Concluding the Preparation Phase of Jesus life map, this video looks at three moments before Jesus begins his public ministry:
The deaths of all the children younger than two years, in and around Bethlehem caused by Herod’s paranoia at the news that a king had been born there. How did that story impact Jesus’understanding of his own life. How does it impact us to know that we are still alive and others are not?
The finding in the temple when Jesus is twelve years old. Was this really only a Bar Mitzvah?
The mission eighteen years. Did Jesus exotically got to the east for enlightenment and return to Israel with secret wisdom? Or did he, quite ordinarily simply go and grow into himself and his destiny in the humble home of Nazareth?
In the sixth talk on “A Radical Christ”, Peter examines the Incarnation of Jesus and how this symbolises the return of divinity to indwelling humankind. From the dawn of consciousness humans have projected their consciousness outwards further and further from access. A kind of EX-carnation.
Less and less embodied and more and more intellectual and philosophical. In the Incarnation, the process comes full circle as the divine returns to the consciousness that is the reality of all Life here and now.
Getting into lock down with Jesus. After four introductory sessions setting the scene, we are now ready to enter the life of Jesus as an Archetypal map for all of our lives. Yes, of course, he didn’t have to deal with the Corona Virus COVID-19, but he experienced his context and time and the challenges then, which offer us critical reference points for our own healing, and dare I say “survival”? In this first episode relating to the Preparatory Phase of Jesus’ life, Peter explores the role of angels in Jesus’ birth and also what the symbolic meaning of an angel could be for us psychologically. Far from being an esoteric consideration of how many angels can fit on a pin-head, this episode is an investigation of how the humanly created idea of angels can explain our own mind, to ourselves.
In this fourth video of the Radical Christ Series Peter maps the Life Stages that Jesus, with every hero in mythology, and our lives follow. Myth is understood as an “Absolutely True Story that probably never happened” Jesus as the proto-typical (arche-typal) human life has in the stages of his life the experience and the cure for every human condition. The key lies in being able to connect where we are in our life stage, with the corresponding stage in Jesus’ life.
You can contact Peter by emailing peterwoods.pe@gmail.com
In this third foundational video for The Radical Christ series, Peter examines the role of Archetypes in Mythology, and explains why Jesus is the most accessible Archetypal Map for Western minds
You can schedule one on one Skype or Zoom sessions with Peter by emailing peterwoods.pe@gmail.com
Setting the scaffold for understanding the Radical Christ, in this video I explore the origins of religion as a consequence of the consciousness of Homo Sapiens. Animated cave art, abstract thinking, projection and the return of God to the flesh of human being are all markers on this fascinating human unfolding. There is no religion that didn’t begin as a human conversation trying to explain the mysteries of a conscious existence.
In a joint venture with Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat and in the face of rabid fundamentalism and tired Christian ritual, Peter is launching a series titled “The Radical Christ”. Just under a year ago whist on a visit to Dharmagiri, Thanissara “downloaded” an insight during her morning practice which she wrote on a notelet and presented to me at breakfast. “PW” she said, “This is your next work”. The note read simply, “The Radical Christ”. There was an immediate resonance with Thanissara’s words. They made sense at all levels I have spent most my life speaking about Jesus in one way or another, and though I no longer preach, (over 1500 sermons done, many on this blog still getting hits late on Saturday nights): I do love Jesus. Not in the way that most angry fundamentalist Christians say they do, but in a way I would like to unpack in this series.
This offering is the product of my acceptance of Thanissara’s shamanic ancestral download (I am a Jungian and an African after all), and some months of reading and dalliance with video production software.
In these conversations we will explore a new understanding of Jesus the Christ. Using the insights of philosophy, culture and psychology we will dig into the archetypal significance of a God-Person interconnection that could lead to global engagement and human transcendence at this time of ecological crisis.
Ever noticed how certain situations bring out the worst in you?
It may be a place, a set of circumstances or simply something someone says or does. Without any warning you find yourself irrationally attacking or shutting down.
You feel completely out of control and out of character.
The people around you are confused and shocked and most of all, you have no idea what is happening. Afterwards you may look at your behaviour and describe it as a meltdown, or having “lost it”.
Chances are, you are in the grip of a Psychological Complex, being blown up by the landmines of the psychological realm.
This video explores these moments and offers a map of management.
This week as we consider Ancestral Grief, we conclude our study of the Five gates of Grief outlined by Francis Weller . Looking at our family trees or our clan origins, we realise that along with their DNA we may have inherited our ancestors’ grief. One of the realities of diverse South Africa is unless your heritage is Khoisan, most of us descend from ancestors who arrived from somewhere else. They were either displaced by the expansion of other tribes who squeezed people further and further south, or by colonial forces that promised struggling Dutch, British and German peasants a better life in a foreign land. Some of us may have servitude and slavery in our heritage, our families brought here simply as units of labour. And despite the hopes and dreams they brought, they must have carried a deep grief at their loss of land and roots which they had to leave behind. We are the descendants of aliens and immigrants, those people who arrived here on unfamiliar soil, and whose grief and sadness has found its way into our beings. These ancient unknown characters also had a part in shaping the world we inherited. Most people believe there is some form of afterlife where those who have gone before find themselves “in a better place”. This Valhalla, Xanadu or Heaven is imagined as a place where the ancestors share perfect knowledge and insight they never had while alive. In my Gates of Grief workshops, I encourage participants to imagine their ancestors in this place of full insight, writing a letter of apology to us living now. We owe it to ourselves and them to recognise the many untruths which we drank in with our mother’s milk and made our own. Our task in this generation is to examine those beliefs and decide which of them are no longer true nor valid. Then for the sake of our own health we must let them go. Consider for example the prejudices, suspicion and bigotry they passed on to us. Their violence, sexism, racism, exploitation of women and children and of the earth in general. Their promotion of tobacco smoking, slavery, child labour, and corporal punishment. These misconceptions, errors or deliberate strategies have scarred us and are part of the deep sorrow we carry in our collective unconscious. Along with the ancient grief in our bones, there may also be our experiences of the grief and loss of our immediate parents and grandparents which we are required to mourn. The Swiss Psychiatrist, Carl Jung wrote, “The greatest burden a child can bear is the unlived life of its parents.” Perhaps our own lives were stunted because our parents projected onto us their unfulfilled agendas and could not allow us to become who we were born to be. These deep ancestral memories invite us to create rituals of mourning from a past that is asking to be redeemed. To mourn these ancient griefs is sacred work.
You can schedule one on one Skype or Zoom sessions with Peter by emailing peterwoods.pe@gmail.com
