Moon: Moon after Yule, Quiet moon

Tree: Yew

Enneagram Archetype: 459 - the mystic, awe and wonder, the contemplative

Virtues: equanimity, non-attachment, right action

Essential qualities: depth, insight, harmony

Holy ideas: holy origin, holy transparency, holy love

“There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods-violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret." – John Galsworthy

Standing and breathing more slowly and deeply, under the canopy of the hour glass yew, which stands at the entrance of the Lodge Inclosure (sic) at Alice Holt Forest, is the most powerful way I know to slip out of linear time and into knowing other kinds of time. As I’m writing this, I am somehow nudged towards an understanding that writing about time might be a good way to start talking about the 459 archetypal space, and to start talking about Yew.

Oldness. What happens when a deeply felt recognition of oldness comes into sight? A certainty of sensing that something or someone knows things I don’t, you don’t, we don’t, because they have been around for a longer time, and have witnessed comings and goings, withstood upheaval and change, and are still here, living and breathing. Is there an archetypal space that knows about this? I believe that the Yew points towards this. And a human character that intuitively understands this, is, I believe, the one identifying at 459.

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Zephne, who does her inner work at 459 on the enneagram of personality, and our conversation happened on 27th December, deep in the liminal space between Winter solstice and New Year. Ive decided to publish this piece today, 29th, just before the new moon tomorrow night, since this powerful space of reflection and wonder may be with you too, and I believe this archetypal territory is a wonderful companion for us in any time of transition and deep inwardness. Zephane shared that this time of being less tethered to worldly linear time is deeply enjoyable, sacred and necessary for her, offering her necessary space as a human who thrives and restores herself in the creative and restorative possibilities of solitude.

Mythic time is different from linear time. Once upon a time is different from ‘on Wednesday 14th March’. Time can be held onto and at other times, it falls away into presence, or mystery, or even into nothing. Or everything. An old human story untethered from linear time weaves themes and lays them out as a spacious body for us to see and know ourselves in. When I have met with a 459 my experience is that their inwardness has enabled them to hold mythic pieces close. They may not be expressing all of this outwardly. They may hold their narratives privately and discern carefully what is for sharing. Indeed, my sense is that the 459 is considerably less about expressing, as about being impressed deeply by experience.

One writer who shares the 459 sensibility with the world is John O’Donahue. Here he is, writing about reverence:

“When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace”

Coming into presence means opening to what is unfolding within and without. There is something spacious in that allowing yourself to be approached by life that reminds me of the experience of standing beneath the canopy of the hourglass yew.

At a Soul Shed walk a while ago, lover of trees and poetry Ben, shared the poem ‘The Yew tree on the downs poem’ by D.H.Lawrence beneath the tree as our closing poem. The contact between audience, poet, tree and performance carried something palpable of the deep sacred privacy and sanctuary for inward experiencing afforded by the dark canopy of the Yew:

‘Here not even the stars can spy us,
Not even the moths can alight
On our mystery; nought can descry us
Nor put us to flight.’

*Under the canopy of the Waverley Yew at Waverley Abbey*

I began with Jon Galsworthy’s powerful words about the moments when nature reveals her usually hidden passion, and in so doing, she also reveals the the outer reaches of our capacity to connect with our imagination and humanness and know depth of experiencing. As a triple withdrawing type the life mission of the human wired as a 459, according to Katherine Fauve who I will paraphrase, is to delve deeply into the mysteries of life and share the insights that are to be found there . A true contemplative, a human living in 459 space will be happiest when they can write about their discoveries and discuss them with a select few. Making sense of their world is an ongoing quest.

I asked Zephane if the inward questing can be seductive for a 459. My sense is that for those with this archetype as a life companion, the challenge might be less about looking within, and more about coming back to the surface, making relationship for others hard if they cannot accept this need to become untethered to outer life at times. She replied that one way she had made piece with this thread running through her life, was to understand that while her tap root goes deep into the earth, and the need for inner re-soursing means she can remain solitary for long periods of time, her life is also nourished by her other roots, which includes her relationships to people, places and activities, and to her purpose in the world.

Another inspiring human living at 459 I had the pleasure to meet in my research for this piece, has chosen a life at the edge of the mexican jungle. Amaranth spoke powerfully of the pull of this liminal place on her soul. She recalled how she first encountered the healing medicine from becoming interconnected within a place that many saw as dangerous as a child, and hiding in the jungle to skip an unhappy time at school, but ultimately returning to school on her own terms feeling stronger and more coherent as a result of her secret jungle time. She then returned to junglecape on her honeymoon, and made it her home with the man who is now her husband. I hope to draw more on the powerful teachings about the jungle I received from Amaranth when I’m writing about archetype 479, which resonated very strongly through her teaching. There is however another part of what she spoke of that feels very important to include here.

*Enneagram 459 triangle - enneagram candleabra from Richard Marmer*

369, which I wrote about last lunar month, describes a kind of external heroes journey. The triangle that it describes it has equal sides. The 459 journey is an isoceles triangle, with much steeper sides. I believe this is a key to understanding both the inner intensity of the 459 space, and its particular challenge. Amaranth described the crossing between the 4 and the 5 spaces at the bottom of the triangle, as an initiation involving an abyss, with the human being unsure whether or not they would survive. She explained that although the circumstances for any human making that journey would be unique to their situation, the journey would contain the same digree of peril and threat to the human personality - that they would never be the same again.

Maybe now is the moment to share the insides of The Ankerwycke Yew in Runnymede. This is a tree that you can climb within, and its root structures have become a part of its inward constitution.

It is thought that this tree in Runnymede, Surrey, England, is at least 1400 years old and could be as old as 2500 years. Like many yews it is part of the temenos that creates a sacred site, so that churches are often built among old yews. This one is on the site of the ruins of At Mary’s priory, a Benedictine priory built in the 12th century.

I took these pictures tucked inside this tree looking outward, and time opened out into imagining all those that had stepped inside this tree before me, maybe in prayerful reverence, or in a game of hide and seek, to steal a moment with a lover, or by chance stumbling as I did, on a solitary experience of being so upclose with life force that being in there felt like an intimate union with the earth. With Great mother.

Join me next lunar month, for another tree-type: Pine at 147.
If you would like to explore your own enneagram map, and/or your own deep-mapping journey in nature, please message me (Samantha Taroni) at
thesoulshed@yahoo.com

references:

John Galsworthy - The Forsyte saga

John O’Donohue - Beauty: The invisible embrace

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'Standing dark guardian of some fiery secret'. Tree-type series. Enneagram 459

Seven Kinds of Tree Medicine