covered spiritual topics on many shows but I think addiction needs to be addressed more on the show from the hunger to know one’s inner life.
In depth psychology, we talk about something called archetypes – a symbol that serves as a model for something that people can relate to within an entire culture or collective consciousness. For example, the archetype of the queen is one that people the world over understand. So when we talk about it for the individual, we ask, where does the queen live inside you? When does she show up? There is another archetype that is relatively new to western culture and it is called the archetype of The Wounded Healer. Just as many archetypes come from mythology, the wounded healer is represented in Greek mythology by a centaur whose name is Chiron. Centaurs in Greek mythology had the lower torso and legs of a horse and the upper torso was human. As I tell the story of Chiron, I will interweave Oprah’s story as well. Chiron was rejected by his mother at birth. Oprah experienced rejection in the form of neglect from her own mother who failed to protect her from being raped by family members and later impregnated at the age of fourteen when she was running the streets unsupervised by any parental authority.
Eventually, Chiron was adopted by the great god Apollo who schooled him in the arts, sciences, and mysteries. Oprah was sent to her biological father after she became pregnant and he put big demands on her to shape up and do well in school or he was going to send her back. Chiron incurred an incurable wound in his knee that sent him searching the world over for a cure. The knee is symbolic of ego will versus bending onto your knees to spirit. Although it never healed, he gathered herbs