From Warrior to Sage

We each have to learn the lessons of the elders, and usually we do so the hard way; by having to go through the same phases of life that others who came before and tried to warn us about life. As a young, assistant professor I assumed I knew it all. I was going to work hard, do a lot of research, publish well, and meet my responsibilities as a teacher. Some where along this path I realized I was incomplete. I needed something more that the scientific method to guide my life. By now I was a father and deeply involved in my career. I did accept the Headship as I knew I could do it, and I knew it had to be done. Yet, the job is very hard, and is filled with lots of inter-personal conflicts with staff and faculty. I was glad to shed that role while I was young enough to have time to do some deep explorations of my life. I believe my first step in this direction began with a newly formed Unitarian Church in West Knoxville and with our minister, Dillman Sorrells. I next credit Carol Pearson for opening up an entire new area to me. I got her first book, contacted her, and joined her seminar titled Journey Guides. I was introduced to Carl Jung anew and in a form I had not encountered in my earlier studies. Pearson’s use of archetypes was fascinating to me and I began to see how they worked in my life. By now I had begun to move out of the ego stage into the inter-mediate stage of the soul that later leads us to be archetype of the sage. I believe that my teaching improved in the latter years of my career, and I feel that I learned a great deal from my students. One of the first lessons I learned was to allow my intuition to work for me. My personality tends toward the sensing and thinking type, rather than the intuitive and feeling type. But, I learned how to work against my type. About this time I first learned of the Meyers-Briggs Type Test at a leadership school run for Unitarians. Things seemed to be coming together for me. Then I chanced upon the work by Carol Gilligan, Anne Schaef, and James Hillman. I began to get the idea for this book. I began my thinking about the women’s movement and what appeared to be a counter movement by men but abandoned that approach as the men’s movement lost its way. By now I was moving into the role of the magician who could offer by example things in a way that students could use them in the daily life. As I write in Chapter 5, I asked my students to write a brief reaction to the course, and I got so much pleasure from the comments made by my students. By now I was not teaching only facts, and was not evaluating the students in the traditional way. I often think about all the stuff I learned in graduate school that I never had reason to use in my later life. Just as it was in preflight training, we had to learn how to navigate by the stars, sun, and moon. We never did that later as we navigated by electronic instruments. It is rather like a psychiatrist having to learn all the bones of the human foot, to be able to earn the M. D. and enter a residency in psychiatry. But, that is the way it works. I think of my book as a road map for persons who are interested in reaching the level of the sage and magician. Not all will do that, and many will not even understand what it is about. But for the sage, that does not matter. If only a few can profit from my work, I have fulfilled my calling.