The Divine Child Archetype As A Source Of Renewal

---

---

“She remains on the edges of time, implacable, unhurt, beyond, and one day you will open your eyes and see her.”

(From “Strange Little Girls” by Neil Gaiman)

Encountering the Divine Child

I’ve recently had the sense of synchronicity at work in my life after repeated encounters with images of the Divine Child, including finding the Infant of Prague in a thrift store and receiving the card of Sri Bala (“God the daughter”), a manifestation of the divine as a female child, in readings from the Kali Oracle created by Alana Fairchild. Similarly, the Eternal Child has come up in readings from archetype oracles by Kim Krans and Caroline Myss.  Each of these encounters has led me to ask what gifts the archetypal image of the Divine Child can impart.

The Divine Child as a Devotional Image or Frequency

---

---

A thread that seems to unite different versions of the Divine Child is the notion that the Child embodies a simultaneously ancient (or ageless) and youthful (constantly renewing of vital force) aspect of the universe that remains unsullied by the phenomenal, “polluted” world, and which is available to us at all times, despite appearances to the contrary.

A similar idea can be found in the concept of “myo”, as articulated by 13th century Buddhist saint, Nichiren, the founder of an eponymous Japanese school of Buddhism. He, in his writings, explained that pervading all phenomena is a constant reality known as “myo”. Nichiren further elucidated that “myo” (as recited in the phrase Nam Myoho Renge Kyo) means “to open”, “to revive”, and “to be fully endowed”.

Meditating on the Divine Child as an archetype or eternal principle, or reciting the sound “myo”, while contemplating the inviolable, complete, and endlessly restorative aspects of universal consciousness can liberate those functions within the Self.

The Divine Child as a Source of Hope

The late archetypal psychologist James Hillman employed a poignant metaphor in his bestselling book The Soul’s Code: the acorn always exists within the oak tree as a container of its potential.   So, perhaps, does an eternal, potent, and wise Child exist within the universe and within each of us — a being or frequency that can restore life force that feels utterly exhausted, and which can offer the return of a sense of hope and a belief that renewal *is* possible, even during these fraught times.

---

---