Not only do we see in this passage the Child as psychopomp or spirit guide
but in the last stages of Ovid’s transformation the Child displays his mysterious and
transcendental nature and seems to be able to be, simultaneously, in more than one
place:
His whole body strains towards some distance that I cannot grasp
... He is full of it ... he seems more and more to belong to a world
that lies utterly beyond me and my human imagining ... It is as if
he moved simultaneously in two separate worlds. I watch him
kneel at one of his humble tasks, feeding me, or cleaning up my
old man’s mess. And at the same time when I look up, he is
standing feet away ... a slight incandescent figure ... already
moving away from me in his mind, already straining forward to
whatever life it is that lies out there beyond our moment together
(Malouf, 1978:149).
(d) Echoes of Shamanism
Malouf’s sympathetic presentation of shamanism perhaps insinuates that he
has a strong belief in the psycho-spiritual dimension of human life, at least, that the
conscious mind is likely to be menaced by an almighty unconscious. As Ovid says:
We have some power in us that knows its own ends. I t is that
that drives us on to what we must finally become. We have only
to conceive of the possibility and somehow the spirit works in us
to make it actual. This is the true meaning of transformation.
This is the real metamorphosis. Our further selves are contained
within us, as the leaves and blossoms are in the tree. We have
only to find the spring and release it (Malouf, 1978:64).
The story is, in fact, a shamanistic allegory in that it is the representation of
the physical exile of the poet Ovid but is actually the description of a mystical,
psychological experience. I t uses images of place to create a mythic geography but
which really describes a temenos. I t is a fable of the possibilities of the human
spirit in transforming the material world and thereby initiating the process of
individuation, either in life – or at death. I t is an inward journey of self-discovery, a
journey from the affected veneer of civilization and self-deception to the more
primitive, essential but real elements of the soul. An I maginary Life is also about
being a foreigner in a strange land and in its indubitable relevance to the European
settlers of Australia one might consider Jung‘s comments that for foreign invaders
who have colonized countries, such as Australia:
... there is a discrepancy between conscious and unconscious that
is not found in the European, a tension between an extremely high