Musing on Feminine and Masculine Archetypes

I've been reading up on Sacred Feminine archetypes, in view of offering classes and retreats with SoulCollage(R) card to inspire women to make their favorite goddess images and find empowering symbols of the feminine. That leads me to muse on what IS the feminine?

The book, Goddesses in Older Women by Jean Shinoda Bolen http://www.jeanshinodabolen.com/ got me thinking about goddess archetypes beyond the Demeter, Persephone, Artemis, Aphrodite and Hera, and Hecate that I knew about.  She brings in the Dark Goddesses, the transformative wrathful Voices and the angry fierce defenders of Justice, protectors of the weak and disadvantaged like Sekhmet from Egypt and Kali from India.

the Magician (collage)

Creative Warrior collage

Years ago I wrote a long poem sequence about Eve, and also discovered Lilith, Adam's first wife, the rebel who refused to lie under him, and flew off into the desert. Her rebel energy is a bit like Eris or Discord, a little known Greek goddess, who, like the 13th fairy in Sleeping Beauty, was not invited to the party and got peeved with everyone, sowing strife and discord and causing the Trojan War.

In my quest for understanding on the feminine/masculine archetypes, I'm reading books by Marion Woodman, and discovering the wounded masculine is an important archetype too. Leaving my Father's House and The Maiden King (with Robert Bly) mwoodmanfoundation are full of great psychology and stories, dreams and metaphors of both Feminine and Masculine to unpack. Mother complexes anyone? It's all very Jungian, and I'm working at understanding the concepts.

Why? because in myth and stories and fairy tales, we reach back to the ancient archetypes to find images that empower, that speak to the Strength and Courage that also belongs to the Feminine Realm. In our current society, it feels like we are over-masculinized and out of touch with our true balanced feminine-masculine nature. We live in a culture that values productivity, and not rest. That wants to churn out business students, and starve the teaching of the arts in school. The women I meet who are successful in business are a little scary they are so strong. (That probably speaks to my own insecurities more than anything, since I am a poet, a creative type and although  an "organizer", have never worked full time in a business setting since I went back to school in 1986).

So what is the feminine energy? what is the masculine? Reading Woodman, I realize that men have been damaged by the lack of empowerment of their feminine side as much as women have. When we make the feminine second class, lower than, inferior to, and insist on work work work at any price, contract basis mostly, and no security lying ahead in retirement....we are not allowing the Feminine to breathe, to receive rest, to live in a balanced environment where downtime, music, reading, art, play, and picnics are valued too.

Perhaps using yin and yang, or moon rhythms and sun rhythms will help me get out of the binary bind of feminine and masculine. I want to look at archetypes that are not divided down the middle between Love, Compassion and Kindness on one side, and Strength, Courage and Warrior on the other. We all need to be warriors to protect the Earth, and those we love, at some point.

Strength (Tarot) Collage

We all need Courage and Chutzpah balanced with Kindness and Compassion.

We are all human.

We are all born of a mother, and conceived with a father, therefore a mix of both.

I, personally, am going to take this summer to muse on the archetypes that are calling to me. Artemis is a strong one, lately. And Eris/Lilith the rebel. And what about the masculine?

I've had lots of dreams about little boys, lately, and have been making SoulCollage(R) cards for my inner masculine, so perhaps, as Woodman says, once the feminine container is solid and can contain the Creative Spark of spirit, we can begin to assess, repair, rebuild our wounded masculine.

Athena/Justice battling the Dark

Another great book about that very thing: The Wounded Woman,, Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship, by Linda Schierse Leonard. That's where I am now, today, thinking about my father, and his legacy, both negative and positive. And how I have rejected my softer feminine side to embrace my warrior intellectual side. At age 62, way past menopause, it is time to Descend to the Feminine Feeling Realm. It is time to embrace my positive, healed, whole masculine energy too.

Right?

Happy Summer Reading
Jennifer
xxxooo

Menopausal Poetry Series

Because I love poetry, and there are so few poems about menopause out there, I have dug deep into my computer files and pulled out a series from over ten years ago when I was in the throes of it.

Here's one:

Three little pills and a Pomegranate

Muse on the table

are you food or drink?

Three little pills on my yellow placemat:

One clever red clover

renders me immune to restlessness,

cures insomnia.

Vitamin B mitigates “the change”,

Calcium Citrate coats the nerves,

protects the children from swinging

moods, banged doors.

Biting into a shiny red orb allowed

Persephone to see her mother half the year.

My prying fingers reveal a messy beehive

of oblong kernels.

Mouth puckers as crystal blobs,

nutty & tart, stain my fingers rouge.

Will it make me mortal to eat these seeds?

Already I have become human

in my daughter’s eyes.

I told Katie that her cat died.

Rocking in darkness

comforted us both.

Finding my Tribe at Mid-Life

What an amazing time this is! I don’t know if you follow astrology but there’s been a lot of planetary movement and eclipses, lots of opposing energies, lots of upheaval in the climate, in countries, and in our relationships.

But June is also that time of year when we celebrate graduations, and congratulate our kids on their talents and skills at end of year concerts. A time of ripening energies as another cycle ends, and a new season of Summer Solstice begins. It’s soon the end of my Creative Circle classes, the end of the Menopause Circle, and the beginning of a summer school with Ho Rites of Passage, where I will finish up a year-long training in ritual facilitation.

I feel especially grateful because both my children have grads this year, and last weekend was my 30^th wedding anniversary. Two of my sisters came to celebrate with the 100 or so guests, as we boogied to a 70’s theme and amazing music.

What I want to really celebrate is this new found tribe of women surrounding me, in many circles of all kinds. Last Saturday, I found myself on the dance floor with my sisters and closest  girl friends, and many others of our ‘tribe’. I can still see an image etched on my brain of us ‘sistah’s’ dancing to Papa Was A Rolling Stone (remember that one?)…right up close, in front of the band. It felt blissful - feelings of closeness, of friendship, and more than that, of support, and ‘we’ve got your back’. As well as the pure joy of dancing to live soulful music, thanks to Sonja Ball’s fantastic band.

I had done something uncharacteristic a few days before and asked for help in the party planning. So many friends gave us a hand, shopped with me at Costco, moved lawn furniture, put up lanterns, pasted on Peace signs; my daughter flew in from NYC to add garlands of flowers and psychedelic lamp shades to the décor, and for once, I accepted all this help and didn’t try to do it all myself. We were shopping and decorating for 3 days for this epic 70's party.

Maybe that’s why Dr Northrup’s newsletter today struck such a chord in me today: 

“The feminine is about standing for the highest in others versus worrying about competition. It’s finding your tribe of sisters who will be there for you—and support you when you cry, when you fall, when you need someone to help with a meal. It’s understanding that interdependence is more powerful than independence—that it’s a sign of strength, not weakness, to ask for help.

It means that it’s time to take the phrase “I should be able to do this myself” and transform it to “I really appreciate your assistance. It makes it so much easier.” And it’s time to allow others the privilege of giving to you—and for you to learn how to graciously receive.”

As I have a tendency to be a solitary, independent soul, this is a new learning for me. Some of us have been trained to do it all ourselves, to never show a sign of weakness, so this is good medicine for us. Time to celebrate our interdependence with all of creation. At a recent Sweat Lodge in May, I got in touch with my need for Mother Earth/Terre Mère, for grounding and sustenance. All my relations, we said, as we clambered into the heat on all fours. Yes, all plants, all animals, all humans, are my relations. I depend on them for my existence.

So that’s my invitation to you (and myself) this June, and for the whole summer season. 

How can you let down your guard, be less self-contained, ask for help? How can you begin to open up to the feminine art of receiving from others, getting support, not trying to Soldier On no matter what, (which often leads to bitter resentments and hurt feelings when no-one reads our minds). 

How can you open up to, and accept, your belonging in the tribe?

Have a wonderful summer, this incredible time of abundance and celebrations.

Thank you for being part of my tribe!

Musemother/Jennifer

Note:

Friday June 13^th: Creative Woman’s Soul Retreat, yoga/journaling/SoulCollage®. Registration has been filled.

  

The Importance of Loving the Feminine

The Wild Feminine SoulCollage(R) Card

Today, I’ve been watching a movie about Marion Woodman, and musing on how to begin my Creative Circle classes next week. Feeling kind of tired after a busy holiday season, which began over a month ago in early December, I’ve been resting and napping, and wondering when my energy will return so I can get back to work. Even though I don't feel very creative right now, isn’t that part of feminine nurturance and the wisdom of the body? That it can’t always be about producing, or brain work, but that sometimes you have to nurture the body, rest, eat simple food, get out in nature and walk in the snowy forest. Then the creative cycle begins again.

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with Woodman many years ago in Montreal on the three faces of the Feminine - Maiden, Mother, Crone. Her life’s work has been to understand and work with the sacred feminine, about the inner marriage with the sacred masculine, and how that union can heal the world. She talks with Andrew Harvey in the film about this big challenge we have now, to stop destroying the planet, the world we live on.

She recounts a significant dream she had one day of the Dark Madonna, a big black face-less goddess, who kept telling her to kneel lower, until she lay flat on the ground in the mossy earth and felt part of the living pulse of the earth. She says in the film that the message was to learn humility. The dark feminine involves embracing the body: by lying on the moss, the earth, this spinning planet we live on that is our mother, who feeds us physically. (Paraphrase from film Dancing in the Flames) 

By taking care of our bodies, we are also nurturing our connection with the earth, with the sacred feminine. www.dancingintheflames.com

Add to this a recent message in my inbox from Dr Christiane Northrup, who suggests if you make only one resolution, let it be this:

 “I've come to see that our bodies are the true altars—the most sacred places in our lives. That’s why my top resolution for women this year is simple: ‘Listen to and respect your body more than you have ever done before.’”  

She says in her newsletter: Your body needs regular doses of comfort and pleasure to be optimally healthy. Without it, you are much more likely to seek pleasure from external and unsustainable sources and behaviors, including drugs, alcohol, and sugar. 

Read more here:  http://www.drnorthrup.com/monthlywisdom/archive/jan2013.php

In another part of the movie about Marion Woodman’s life’s journey she says that through dreams, writing, images and creativity, you get in touch with the Soul inside, the real life, the real god or goddess. “’God creates’ is the energy that can pull you from a satanic energy that is taking you into death to a living energy that will take you into your own creation.”

So that is what I wanted to share today – take care of your body, nurture your soulful connection with creativity, and be prepared to play in 2013 with the images your soul sends you through dreams, images and poems.