All you need to do to understand the problem with most men today, is read the chapter “the darkened father” in Robert Bly’s amazing book Iron John. It explains to us how we view our fathers in a manufactured way, he is dark, paltry, dishonest, weak something to be ridiculed. From a purely cultural point of view this all began and continued after the industrial revolution, where the father and son relationship was broken. The fathers were forced at the time and now voluntarily, to “go away” to work in factories many miles away from the home or community. This left the boys alone with their mothers wondering what their fathers did all day. Then the fathers would come home, dirty, tired and mostly irritable. Not at the sons or daughters or their wife necessarily, but at themselves for continuing to live and work in the world without considering their inner King. For accepting a situation that brought them no honor, glory or fulfillment. Just daily bread, which a man cannot live alone by.
Where is the nourishment for the soul of a man that comes through directly being part of the world around them by having an effect on it. By working in the factories everyman knew that they had accepted the death of their own King and that their kingdom could never be built. So this naturally brought about a disposition in the man of inner failure, that was and is impossible to hide from the inherent intuition of children.
Without fully understanding what was wrong the child felt this inner desolation, turmoil and failure in the father and they began to imagine what was wrong. The internal, intrinsic and genetic King blueprint within all of us naturally revolted against this attitude of our fathers. What is wrong with him, what could he be up too that would bring about this mood in him everyday? What is he part of that makes him feel so wrong? And the negative viewpoint of the dark father was born in the minds of youth. Robert Bly adds to this with his comment that “Darth Vader” represented this, which has a meaning similar to dark father in German. George Lucas either consciously or unconsciously channeled this in Star Wars. Maybe this is one of the reasons for the amazing success of those movies. Having the main antagonist so outwardly represent what had been building up in the minds of sons and men for the last hundred years, had suddenly found a voice and symbol through that character. Hundreds of stories over the centuries have been told about the sons overthrowing the father and taking or stealing his power. This all is supposed to represent the psychic undercurrent that flows through all father/son dynamics. Zeus and the titan Chronos, Oedipus and other stories all represent this internal conflict. In Starwars it happens a little different, instead of killing his father, Luke Skywalker (by far one of the greatest character names in history) redeems Vader by sacrificing himself to the dark emperor. Darth Vader sees this and somehow overcomes the conflict between himself and his son, by coming to terms with his inner self. He attacks the emperor (negative mentor) and destroys that which has been poisoning the sacred spring within himself all these years and made him turn against and destroy both his inner world (positive Jedi, healthy father) and the outer world (galaxy and it’s inhabitants, Obi Wan”positive mentor”). Then Luke and Vader have a true death bed father son moment, where Luke being naive wants him to live and continue their relationship, he still wants to save him. Vader lets him know that he knows he is going to die and it’s alright because Luke “already did” save him. It’s one of the most intense and true scenes I have ever witnessed in any movie I have ever watched. It’s what every father and every son wishes deep down. To save each other. The father wants his child to have a better life than he does and be better than him and will sacrifice himself upon the alter of work, responsibility and providing. The father being human finds this type of existence unfulfilling and goes about his life frustrated and without vitality. The son seeing this rebels against what appears to be his fathers apparent “I gave up” attitude and tries to be something his father wasn’t or the opposite. Which again is where the wall goes up between the two and the conflict ensues in a metaphorical battle to the death between the subconscious egos and identities. They don’t want to actually kill each other, they want to kill the identity the other represents. Mythologically the old stories where just explaining this, using storytelling as a descriptive tool. What is so beautiful about the Starwars ending is instead of killing each other they actually resurrect each other, which balances out the relationship. Luke first dies (almost) then in a perfect example of the fathers responsibility, Vader who is now Anikan again, resurrects Luke through sacrificing himself. Vader is Anikan because somehow Luke broke through to that source inside the dark mask, when he choose to sacrifice himself for his father. Everyman feels how powerful this is for a couple of reasons. First because it almost never happens, it’s like a unicorn, beyond comprehension because it basically doesn’t exist. Second, because we all wish for this deep down inside.
The greatness that exists in all of us rebels against our own defeated father Kings and decided that these men had failed, were not to be trusted and absolutely should not be emulated. This again came about from the very own men who felt it inside of themselves and without wanting too transferred the feeling to sons and daughters. Who rebelled against this transference by developing these dark images against their fathers to fight against and build defenses to not allow it to happen to themselves. Which started the isolation of fathers from their children. This has only grown and developed into absolute absence, where there is not even a father anymore. As Robert Bly puts it one way, the room is empty even when they are present.
Resurrect your king and you may save the father.
You can’t grow if you don’t know.
Matthew
DynamicEarthling.com 