
Elements and Archetypes:
A Series of 4 talks in Hout Bay
February 25 @ 7:00 pm - March 18 @ 9:00 pm SAST
R1600
In many of the old creation stories, dating from the early times of our pre-industrial ancestry, it was said that in the very beginning there was only the Creator. The Creator looked upon itself and said, “This is not enough. It is not good for me to be all alone in all of existence.” And so the creator cast off a piece of itself and from this piece began to create. The Creator created four spirits and with its breath gave them life. As each spirit came to life the Creator gave it a name. “You are Wind,” it said to the first of the creations. The second spirit the Creator named Sun, as the life-giving breath filled its being. The third spirit was to be called Water and the fourth and final of the creations was to be called Earth.
When this was done, the Creator said to the four spirits, “Go out and create as you see fit. Give life as I have given you life, make a home for yourselves and create keepers who will look after it.” Colin Campbell
The stories told by our ancestors were drawn from the anthropomorphic imagery in which we clothed the world of our experience. These images created a universe that becomes a living entity like ourselves with whom we could form a dynamic relationship. This is the realm of myth, that inner imaginal domain that finds commune with the outer universe through the shared sense of sentient meaningful existence.
What happens then if the life is withdrawn from these collective images, when all of creation is reduced to so much lifeless dust that somehow by sheer force of chance coalesced to form the universe as we now experience it? To whom do we relate, with whom is the burden of existence shared and from where do we find the depths of meaning that can only emerge from the hearth of deep symbiotic relatedness?
Elders from the few remaining pre-industrial cultures in the world generally seem to say the same thing. There was a time when things were different. There was a time when our master was the god of nature who was not only all around us but deep within us too.
Colin Campbell is among the few people of western European origin who were accepted, taught and initiated by some of the wisest pre-industrial African knowledge carriers who lived in Southern Africa during his growing up years. He believes that, as a result of our alienation from the rest of nature, our relationship with our own inner mythic nature has in turn become severely compromised. The loss of these primary and vital relationships has left us with a deep sense of existential anguish and spiritual isolation.
The remedy, he suggests, is to begin a profound and sometimes radical process aimed at the restoration and deep healing of these damaged relationships. Over the last thirty years of teaching and researching, Colin has developed maps that offer guidance for such restoration to people who belong to the western industrialized world. Theory and related practices draw on a combination of traditional knowledge systems still held and practiced by the few remaining pre-industrial cultures in the world, and modern existential and archetypal psychology.
Join Colin at his home in Hout Bay for a series of four introductory talks that explore how we might do this using theoretical maps and related practices detailing the four primary elements of creation and their corresponding archetypes as identified in contemporary archetypal psychology.
The four talks will separately introduce and explore air as the magician, fire as the warrior, water as the lover and earth as the sovereign.
Colin Campbell is a celebrated public speaker who over the last 25 years has been sharing insights and understandings of cross-cultural, existential and archetypal psychology, combined with traditional knowledge systems on various platforms, symposiums and earth concerned gatherings around the world. He also regularly runs wilderness emersion and training processes in Botswana, South Africa and the UK.
Event Details
Talk 1: AIR / The Magician – 25 February | 7:00–9:00 PM
Talk 2: FIRE / The Warrior – 4 March | 7:00–9:00 PM
Talk 3: WATER / The Lover – 11 March | 7:00–9:00 PM
Talk 4: EARTH / The Sovereign – 18 March | 7:00–9:00 PM
VENUE: Hout Bay
PRICE: R1600 to attend the series.
Places are very limited.
To book, please email meetwithcolincampbell@gmail.com