"Welcome to 'Camp Chakra' – my session on Archetypes:

Strange as though it may seem, several years ago when I started to learn how to sing, I found that I was dredging up a lot of feeling which had lain dormant and forgotten for quite a while. It was as if my voice was creating a hot-line to the soul. I would be singing away, perhaps an Italian song or a duet from a Sondheim musical, and suddenly out of nowhere I would experience a (usually unhappy) flashback to my childhood and the tears would immediately well up – not a good thing for singing as it demands a calm, supple diaphragm. The well-worn phrase ‘to strike a chord’ really began to mean something.

A chance encounter with an old friend, Jacqui Taylor, paved the way for an introductory session on Archetypes. I had felt for a long while that I had been carrying a lot of dead weight – mostly sad thoughts and feelings of lack of success – which I couldn’t shed and which my previous work on my inner parent/child hadn’t been able to deal with. Jacqui began by talking me gently into a relaxed frame of mind, explaining that we’re not alone even in the most extreme circumstances, and that we’ve eight people inside who are always there to call on, for any situation: a male and female of each of four archetypes – the warrior, the lover, the magician and the sovereign.

With my eyes closed, the first task was to locate them and bring them together in a safe haven. Fortunately, all my eight were still alive and in my body and had not either died or ‘done a runner’ which apparently can sometimes be the case. Each had to be brought out of hiding into a safe place in the body, in my case the area around the solar plexus which I nicknamed “Camp Chakra”. I envisioned this arena as the beautiful chapter house of Lincoln Cathedral – all warm mellow stone and intricately carved vaulting – with a warm wood-burning stove in the middle and fine hand woven carpets on the floor. Interestingly, most of the males (the male magician, the male sovereign and the male warrior), had become imprisoned years ago behind impenetrable barriers in the form of physical wounds (a wounded knee, a broken arm, a jaw injury) which had been caused by the rather overpowering female archetypal members. They were of different ages: the magician an aged Gandalf, the lover an adolescent and the tormented king a young man. The male warrior hadn’t grown up at all – there he was, aged 5 sitting alone in the corner of my big left toe, wearing adult-sized chain mail with a huge sword at his side which he couldn’t even lift! The magicians magic-ed the female warrior back into a child and both warriors are now playing happily in the bouncy castle in my base chakra! The two lovers had grown miles apart, one at each end of my arms, the male a handsome but inexperienced adolescent and the female a beautiful, shapely Tinkerbell. The magicians brought them together and led them to a sanctuary to get to know each other – the Chapel at Othona in Dorset by the sea – located in my heart chakra. The sovereigns were reunited at Camp Chakra and taken to the third eye chakra, ‘the luxuriously-appointed captain’s cabin on a Spanish galleon’, from where they can survey the world and hold the tiller.

When each archetype-pair were taken to their chakra sanctuary, Jacqui asked whether they had a message for me, which she wrote down. At the end of the session, she drew the threads together in the form of a pictograph: a physical description of each of the eight archetype members, where they were found, how old they were, their message for me and where they are now located in my body, which I could keep. She suggested I keep in touch with each archetype pair every evening before I went to sleep, and to write down in my journal any thoughts or feelings which arise at any time of day.

I am happy that each archetype can help me with every aspect of my life. I can conjure up a different archetype for the different moods of the music I sing – the warrior for the evil villain in a Verdi opera, the magicians to mesmerize the audience with Schubert’s song cycle Der Winterreise, the lovers for a reflective moment in an Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical – and the sovereigns will always keen an eye on the pianist or conductor to make sure we’re together! I don’t feel alone any more, I’ve a strong team on my side, inside!"

Nicholas Epton – Freelance solo & Choral Singer

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