Posted September 10, 2013

Archetypes themselves expand. Plato was mistaken to call them eternal objects. They evolve as the potential for expressing them evolves. As in the cross section of a tree, revealing its growth rings, here's a picture, in mandala form, greatly simplified:
Evolution is expressed in more and more complex nuances. Archetypes present themselves as potentialites in the emergence of new species. The inner patterns were simpler, and what they inspired was corresponding patterns that fostered the organisms they infused.

The outer rim shows the co-evolving complexes that emerge with more subtle possibilities of manifestation.

(There is a category of what might yet emerge---it is only imagined so far, and much that is imagined comes to naught. Some coalesces into new potentialities.)