{"id":1141,"date":"2025-10-14T05:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2026-02-01T06:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T06:27:07","slug":"1141","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/?p=1141","title":{"rendered":"Archetypal Death and the National Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Peter M. Rojcewicz, PhD\u00a0<\/a> <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Bainbridge Island, WA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leadership Consultant; Education Management Advisor; Arts Education Specialist; Applied Humanities Mentor; Noetic Learning Theorist; Folklore Belief Materials Scholar; Award-winning Poet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 13, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reside in a fractured world, notably described by W.B. Yeats, \u201cThings fall apart, the center does not hold.\u201d Fragmentation is a spiritual \u2018illness\u2019 of limited growth that cripples personal and community trust. It makes us vulnerable to the weaponization of disconnection. On the other hand, integrating the shards of a fragmented self and that self with others equally fragmented – including the earth and its other than human life – is the equivalent of \u2018health\u2019. In the current state of national affairs, social commentators have noted a “death of soul.” Holderin anticipated the current paradoxical condition, “Where the danger is, there the saving power grows.” Yeats knew, \u201cNothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.\u201d The ultimate form of \u2018rent\u2019 is the tearing apart of life that is a \u2018death\u2019, understood here in its depth psychological sense as a \u2018dying\u2019 to and a letting-go of rigid one-sidedness and partial development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say the nation\u2019s soul is under grave attack. Stanley Kunitz understood, \u201cIn a murderous time\/the heart breaks\/and lives by breaking.\/ It is necessary to go\/through dark and deeper dark\/and not to turn.\u201d We are challenged not to turn away but to integrate \u2018death\u2019 in the personal and collective psyche. Richard Moss noted, \u201cwholeness is both growth and demise in a balance from which the new human\/humankind emerges.\u201d Accepting \u2018death\u2019 in all fashions as the ostensible transformation of things, we overcome the terror in the heart of a separate, autonomous self. We learn we are not simply a part <\/em>of a whole, but that we are <\/em>interconnected wholeness of ongoing beginnings and ends, and that a failure to develop our human completeness means we are vulnerable throughout life to endless splitting, impairment, disease, and acute suffering of identity disintegration. Where there is no acceptance of ‘death’, there are no breakthroughs, only breakdowns. John Keats endlessly pursued ‘soulmaking’ despite the abundant travails of life, “Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a Soul?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we effectively do retain soul under the heavy shadow of pain and troubles of the times? Theodore Roethke clears a path, \u201cIn a dark time, the eye begins to see.\u201d What might the eye see amidst the pain of darkness? Healing-centered poets, social tricksters, intellectual outlaws, community-based artists, and indigenous transformative shamans offer us multiple forms of non-violent resistance to attacks against human dignity and freedom. In Portland, Oregon, recently identified by federal officials as a \u2018war zone\u2019 in need of police \u2018forcing\u2019, armed military were met downtown by citizens donned in colorful costumes as unicorns, gently dancing in the streets. Was that a form of lunacy, or, as in the eyes of Emily Dickinson, \u201cdivinest sense to a discerning eye.\u201d Artists and cultural creatives know, after Dickinson, \u201cDemur you\u2019re straightway dangerous and handled with a chain.\u201d And after Roethke, \u201cWhat\u2019s madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.\u201d If the vital vision and expression of fearless pro-democracy citizens is viewed by questionable authority as \u2018dangerous\u2019 to its self-interest based agendas, let us together, even as we stumble and fall, resolutely follow Roethke, \u201cI climb out of my fear. \/The mind enters itself, and God the mind,\/And one is One in the tearing wind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REFERENCES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friedrich Holderin, “Patmos”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

W.B. Yeats, “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanley Kunitz, “The Testing Tree”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Moss, “The Individual and Collective Levels of Consciousness and Their Relationship to Health-Disease”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Keats, “Letter to George and Georgina Keats”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theodore Roethke, “In A Dark Time”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Dickinson, “Much Madness Is Divinest Sense”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter M. Rojcewicz, PhD\u00a0 Bainbridge Island, WA Leadership Consultant; Education Management Advisor; Arts Education Specialist; Applied Humanities Mentor; Noetic Learning Theorist; Folklore Belief Materials Scholar; Award-winning Poet October 13, 2025 We reside in a fractured world, notably described by W.B. Yeats, \u201cThings fall apart, the center does not hold.\u201d Fragmentation is a spiritual \u2018illness\u2019 of … Continue reading Archetypal Death and the National Soul<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1273,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterrphd.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}