William Calhoun

From Warrior to Sage: a Guide for Moving Beyond the Ego William Calhoun

We each have to learn the lessons of the elders, and usually we do so the hard way; by having to go through the same phases of life that others who came before and tried to warn us about life. As a young, assistant professor I assumed I knew it all. I was going to work hard, do a lot of research, publish well, and meet my responsibilities as a teacher. Some where along this path I realized I was incomplete. I needed something more that the scientific method to guide my life. By now I was a father and deeply involved in my career. I did accept the Headship as I knew I could do it, and I knew it had to be done. Yet, the job is very hard, and is filled with lots of inter-personal conflicts with staff and faculty. I was glad to shed that role while I was young enough to have time to do some deep explorations of my life. I believe my first step in this direction began with a newly formed Unitarian Church in West Knoxville and with our minister, Dillman Sorrells. I next credit Carol Pearson for opening up an entire new area to me. I got her first book, contacted her, and joined her seminar titled Journey Guides. I was introduced to Carl Jung anew and in a form I had not encountered in my earlier studies. Pearson?s use of archetypes was fascinating to me and I began to see how they worked in my life. By now I had begun to move out of the ego stage into the inter-mediate stage of the soul that later leads us to be archetype of the sage. I believe that my teaching improved in the latter years of my career, and I feel that I learned a great deal from my students. One of the first lessons I learned was to allow my intuition to work for me. My personality tends toward the sensing and thinking type, rather than the intuitive and feeling type. But, I learned how to work against my type. About this time I first learned of the Meyers-Briggs Type Test at a leadership school run for Unitarians. Things seemed to be coming together for me. Then I chanced upon the work by Ca