Archetype 1: The Lover - The Cornerstone of the Primordial Artist

This is the fourth in a series exploring 12 virtues that can liberate artists from cultural enslavement.

ATTEND

We’ve successfully identified the first three virtues – they are all around love – Love of self, love of other, love of god / reality. We’ve seen that love of self prepares one to act from a place of abundance, self acceptance, from wholeness rather than from void. We’ve seen how love of other prepares one to truly accept others, in a transcendent way, to see their primordial nature, and to enable their development not through control but by the act of acceptance and encouragement itself. That delighting them is the richest form of kindness we can give. And we’ve seen how love of god / reality transforms a small closed world into a world of riches, a sparkling infinite universe that with practice and meditation opens up to us. We have access to this splendor, this glory, even in the simple gratitude for a glass of water.

ENVISION

So who is the Lover? The Lover is the first quarter of the Primordial Artist. They are the corner stone. They are the beginning. They are the start.

They are the one who has invited in love as a transcendent energy – a transpersonal energy – to be the connecting medium between themselves and all the rest. They embody love in themselves, and they connect to others with love, and they connect to the universe with love – they have a relationship to the great mysterious by love.

They allow love to fill their reserves, to saturate them. They can move between the personal, the individual, the interpersonal, and the spiritual with facility.

This enables them to be free rather than slaves to approval and validation. The love that we all seek in performance is now granted in the artist’s spiritual foundational practice. The work the artist now does is that of a free guide – channeling the great mysterious as a gift to the human race.

The artist saturated with these three loves can no longer be hooked by the approval-seeking that makes them vulnerable to human enslavement. They have moved beyond conditional love dynamics and connect directly with reality as their creative source. The Lover operates from such abundance – accepting this moment as the perfect starting point for creation – that guilt, shame, and withdrawal of approval have no power over them. They are guides, not slaves, channeling from the infinite well rather than performing for human markets.

By forming into an archetype, the Lover is able to make synergy between these different scales of love, these different facets or orders of magnitude of love. The love for self, the love for other, the love for god / reality. The Lover Archetype becomes an energy of their own. A force or a character to call on, to invite in, to embody in our own work.

The artist who calls on the Lover will find more softness, more warmth, more vulnerability, more curiosity, more connection, more affection, more discovery, more closeness in their work. They will have closeness not only with others and with the world they are in, but with their own self. By having this saturating closeness with their self, they permit their shadow to soften, to make room for expression, to make room for the transcendent to speak through them.

DIRECT

Solo

Foundation: The Centering Practice

Before engaging with any archetype, begin with this centering sequence:

Ground: Feel your feet on the earth, your body in space
Breathe: Three deep breaths, releasing control on the exhale
Invite: “I call forth my authentic creative self, free from human approval”
Set Intention: “I am here to serve the Great Mysterious through my art”

THE LOVER: Exercises for Self-Acceptance & Unconditional Love

Exercise 1: Meeting Your Unconditional Accepter

Setup: After centering, close your eyes and visualize a warm, safe space in nature.

Invitation: “I invite my Inner Unconditional Accepter to join me here.”

Visualization: Allow an image to emerge – this might be a wise grandmother, a compassionate figure, a radiant light, or even an animal. Don’t force it.

Dialogue:

“How do you see me right now, exactly as I am?”
“What do you love about my creative expression?”
“What would change if I truly accepted myself 100%?”
“How can I speak to myself with your voice?”

Integration: Ask this figure to give you a phrase or image you can return to when self-criticism arises.

Concrete Action: Write this phrase somewhere visible in your creative space.

Exercise 2: Dialogue with the Inner Critic

Invitation: “I invite my Inner Critic to speak with me safely.”

Exploration:

“What do you look like? How old are you?”
“What are you trying to protect me from?”
“When did you first learn to criticize me this way?”
“What do you need to feel safe enough to soften?”

Transformation:

“If you could transform into an ally, what would you become?”
“How could you help my art without hurting me?”

Integration: Thank the Critic for its protection, then invite it to transform into a Loving Mentor.

Exercise 3: The Love-Reality Practice

Situation Focus: Bring to mind a challenging situation in your creative life.

Three-Part Dialogue:

Part 1 – Self-Love: “Inner Lover, how can I accept myself completely in this situation?”

Part 2 – Love of Others: “How can I love the others involved exactly as they are?”

Part 3 – Love of Reality: “How is this situation actually perfect for my growth? What is the gift here?”

Integration: “If I approached this situation from complete love, what would I do differently?”

Embody love

Walk through the room really feeling the energy of love moving through you. Feel it within yourself, encouraging you, giving delight to you. Feel it between you and objects. Between you and the room itself. Feel it as you think of people you know, those you care for, those you are close to. Let it be a sea of love and you are swimming in it.

Allow yourself to make shapes, to move, allow your face to soften, your hands, your movements. Touch things, be in love with them.

Integration: How does it feel to call upon a sea of love? How is your body diffrent? How is your attitude diffrent? How does time feel?

Pairs

With a trusted partner, embody love with them. With proper consent and scaled intimacy as needed, make contact with them. It could be with your eyes, with a gaze, it could be touching the tips of fingers. It could be laying on the ground at their feet, it could be holding hands. The partners can decide how close to go before hand or what limits there are.

Integration: How does it feel to relate in this way with another? How is it different from normal life? What would it be like to carry this kind of contact into normal life, even if scaled to socially horned levels? What would it be like to bring this energy to collaborations? To scenes? To your work?

Group

All lay on the floor. Boundaries are set ahead of time and a facilitator is present to help maintain them if needed. All meditate on the lover archetype. Call them. Reflect on the three virtues, love of self, love of other, love of reality/god. When ready, all awaken as The Lover. Each will express the archetype in their own way, and will interact in their own true way while calling on this archetype. Imitation is not a goal, of course. It is about drawing in the transpersonal power of love in its three facets, to operate in a new way.

Participants will notice each other, might smile, might be coy or shy, but ultimately wanting to connect. Finding who it is you are curious about, finding where in the room your love wants to take you. You are all in a sea of love. How blessed! How lucky you all are! We are here together! Love is our medium.

Notice the three facets – notice love of self – be sure to keep that present. Notice love of other – accept those you see, appreciate those you see, delight in them, and if you can, delight them with playfulness, curiosity, sweetness, whatever occurs to you.

Do this without words for now. Words can come later. For now just exist in this improvisation – this improvisation of love, and see how it develops. There can be sounds, rhythms, perhaps gibberish, but no words yet.

Facilitator – hold the agreed boundaries with kindness and firmness – a participant may forget and need to be reminded. Everyone’s safety is your responsibility. This is a kind of trance, and regular rational thought will be set aside somewhat for many.

Integration: How did it feel to interact in a group in this way? How did you feel different in yourself? Did others appear different to you then before? Were you surprised by anything? Were you afraid of anything? Did it feel vulnerable? to vulnerable? Did it feel different at all? Perhaps not? What would it be like to bring this energy into your work? What would it be like to bring this Lover energy into your relationships, into your life?

Advanced – add language. See what happens.
Variation: People choose one facet to focus on. How does it change it?
Advanced variation: Half the class embodies the Lover, half do not. How is it to see the Lovers? To interact with them? How is it to see the personas? Interact with them? Are you curious of each other or scared?

CURTAIN

We’ve now experienced the cornerstone of the Primordial Artist – a loving communion with self, other, and god/reality. This foundation will serve us and fuel us through the virtues and archetypes that follow. You’ve entered a new realm with new powers you can draw on in all aspects of your life, and crucially in your art. There is abundance now, and there is warmth, and there is intimacy – whether alone or with collaborators or with god only. This will offer all the fuel we need to move into the next realm: The Warrior.