Iron John

When a person chooses the one thing most precious, it is a serious act. Choosing ends well, but not for the rejected divinities.

If we choose “the one precious thing”—the object of our desire—then, according to the alchemists, the inner King in us that has been asleep for so many years wakes up.

As long as nothing is clear, as long as we have not chosen whether to be conductor or human, the King—and the Queen—sleeps on.

We must repeat that it isn’t the personal mother who imprisons the son—she wants him to be free. It is the possessive or primitive side of the Great Mother that keeps him locked up.

Contemporary business life allows competitive relationships only, in which the major emotions are anxiety, tension, loneliness, rivalry, and fear.

human self-esteem is a delicate matter, and not to be dismissed as infantile grandiosity.

where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be. Wherever the wound appears in our psyches, whether from alcoholic father, shaming mother, shaming father, abusing mother, whether it stems from isolation, disability, or disease, that is precisely the place for which we will give our major gift to the community.

that accepting an initiatory task is more important than succeeding or failing at it.

Exuberance in a child is bad, and at the first sign of it, parents should be severe. Exuberance implies that the wild boy or girl is no longer locked up.