things through. But if I come home from school after a heavy confrontation with a pupil and go sit behind the laptop and open some facebook application and be in my own cocoon for 20 mins then it's not evidence of anything. We don't see or forget to classify behaviour which is supposed to be typical gender behaviour when it's performed by the other gender.

Archetypes... my first memory is related to it. It was my 2nd birthday and my mom had bought big sunglasses with a big coloured rim. My favourite colours at that time were red and green. I thought of them as "boy" colours, because they were so strong and powerful. Yellow and blue were "girly girly" colours to me. And I could not identify myself with wanting or even being girly girly. In fact, at that age I thought I wanted to be a boy, because I certainly did not want to be a "typical" girl. The colours of the sunglasses' rim were red, blue and yellow. Although it was my birthday, and I had the right of first choice, a girl of a month older took the red sunglasses before I could pick one. I ended up wearing the blue one for the whole of the day. I felt a big injustice had been done to me (the other girl got to pick before me even though it was my birthday), I felt envious about the red one an miserable about having to wear the blue one, and I felt guilty over being envious. I never told anyone how I felt that day until I was 12 during a reunion visit with my daycaretaker and her family. It's because of all those strong emotions that conflicted each other that the memory was retained, because peope rarely remember stuff from before they are five.

The strange thing about this memory and story is how on earth I even had these two ideas of a boy being tough and strong, while a girl was weak and petty imo. My mom was an example of how strong in personality a woman can be, whereas my dad was an example of temper tantrums. They gave me cars and trains to play with as well as dolls. The daycaretaker they picked for me had short hair and did not fit the girly girl type either. Neither I nor the environment I had been growing up in for those first 2 years could have given rise to these two split archetypes of what it means to be a boy or a girl. I myself did not fit the bill of either two, and yet those were my first archetypes I have a conscious memory of. Same goes for those emotions, especially the feeling of guilt about being envious. I was a sole child, and until then never had been in a position to feel envy, and thus not even taught by elders that it was "wrong" to be envious. And yet that was the strongest feeling of all and hte reason why I never spoke up that day to acquire the red sunglasses.

It was exactly because my parents encouraged me to be who I was, the example of my strong mother who is both feminine (motherly) and yet rational/powerful that the wish to be a boy did not stick for long. Before long I had no problem whatsoever to be female, because I was raised to experience it not as "defining" me, but as just one of the aspects of my whole person.

Another memory... When I was 7 we had to do a drawing of what we wanted to be when we were grown up. Yes, there were girls who drew nurses, ballerinas, etc. I drew a police woman (with a police skirt). My elementary schoolteacher in that grade confronted me about my choice in a group convo, saying "isn't that a man's job?" And my instant reply was "Sir, that is role pattern thinking," and it shut him up.  

I can write a long list of who I really am, of all that I have done, etc... but I know myself well enough to realize that I'm not some archetype.

A lot of things change throughout our lives, including personality, because that is shaped by experiences and views, which alter because of experiences too. But the one thing we are born with and can never alter is our identity. Which gender you are (physically and mentally) is but one of the elements that define our identity. Temperament is another element. And so many more. In science terms each of our genes contribute to our identity. We have 46 chromosones, 2 of which define our gender. The other 44 are pairs of 4 possibilities. Each chromosome of those 44 is one out of 4 possibilities. 4!/(4-1)! = 4!/3! = 4 possibilties for one chromosome. For 44 chromosomes together that makes 4 to the 44th, and thus 1 and then 44 zeroes possible chromosome combinations for males and the same amount for females. So who we are is not an archetype, but instead very unique. We don't even have enough people on the globe to represent all of those possibilities (and let's hope we never end up being that many).

And in my experience, once we treat other individuals as if they are an example of an archetype, that's when relating ends up being troublesome. Because then we start with an abstrahation and forget that a person is more than an abstrahation. No teen, no man, no woman enjoys being but an abstrahation in another one's mind. The most fundamental way to connect with another person is to acknowledge they are a living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being. If I treat my pupils as some typical example of a teen, then this will provoke some rebellious incident. If I treat a tourist who's on my trip as one of the 8 possible reactive types then he or she will start to react badly to me too. If I treat my partner as an abstrahated archetype then we'll end up fighting, and vice versa.

So far about identity. Of course, we are all humans and there's a scale of possible emotions related to situations in life. We do not always experience the same situations, but several situations will stimulate similar emotional experiences. And when it comes to behaviour between 2 people (teacher - pupil, parent-child, partners, tourist-tourleader, boss-employee) then there are but two laws governing that behaviour: initiating (power) behaviour will provoke following behaviour and vice versa; and "we/us" behaviour will provoke "we/us" behaviour, whereas "against" behaviour will provoke "against" behaviour. Which behaviour is appropriate will depend on the situation, and what you aim for a result. If you wish to repel someone then all it takes is to show "against" behaviour.

In the same sense I would agree that women and men may have some typical gender related experiences. How our environment acts towards us will influence our behaviour. A woman teaching does not conflict with gender archetypes, not even when I teach hard science. It is one of the career moves that is not regarded as unfeminine. In my country too, daycare fnances are such and life expenses are such that women rarely become stay at home moms (especially since the 70s). A woman backpacking in foreign countries on adventure trips and leading a group of adventurist tourists or travel by her sole self in that way does raise eyebrows. Somehow people expcect women do not like to do these things, certainly not by themselves. It's regarded to be a male thing. While in reality it's almost the opposite. There are more women who go backpacking by themselves than there are men backpacking on their own, and there are more female travelers than there are male travelers. Women wearing pants these days does not raise eyebrows, whereas men wearing a skirt will. Being pregnant and giving birth to a new person will influence a person differently than being the close bystander. Not to mention the hormonal influence for one, and lack of hormonal influence for the other. Our gender related experiences and what society frowns upon or not will shape our behaviour, regardless of our identity.

Life may have some common themes that we all have to go through, and we may form pattern behaviour that's not easy to let go off because of it and there are but a few possible patterns available for our brain, but ultimately life is too complex and the possibilities of identities too big to fit people into archetypes, let alone but two archetypes (male/female). I know enough gay men who do not fit the "gay" archetype of "queerness", and while their sexual preference is a part of their identity it is not what defines all of their personality, as little as my heterosexuality does not define the totality of who I am.

Arcehtypes are not wrong, as long as we recognize they are but a temporary representation of a behaviour or feeling in a certain situation which we ended up labeling because that makes it easier to memorize and retrieve it, as long as we do not try to fit in people as their identity being that archetype forever until their last breath in every situation of their lives. An archetype can fit a person at that moment in that situation, but the person does not fit the archetype.

Then why even use tarot which is so full of archetypes? Because imo tarot is not something that says "you are this archetype forever and ever", but because it says, "right now you feel/act/think like this archetype in this situation in your life." On the one hand tarot readings transcedent the details of the personal life situation and yet allows the individual querent to fill in those details for hirself.  

I've been thinking some more about the gender-division archetype issue, especially within relationships...

Just in general, people want to feel understood and at the same time recognized as a unique person. To understand how someone feels and act in a certain way, we need to associate and generalize, and yet at the same time respect that the person who we try to understand is a unique personality. Tarot in my experience is one of those tools that can do btoh at the same time.

Romantic relationships are one of the most difficult challenges. You have two individuals, each with their particular needs and wants that alter depending on their mood (based on hormones of the day raging through the brain, experiences of the day including those outside a relationship) and their general feeling that day, and you need to share one space/territory with each other, and keep the territory in a state that will enable to forget both of these people to forget about the daily worries of the outside world. So, you have to please yourself as an individual, please the other as an individual and please each other as a couple. That's 3 wish lists that need to be checked off each day at any time of the day and night again and again. Some of those needs have nothing to do with romance, but some of them are. Anyway, knowing this, couples are bound to have conflicts. And in the way I put it above, it even seems a surprise that couples can get along.

One of the particular cause of conflict for a couple are these basic needs: we want to be the most unique and attractive woman/man for our partner. Especially with a hetersexual couple "gender" becomes a defining aspect more than in any other relationship we have. At the same time in order to live together our partner must be one of those few people who is able to show and have understanding the most, which embodies both a lot of transposing of somebody's feelings to a more general picture as well as recognition of uniqueness, and this understanding is often required at a moment when we are in conflict ourselves over something and need understanding too. And since being the woman/men who stands out over all other women/men is so important for us, in combination with moments of possibly opposing needs at a certain point in time, we get what is often referred to as the gender-clash, producing books like Mars and Venus to fit certain reactions of men into an archetype called Mars, and certain reactions of women into an archetype called Venus. That we actually have reverse reactions at other times seems to be neglected or forgotten. Because the needs differ at that moment, suddenly the gender you have becomes the cause, not the fact that you're a different person.

A simple example... A man and woman want to go out. He looks forward to taking his gf/wife out and show her off. Of course, to show her off, she must try to look her most feminine, her very best. And she likes to be shown off by him. It makes her feel like she's the sole woman he wants over all the other women. So, both will agree on the woman dressing to be not just presentable, but at her finest. So, she gets in the shower to wash her long feminine hair, use some shower gell that smells nice, special product for intimate hygiene, shaving the armpits and legs (cause she won't be able to hide 3 day old hairs under the pants). Then she needs to pick out clothes that he thinks are sexy, but not make him jealous over what other men get to see (so not trampy), and at the same time make her feel herself and comfortable (instead of worrying over how she's seated and all of that). That will take about 2-3 changes of clothes that fit togther. Then the make-up needs to be applied. Even if it's only a little, it must be enough to do away with the toils of the day. And then that long hair needs to be dried too. She's proud to have accomplished all of this in an hour time. He's already twirling his fingers for half an hour, after his quick shower, comb through the hair, shave of his stubble, putting on his good jeans, a shirt and a vest/sweater. Anyway, after a couple of times he'll start to complain about her being a typical woman who takes too much time in the bathroom, and start to rush her. The ritual to emphasise she's the most special unique woman to him, has just turned in how much she's like any other woman. With the extra stress it takes out any fun out of the act of going out to relax (stressing to relax is an oxymoron after all), and she'll either start going out with just a quick shower, wet hair in a tail, no make-up and some jeans and a t-shirt or discourage any venturing out. So, they either stop going out together, or she's not the stunner of the room anymore. Either way, both their needs end up turned off, and instead of feeling a special specimen of their gender, they blame each other for being a typical specimen of their gender. OUCH!

Hi Sweetsunrae.

Sorry but your posting is a bit above my understanding, so I will forward it to my sister who is a psychologist. She specifically use building blocks, bottles, whatever, to define mentally challenged people's active state of mind, at that moment, she does not read Tarot, totally not, but by using symbolic objects, she determine the archetype active at that moment.



I do not want to "fit" any person into a certain slot, nor does the Tarot do it, we do it on our own. If you walk through 1-10 begin to end, it has abstract and real life. Three of Swords is what it is, the end of an affair of the heart. It does not determine, you will remain in that environment. No, you will move to four, five, etc.

As I said, let me forward it to my sister, she will give good clarity on that!

Blessed Be.

Payewacker, I think we agree on how feelings and actions in situations in our life can be portrayed by tarot cards, which are archetypal symbols. And I think we both agree that a moment in our life does not define our whole identity.

The rest is just about the question whether gender division exists as deeply as often as it is used to deal with the frustrating moments when our personal needs conflict with that of our partner. I used to think so somewhat, and now I don't anymore.