I want to finish my exploration of rest series by exploring the archetype of rest. If you are just finding my posts, here are links to my previous blog posts about rest: Introduction to the Importance of Rest, A Guide to Sensory Rest, and the Benefits of Resting as Self Care. So, let’s dive into the archetype of rest and how we can see rest symbolically as a way to live.
The Archetype of Rest
Here is Merriam-Webster’s definition of rest:
- Repose, Sleep, specifically: a bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities
- a: freedom from activity or labor, b: a state of motionlessness or inactivity, or c: the repose of death
- a place for resting or lodging
- peace of mind or spirit
- a: (1) a rhythmic silence in music or (2) a character representing such a silence, b: a brief pause in reading
- something used for support
Rest as an Energetic Modality
Astrology incorporates modalities as a way to look at energy changes. The three modalities are cardinal, fixed, and mutable. The fixed modality is a type of resting energy. It is associated with the mother or father archetype in the triple Goddess/God pattern. The fixed modality can be connected to the stabilizing, holding up, and containment concepts of parenting. I could expound on this holding environment ad nauseum in the analytical space of psychotherapy.
Holding and Stabilizing Energy in Therapy
Jung said the therapy can act “as if” it is a magician’s circle for creating something new. He specifically called it a temenos, or sacred space. There are many analogies of therapy related to the mother’s protective womb space.
This approach is how, in attachment therapy, depth therapy, and object relations, the treatment works by healing the relationship with the parent imago. The imago is “image” or parental complex. It heals the original early childhood wound. The therapeutic relationship between the client and therapist creates trust, vulnerability, and reflection. Then, the treatment, hope, creative new energies, and courage for a new way of life develop further along. The active process can start after the therapist and client fully establish the stabilizing, reflective, and holding space. Rest, then creation. Germination then comes personal development.
Examples of Archetypal Rest
The Pause in Breath
Another way to look at the fixed modality is the pause between breaths. In Hindu philosophy, the tattvic tides are the five elements, along with the sun, moon, and space between the sun and moon. This “space between” has a name that I can’t seem to find, and I don’t have the reference I got it from anymore. Arg! The book is called The Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the Tattvas by Rama Prasad. It is a heavy read printed in 1894 and considered an occult classic.
This space in between is a rest as well. It is neither either sun nor moon polarity, but another third quality. Waking consciousness correlates with the sun and sleeping with the moon. Then, the space between waking and sleeping is the transition we are discussing. Interestingly, there is a liminal space here. I’ll let you know the actual word once I can look it up again.
Qabalistic Spheres, the States of Being
States of Being
In the Hermetic Qabala, spheres represent states of being, and the paths between the spheres represent states of becoming. The spheres are vessels of light of a certain quality of energy with various related correspondences. Dynamism and polarity come into play in the relationships of the spheres to one another. Still, the spheres represent energy realized as a fixed state.
Rest in Manifestation and Mindset Work
Once someone releases energy toward an intention in a ritual, spell, or prayer, a rule of thumb is to not talk about it. The 32nd path of the qabala, between the astral (Yesod) and the manifest plane that we live in (Malkuth), is called the birth canal. It takes time for a thought form to move into reality and the physical world.
If we worry about it, we add conflicting thought forms to the magic and whittle away at the original intention. It is the energetic form of picking at a scab. If you wanted a less graphic metaphor, you could think about letting bread rise or not checking a soufflé in an oven and causing it to collapse. Therefore, you must let it go and let the universe do its work for you.
The Sabbath
One of the most integral allusions to rest is in the creation story in Genesis, where God created the world and then, on the 7th day, rested and reserved this day as the Sabbath. Our week, Saturday, would be related to the Jewish Sabbath. Saturn is the planet of containment associated with lead. Lead is heavy, inert, and protective. Saturn is related to timing, the end of things, and death’s final rest.
It is also interesting to note that the Jewish Sabbath and the Celtic concept of the day start at sundown. The Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday at sundown. The Celtic day starts when the night falls, not when the sun rises.
It is an exciting meditation concept to notice the beginning of the day, starting with stillness, rest, and the unconscious darkness of night rather than the active rise of dawn energy.
Sabbatical
While it is canon for the tenured professor, most of our culture does not endorse sabbaticals. What if our culture could encourage long enough vacations and regular sabbaticals? Most of the people I treat with burnout would be able to avoid such a crash if sabbaticals were encouraged.
Rests in Music
Rests, or pauses between playing, are crucial in music. When playing in a band or orchestra, it is an instinct to rush the rests and return to playing. However, the length of a pause can increase anticipation and emotion and amplify the impact of a particular instrument or voice when it resumes.
The 4 of Swords, the Retreat Card in the Tarot
This card can be called the rest and retreat card. When I pull this card in a tarot reading, it often tells me to withdraw, have a retreat, or “give it a rest.”
In some decks, it also looks like a truce. The swords hang on a wall, and everything pauses, such as can happen for religious holidays, read here holy day.
Even the idiom rest in peace might be a worthwhile association. I have found that catacombs and mausoleums have an air of sanctity, pervasive silence, and stillness.
The archetype of Rest In Nature
Winterizing Seeds and Bulbs
Many plants need a rest to germinate or bloom. This rest can be in the form of winter, or you can stick a plant in a closet in the dark for a few weeks without water. It depends on the needs of the species. Some seeds and bulbs require planting in the fall and need the cold period first to germinate or bloom. Some even need agitation to scrape against their seeds to break through the thick husks. Remember the inert, cold rest of Saturn.
Fallow Fields
Much like a human sabbatical, crop rotation can be beneficial to the biome, as well as leaving overworked or depleted fields fallow for a season to restore fertility. Our culture has these reminders in many ways but has lost the concept of the individual human worker.
Another use of the word fallow is the spaces between fields, such as ditches or uncultivated land. If we valued spaces left uncultivated and encouraged wildflowers such as milkweed, our pollinators would have an easier time doing their work, thus helping our cultivation efforts.
Stabilizing and Rest
Jung talks about the convalescent energy associated with the Greek God Telesphorus, who brings fulfillment through recuperating an illness or injury. Examples might be a cast or bed rest. Learning and creativity work this way, too, while ideas and understanding knit together over time. In his research on creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that creative problem-solving often happened when the creator was engaged in vacation or playing rather than when they were actively, consciously, thinking and working on the problem.
In Behavior
My last amplification for this subject will be about necessary pauses in human reactions. In active listening, one of the core concepts is creating space so that you are listening, processing, and waiting for the other people to fully finish their thoughts before volleying, like in a tennis match. When we do this internally, we can increase the space between experiencing a stimulus and the reaction.
Marion Woodman called this holding the tension. This phrase evokes the same impulse as counting the rests before playing in music. How much fertility can a pregnant pause hold as it gestates?
Final Thoughts on the Archetype of Rest
Rest is a rich archetype that our ego-driven culture needs to pay more attention to. This exploration can help us encourage each other to surrender to rest in its many forms and help us cultivate it for ourselves individually and between each other in relationship to work, The Great Work, and between each other.
e hung up, and everything is put on pause, such as can happen for religious holidays, read here holy day.
Even the idiom rest in peace might be a worthwhile association. I have found that catacombs and mausoleums have an air of sanctity, pervasive silence, and stillness.
In Behavior
My last amplification for this subject will be about necessary pauses in human reactions. In active listening, one of the core concepts is creating space so that you are listening, processing, and waiting for the other people to fully finish their thought before volleying like in a tennis match. When this is done internally, a person Increases the space between experiencing a stimulus and their reaction.
Marion Woodman called this holding the tension. This is the same impulse as counting the rests before playing in music. How much fertility can a pregnant pause hold as it gestates?
Final Thoughts on the Archetype of Rest
Rest is a rich archetype that our ego driven culture needs to pay more attention to. I hope that this exploration can help us encourage each other to surrender to rest in its many forms and help us cultivate it for ourselves individually and between each other in relationship to work, The Great Work, and between each other.
Thank you for your patience and allowing me to take this season to revitalize my creative fertility and take the rest that I needed. I hope the season was restful for you as well.
Does all of this seems like a fantasy that isn’t a part of your life? Can you not relax even when you “do all the right things” like sleep hygiene and self-care? You may have underlying, unconscious concerns that have affected your nervous system and your ability to self-soothe and find peace. It’s okay to need help with this. A lot of families don’t teach this when we were growing up and difficult events change your brain chemistry and therefore, your physiology.
Contact me here if you’d like some help to sort things out, find some clarity, and get some rest!