structure of the self | Into the Mythica

You are not merely a psychology. You are a cosmology in miniature. The structure of the self is the Mythica's understanding of what a human being is made of at the most fundamental level — an understanding that reaches beneath the psychological and sociological definitions of selfhood to the elemental and vibrational substrate from which all experience of being a self actually arises. In the cosmology of the Mythica, as extensions of Spirit through form on the Tree of Life, we are literally made of the substance of Gaia, of the land upon which we exist. From the same substance as rocks, plants, trees, and ocean, we are made of the prime elements — Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Ether — in specific combinations and proportions that create the unique configuration of elemental qualities that is each individual's particular character in the Great Story.

This means that the personality, beliefs, emotional patterns, gifts, and challenges that constitute any given self are not merely psychological phenomena but elemental ones: specific configurations of the five prime elements expressing through the vehicle of a particular body, a particular nervous system, and a particular set of karmic impressions accumulated across the soul's transcarnate journey. This is the deep insight behind all the world's astrological, constitutional, and elemental systems of divination into the nature of the self — when one refers to their astrological sign, their Ayurvedic dosha, or their elemental type in any of the many traditional frameworks, one is always referencing the elemental qualities that form the substance of one's current character. These are not merely labels but pointers to the actual vibrational configuration of the inner field. The map of the self and the map of the elements are the same map.

Understanding the structure of the self in these elemental terms has profound practical implications for the practice of the heroic journey. It means that the work of transformation is not the replacement of one set of thoughts and behaviors with another but the genuine shifting of the elemental configuration of the self — the clearing of the distorted or imbalanced expressions of the elements through the chakras and the subtle body, and the cultivation of their pure, coherent expressions. Just as the fundamental tones of music combine into chords which combine into melody across the canvas of time, the elemental qualities of the self combine into the specific character of one's story — the unique symphony of consciousness that is each being's particular contribution to the Great Story's larger harmony. You are an elemental composition. The heroic journey is the ongoing refinement of the song you are here to sing.