What it Is

ARCHETYPAL is a photographic art project intended for contemplation, meditation, and spell work. It explores mythic themes, including Kabbalah and Jungian psychology.

Yesod, the Ninth Sphere on the Tree of Life. It represents manifestation, dreams, illusion, and the astral plane. It's thought of as the foundation and scaffolding for our physical world. Here stands the Magickal Image of Yesod - "a beautiful naked man, very strong" - experiencing the Vision of the Machinery of the Universe. He's surrounded by the tools, symbols, and colors of this sphere of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

In a broken cathedral, she offers up to the Divine the only thing that is truly hers: her own broken heart. The image expresses a Kabbalistic idea that at the end of many lifetimes, when we are ready to reunite with God, what we can offer God is our own broken heart. The story of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is the story of humanity’s descent into matter and our quest to reunite with God.

The Goddess archetype, in Jungian psychology, is closely related to the Mother archetype. She is the Great Mother or Earth Mother. Here I depicted her in a verdant garden at harvest time. Her glass of mother's milk and her sickle represent her bounty and what she's willing to offer. The blood stain, in one version, could be seen as her own. The Earth and our human mothers are the same in that we have a very special, loving relationship with them, but often take and take from them without too much concern. The Earth, as Starhawk pointed out, is something we walk all over.

This was the beginning of a photo series on the Dionysian/Apollonian dichotomy. I chose this subject because the model was particularly interested in it. The combined images didn't work out, but the three Dionysus photos above came out very nice.

In this dichotomy, championed by Nietzsche, Apollo represents the Light side of human nature and Dionysus represents the Dark. The Light is logic, rationality, order, and constraint. The Dark is wild, unbridled, chaotic, and emotional. This dichotomy comes from art and literary criticism and wasn't a part of actual Greek religion.

Looking into a mirror and meeting his own Shadow, probably always a painful encounter.

The white haze was an accidental camera setting, and I was in such a rush I didn't notice until the shoot was over. I call it a happy accident because I think it gives it a Tales From the Darkside kind of feel, or like the Cenobites bathed in light.

Model: Anonymous
Photography, editing: Me

Instead of showing a pristine, pure image, "Prayer for Purity" shows what it's like to seek out purity. Naked and vulnerable in the rain, our figure is desperate, self-hating; he feels dirty, unworthy, and prayerful. In Judaism, one of the mysteries of the tabernacle is that when the priest enters the tabernacle and moves toward the center, while he approaches God, God is reaching outward to approach him. Here in this photo, as our figure reaches out with his arms and his fire, the light in the heavens represents the Divine reaching back to him.