Intelligence Befriended

Great Forces Aligned

New Worlds To Explore

Flukes, fins, and flippers seem to move of their own accord by the design of some master architect. Dolphin glides the wake of her friends and crests into the atmosphere, sunlight glancing. The call and response echolocating between her pod offers an excited thrall to Dolphin’s waters. What an effortless glide it is when one can see how the whole nurtures the details of its constituent parts.

Occasionally the far seeing eye of the pod doesn’t have the strength required to keep each member safe. Dolphin doesn’t care. Better to die dancing with a crew than to seek safety alone. Carelessness prevails in a ceaseless readiness for play.

Insulator

Insulator Moods, like Engaged, provide comfort and style on the outside while offering inner linings for concealing less appealing moods.

The Shadow arises as an internal opposite of the Insulating Mood. A Shadow will stay hidden for a time but eventually makes its presence known.

The Shadow

of the Engaged Dolphin is the Despondent Manatee

Integrating shadow

Every True Self Quest requires Shadow Work to synthesize splits between opposing parts of the self. This requires the help of specific Resonator moods best suited to act as mediators.

Dive deeper into the stories of Wildebeest and Sea Star to consider how they may serve a synthesizing role in taming your Dolphin and bringing your inner Manatee out of the shadows.

Pleasure’s Bitter After Taste

With Such Delicate Precision

Eyes Ever To The Exit

No sooner have you offered her your company and you will find her sinking away. The darkened lairs that capture Manatee’s interest are deep and far from here.

Yet somehow it’s her very unavailability that makes her so enchanting. The Adventurous can’t help but seek to unveil the ravishing princess hid beneath Manatee’s thick, monochrome skin. They could die trying as far as she’s concerned.

Ignore her completely and you will sense her approaching from behind. She carries with her the drab tokens from the deep that you misplaced long ago. To hear her speak, you will need to learn to wait.

Escalator

Escalator Moods, like Despondent, operate as embedded weapons built to guarantee emotional survival. If left unconscious, they act through us as Defense Mechanisms. If acknowledged directly, they can give healthy access to the expression of our most destructive states.

Escalator Moods can also be acted out in the world as Shadow. As Shadow, they work to sabotage the normal functioning of an otherwise pleasant mood. Each Escalator Mood has a particular symbiotic relation with one other Insulator Mood.

The Despondent Manatee functions as

The Shadow

to the Engaged Dolphin

The Despondent Manatee offers the unique Defense Mechanism of

Withdrawal

Tolerance for stress can be at an all time low while swimming within an unpredictable and mean spirited world. No Problem! The Manatee Mood of Despondency reminds us we can always escape into our own private headspace! To others it may seem irritating that they’ve lost us once again. Yet direct connection with others is a luxury that we need not always prioritize. Despondency takes perfect refuge in a childlike disillusionment with our place in the world.

Withdrawal allows us to retreat from interpersonal realities while maintaining our sensitivity to them.

Holding on to the deep layers of cushioning that separate her from a hurtful world, Manatee embodies Withdrawal at its purest level. So easily discouraged, she nevertheless ends up combing the depths of human experience - from a colossally safe distance. She might as well be orbiting her own cold star in a galaxy far far away.

It takes careful self inquiry to pause this underlying defense long enough to feel the Mood.

Deconstructing Withdrawal

Self Inquiry into Sensations

1. Notice the sensations that occur next time you find yourself Withdrawing from a social situation.

2. Name the pleasurable experiences occurring as a result of your habit of Withdrawing. (gaining a sense of space perhaps, or the actual movement of transporting yourself from one room to another)

3. Name the un-pleasurable experiences from which Withdrawing offers you release. (feeling enclosed perhaps, or being confused by too much stimuli)

4. Choose one pleasurable and one un-pleasurable experience from those you’ve named above and try isolating both to a location in your body. (ie. I feel the freedom to move as warmth in my calves, I feel confusion as nausea in my belly)

5. Imagine navigating the physical distance between those two locations in your body with your attention. Do this slowly - as though gradually making your way along the tissues of your muscles or traveling through your blood stream. Try to imagine it as an actual physical journey. Go back and forth three times.

6. Now that you’ve established an internalized route between these two sensations in your body, claim this as your own coping technique. You can now voluntarily traverse your internal positive and negative reactions to outside stressors.

7. The goal in practicing this coping technique is not to avoid your next urge to withdraw but to manage the sensations that arise in your body.

8. Try this statement out next time in a socially stressful circumstance. “I know I’m feeling Shy because I’m feeling ________ in my body. Instead of withdrawing I can let this feeling come and go while I practice calming my body.”

Passion Becomes Practice

Riding the Arc Ascendant

Buffeted by Bluster

Hard edges are required to create the pivots on which a world can spin. No grace in this. Pulverized gravel and splintered stone meet the constricted tendons, aching flesh, gasps and moans of free will. Here you find Wildebeest forcing open the formless realms and trammeling his path ahead.

If you are seen by Wildebeest at all, you are likely being seen through. His vision is rooted in a prospective view. If you like what he sees, climb aboard! There is no more direct route to secure your destiny.

If you have no plan in place, however, beware. Wildebeest does not suffer fools lightly. He would sooner impale or hurl aside obstructions than stop to investigate intentions.

Resonator

Resonator Moods, like Determined, travel well with others. They naturally move us along, blending inconspicuously into a variety of other moods.

Resonator Moods are prone to encounter other Resonators as either allies or adversaries. They learn from all encounters but experience their most important growth from their True Companion:

Daring Cheetah

Wildebeest’s Place in the Savannah of Werth

Wildebeest occupies the midpoint on the arc toward true Dignity. The force of will is unleashed with abandon, nullifying all fears and self doubt. Eager for the challenge of putting passions into direct practice, Wildebeest need only be set in the right direction to achieve magnificent results.

Each Resonator is a lead player within a complex set of moods that join to form a Persona. It’s important to consider the dynamics at play when under the spell of a Persona.

The Persona controlled by the Determined Wildebeest is that of :

The Fixer

Manatee Wildebeest Dolphin

If your Determined energy approaches all interactions with others as a problem to be fixed, you are lost in shadow.

• Learn to question your impulses toward instant engagement.

• Listen more closely to the messages retrieved during times of despondency.

• Lend them your powerful force and make their needs known.

Navigating the River of Will with Cheetah

Central to the True Self quest of acquiring Dignity is managing the right use of power.

This is symbolized in the Menagerie by the River of Will that joins the Determined Wildebeest and the Daring Cheetah in the north west territory of the Savannah of Werth. The six animal moods that belong in the Savannah have their own stories to tell regarding how you can embody Dignity and Power in your life. But it is the specific collaboration of Wildebeest and Cheetah that puts full focus on the nature of the challenge.

Self Inquiry into Your River of Will

1. Vitality itself is the focus of this activity. This is not an exercise of encouragement or expansion of vitality, but of simply locating it in your body. It involves breath and perception.

2. Putting aside the goals you have or haven’t met at this time, pledge 5 minutes now to feel into your own River of Will.

3. With eyes closed, place your attention on the air going in and out of your nose or mouth. There is no change needed in the flow now taking place. No matter how shallow or labored, notice only how there is no stopping the breath. It takes place of its own accord, with or without your approval. Imagine the form of the Wildebeest activated within the exhalation and inhalation of your next 5 breaths.

4. At the end of your 5th inhalation, expel your breath suddenly while opening your eyes. The opening of your inner apertures to the outer world is an act of profound daring. It is always courageous. Once again, there is no need to find an optimal practice for this opening. Squinting is as valuable here as a wide eyed gaze. Let the opening occur for the length of your full exhalation. Imagine the form of the Cheetah activating within each sudden opening as you exhale. Then close your eyes and return to your breath.

5. You can select any sensory pathway for this exercise. At the end of the next 5th inhalation, try opening your sense of smell, touch, hearing, or taste. Or you may try opening your heart, gut, or mind if you wish. Repeat this set of 5 inhalations followed by a sudden exhalation/opening at least three times.

6. It is this meeting place at the very end of your 5th inhalation where you encounter the companionship between Wildebeest and Cheetah. Learn the texture and landscape of this place. At the still moment between breaths, the willingness to leap forward into the unexpected.

Intelligence Befriended

Great Forces Aligned

New Worlds To Explore

Flukes, fins, and flippers seem to move of their own accord by the design of some master architect. Dolphin glides the wake of her friends and crests into the atmosphere, sunlight glancing. The call and response echolocating between her pod offers an excited thrall to Dolphin’s waters. What an effortless glide it is when one can see how the whole nurtures the details of its constituent parts.

Occasionally the far seeing eye of the pod doesn’t have the strength required to keep each member safe. Dolphin doesn’t care. Better to die dancing with a crew than to seek safety alone. Carelessness prevails in a ceaseless readiness for play.

Insulator

Insulator Moods, like Engaged, provide comfort and style on the outside while offering inner linings for concealing less appealing moods.

The Shadow arises as an internal opposite of the Insulating Mood. A Shadow will stay hidden for a time but eventually makes its presence known.

The Shadow

of the Passionate Bat is the Indignant Condor

Integrating shadow

Every True Self Quest requires Shadow Work to synthesize splits between opposing parts of the self. This requires the help of specific Resonator moods best suited to act as mediators.

Dive deeper into the stories of Cheetah and Porcupine to consider how they may serve a synthesizing role in taming your Bat and bringing your inner Condor out of the shadows.

Hatred Happens

Head First Into Catastrophe

Perched on nothing but air, Condor has become infinite and angelic. Rage has lifted her to this stratosphere of emptiness, scouring clouds from a blood red sky. Another draft of parched wind fills her wings and spirits her even higher, offering clarity for several lines of attack. Casting down upon her chosen prey will not be a choice but a necessity. Does a lightning bolt experience choice? These are the prime moments of combustibility when her own weaknesses appear a thousand miles away.

In this pause before the strike, her wingspan expands and transcends the limits of her puny mortal frame. She is, in this moment, a Divine Majesty, ruling over a repugnant realm that is both undeserving and cruel. What lies below awaits an atonement through violence that shall be just, severe, and consummate.

Escalator

Escalator Moods, like Indignant, operate as embedded weapons built to guarantee emotional survival. If left unconscious, they act through us as Defense Mechanisms. If acknowledged directly, they can give healthy access to the expression of our most destructive states.

Escalator Moods can also be acted out in the world as Shadow. As Shadow, they work to sabotage the normal functioning of an otherwise pleasant mood. Each Escalator Mood has a particular symbiotic relation with one other Insulator Mood.

The Indignant Condor functions as

The Shadow

to the Passionate Bat

The Indignant Condor offers the unique Defense Mechanism of

Projective Identification

is the Defense Mechanism used by Condor to keep itself hidden beneath Fawn’s Benign outer presentation. This leads to a sense of Entitlement over others: when one’s negative qualities are projected onto those who feel less hopeful than you. Releasing the Fawn/Condor Combo from the many layers of entitlement at play requires a willingness to overcome projection and engage in honest self inquiry.

Deconstructing Projective Identification

Self Inquiry into Sensations

magine the part of you that is Furiously Indignant (Condor) is having a conversation with the part of you that feels Terribly Deprived (Stoat). What are they saying to each other?

1. What conflicts are these parts of you experiencing between themselves?

2. What are the conflicts between them and their world?

3. What changes should they make to resolve their conflicts?

4. What changes should you make to resolve these conflicts?

5. Explore which aspirational True Self Territory applies to this relational pattern. What do you most want out of this inner conflict?