The Lover Archetype

Lately in America the most confused, as well as needing restoration

…A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,
         With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,
         Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
         That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
         To let the warm Love in! - John Keats, Ode to Psyche

(Note to readers: this is the fourth installment in a series on masculine archetypes. Links to the other three can be found at the end. Post is too long for email.)

Of the four masculine archetypes I have covered thus far, the Lover is perhaps the most challenging for men. For many men on the right, stoicism allows for little sympathy, for oneself or others. For many men on the left, it is emasculation and shadow impotence. For many men of no or either political leaning, it is shadow addiction.

Many men, when they think of the Lover, their mind immediately turns to sex. But the Lover archetype is much more than sex, or even intimacy with a partner. It encompasses all that is sensual, be it sexual attraction, food, drink, art, feelings of every kind, emotions generally, empathy, connectedness to family, friends and the world at large. The transcendent Lover is the recognition of the lack of separation from all things, everything is energy vibrating at a different frequency, we are all connected, with everything. The Lover is mysticism and spirituality.

It is challenging enough for many men to remember their anniversary, or their partner’s birthday, let alone opening up to transcendent unity. Or the transcendent in sex.

Lovers (Mithuna): Madhya Pradesh, Khajuraho style, India, 11th century

When I was a young man coming of age in America, raised evangelical, there were competing influences, the general abstinence wait for marriage legacy of our puritan forebears, and the free sex liberation of the counter-cultural left. I can’t imagine the confusion for young people now…

Kelsea Ballerini, all about the new privilege, not like the old privilege

Pink suburbia where the only men with any skill dress in white (and are white) in the background serving the diverse, functionally useless, male sexualized caricatures of women (trans), at their garden party (as you can see there is a great deal of investment in this 1950’s throwback neo-ideal.)

You couldn’t find masculinity anywhere near the stage at the Country Music Television (CMT) awards, like Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings. This is what passes for grit now.

Tats on the face, marginal singing and modeling for the obesity epidemic body positivity movement. With respect to Mr Jelly Roll, a phalanx of black gospel singers doesn’t make it healthier. Though perhaps that is what is required to get a girlfriend of this caliber, Ms Bunnie XO:

Something like this is how you get a generation of young men to stay home, not get married, not have kids, play video games and watch porn all day and night.

Shania Twain, the queen of country pop reduced to corporate prostitute, equality style

A 53 year old candy stripper singing her grl-pwr anthem

This is the positive lover archetype “of play and display” turned upside down.

Of healthy embodiment, of being in the world of sensual pleasure and in one’s own body without shame. Thus, the lover is deeply sensual - sensually aware and sensitive to the physical world in all it’s splendor. The Lover is related and connected to [it] all, drawn into [it] through his sensitivity. His sensitivity leads him to feel compassionately and empathetically united…. For the man accessing the Lover, all things are bound to each other in mysterious ways. He sees as we say, the world in a grain of sand… he feels that it is so. (1)

The Lover archetype is associated with passion, artistic/aesthetic sensibilities, mystical spiritual understanding and the sheer joy of life. The Country Music Television awards were more the Lover in shadow addiction, without boundaries, without limits, in service to a cynical industry and woke ideology. A false front without depth, despite all the money behind it no one will remember most of this “art” in a few years, mere consumption for the transient moment, to titillate your senses - the opposite of empowering (I’m pretty sure those female “country” superstars don’t get to dress themselves.)

The primary and most deeply disturbing characteristic of the Shadow Lover as addict is his lostness…literally lost in an ocean of senses…the slightest impressions from the outer world are enough to pull him off center…he is not the master of his own fate…[he is] the victim of his own sensitivity…living only for the pleasure of the moment…unable to come to [himself]…to detach and gain distance from [his] feelings.

Always searching for something we can never find, we collapse into unhealthy relationships, too much smoking, drinking, eating, video games, porn and the rest. It is like what was called idolatry, separating us from the source, separating us from ourselves. This is much the purpose of marketing in America, to trigger your addictions, to keep you wanting. Until nothing is ever good enough.

This leads to the impotent Lover,

chronically depressed…a lack of connection with others…cut off from themselves…the zest for life is gone…the Lover is no where to be found…they feel there is nothing to live for.

By contrast:

If we are appropriately accessing the Lover, but keeping our Ego structure strong, we feel related, connected, alive, enthusiastic, compassionate, empathic, energized, and romantic about our lives, our goals, our work and our achievements…that gives us a sense of meaning - what we have been calling spirituality. It is the Lover that is the source of our longings for a better world for ourselves and others…the idealist…the dreamer…the one who wants us to have an abundance of good things….

The Lover keeps the other masculine energies humane, loving and related to each other and to the real life situation of human beings struggling in a difficult world…the King, Warrior and Magician…without the Lover, are essentially detached from life. They need the Lover to energize them, to humanize them, and give them their ultimate purpose - love.

The Lover needs them as well. The Lover without boundaries, in his chaos of feeling and sensuality, needs the King to define limits for him, to give him structure, to order his chaos so that it can be channeled creatively. Without limits the Lover energy turns negative and destructive. The Lover needs the Warrior…to act decisively, in order to detach, with the clean cut of the sword, from the web of immobilizing sensuality…. The Lover needs the Magician to help him back from the ensnaring effect of his emotions, in order to reflect, to get a more objective perspective on things, to disconnect - enough at least to see the big picture and to experience the reality beneath…

The Lover is essential to the whole self. The Lover blunts our harder edges as masculine men, and makes healthy relationships possible. It is the energy that allows us to play with kids, to make them feel safe and to trust, to remind us that we were once children who needed the same.

It is also about healthier relations with your lover, your partner, your wife (or your husband.) With so much of the Lover archetype in this society in shadow, marriage not made easier by the collapse of community and religion, or the sexual revolution or consumerism, it should be no surprise more than 50% of marriages end in divorce. Far too often, we expect too much, we demand too much and give less. Too often we dream of an ideal mate that is not possible, expecting the impossible from our mates.

There is also the concept of the alchemical marriage. Alchemy is the science and magic of transformation.

Two people coming together to make each other better, to become “enlightened” together, to assist each other in the Great Work that is coming to know thyself. That seems to me a more true ideal, as opposed to mere love, or a marriage of economic convenience. A society embracing the Lover archetype would hold such a union in great esteem. Most marriages would last I think, if couples treated growth and transformation as a mutual goal.

And, absolutely it must be about love.

And of course, wild attraction to each other…

It is a factor of civilization, that as society becomes more affluent, there is less procreation, until the civilization no longer grows and eventually collapses. In America, the expansion of women’s economic rights has led to a significant number of women living alone, childless. That has not necessarily meant improved mental health for women or men, generally. A great many women living on their own are taking anti-depressants. That is not natural, and would arguably not be the case if they, and men generally, had a healthier relationship with the lover archetype. Increasing numbers of women are rejecting feminism and the sexual revolution. The trouble is, a lot of men have forgotten how to dance. (2)

A lot of women and men in relationship are not happy, in part because one or both have lost sight of the Lover archetype.

Courtship is a kind of dance; in the traditional sense, the man pursues, the woman resists, there is a playful tension. If there are women who are seeking more of such traditional, it would do men well to get right with the Lover archetype. It is good for your mental health, your self esteem, and maybe even for society and Western Civilization. (Or, for just getting out of the damn basement.)

The King Archetype

The Warrior Archetype

The Magician Archetype

1. All blocked quotes are from Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician Lover, HarperCollins 1990; Chpt 8, The Lover, pg 119-141

2. Of course ladies, you can live alone and have a healthy relationship with the Lover archetype.