Tamara's Journey

A Path To Higher Consciousness Part 4

Let’s first take the anima, or the inner feminine within a man. Robert Johnson, in a series of three short books is very thorough in illustrating the applicability of Jung’s theory of the Anima/Animus. this will greatly add to this discussion.

In “He: Understanding Masculine Psychology”, Johnson makes use of the “Grail Legend”, the mythological story of a boy, whose name is Parsifal, and his search for the Holy Grail which will heal the fisher-King and his devastated kingdom. These are medieval times and Parsifal is, from his youth, fascinated by the adventurous life of the knights. His desire leads him in search of these brave men that they may teach him the ways of chivalry and heroism. As a result of his many accomplishments and acceptance as one worthy, he successfully defends a castle occupied by a princess, Blanche Fleur, being besieged by an enemy. In return he is handsomely rewarded. Following the battle Parsifal spends the night with Blanche Fleur. However, although one might immediately interpret this as an affair or sexual favors granted by Blanche Fleur to Parsifal, the itinerary of their experience together within the castle reveal to us a whole other relationship that we would expect. (He Understanding Masculine Psychology HUMP p. 15-29)

Quite simply, the two of them, although lying very close to one another in bed are chaste, sharing the intimacy of the presence of each other. In fact, the only intercourse they have is on an inner, spiritual level.

“The myth is not talking here about an outer, flesh-and-blood woman when it speaks of Blanche Fleur, but about the man’s inner woman, his anima. It is teribly important to make this distinction between the outer, flesh-and-blood woman and a man’s inner feminine quality, and to keep inner laws differentiated from outer laws. The laws of the psyche, the laws that pertain inwardly, are unique and often different from the outer laws.” (HUMP p. 29)

However, the idea of chastity is apt to be profoundly misinterpreted. Chastity in the sense that it is related to here are the guidelines for a man’s relationship to his inner feminine, the Anima. What so often is the case is that the seed of spiritual wisdom is taken in a superficial way resulting in a view of women by men that is naïve, puritanical and guilt-ridden. This is totally unfair to women. Women should never be the dumping ground for man’s nonintegrated personality nor should men be a target for women’s either.

“If a man treats a flesh-and-blood woman according to the laws that would be appropriate for his own interior femininity, his anima, there is just chaos.” (HUMP p. 31)

The issue of proper conduct between men and women will not be discussed here because of its irrelevance. What is more at issue here and gravely misunderstood by most people, is the dynamic between one’s persona and one’s soul. What is it that roots or anchors a person to their very being and serves as a determinant for who they are?

For a man, let us look at those traditionally undesirable patterns of masculine behavior to see if we can find clues of how his anima should be related to. Mood swings tend to trip men up a lot of the times whether they’re good ones or bad. But, also they can be windows into which one can understand the anima.

“A man’s mood comes from being overpowered by the feminine part of his nature. Mood is beautifully described in Hindu Mythology as Maya, goddess of illusion. Mood is being overwhelmed or possessed by some interior feminine content in one’s unconscious. (emphasis added) When seized by a mood, it is as though a man has become an inferior woman.” (HUMP p. 33)

The inner feminine component within man is not so widely understood among men. It’s a territory very rarely explored and mapped out, although it is working within all men at some level or another. It is to a man’s benefit that he thoroughly seeks out his anima, keeps her under her under control and takes responsibility for her influence upon him. Ultimately the man will greatly enhance his own spiritual development when he makes anima an ally. this type of conscious relationship will yield for him a source of warmth and strength. (HUMP p. 24)

Now, when we talk about a man’s relating to his anima the difference between feeling and mood should be stressed. A person’s feeling nature allows him to make a value judgment whereas any particular mood swing that gets a hold of someone is a form of possession shutting down a person’s capacity for relationship or rationality for that matter. This is essentially what the Grail Myth relates to us:

“That in his relationship to the interior feminine a man should relate to her, that interior woman, on a feeling level and not on a mood level. Parsifal is instructed to relate to Blanche Fleur, i.e., to his anima, in the feeling sense, which is a noble and useful and creative sense, not in a seductive sense, which is destructive.” (HUMP p. 25)

With this understanding of the anima or the inner feminine soul within man we have a way in which to elaborate more deeply on how to create harmony between the yang and yin aspects of intellect, emotion and will in the Sungsang or the spirit mind of man. However, we still need to talk about the animus, the inner masculine aspect within the woman.

In order to convey the concept of the animus within a woman we go to the myth of Amor and Psyche. (She: Understanding Feminine Psychology SUMP p. 5-10) Psyche is the King’s daughter. She’s extremely beautiful. Her beauty is a primeval beauty. She is likened to the ocean. Psyche is portrayed in one of Botticelli’s paintings entitled “Venus”. Her beauty is such that she is adored and worshiped. However, she has no suitors and is very lonely. Because of this the King consults the Oracle to have the wisdom to know what to do in this matter. Aphrodite speaks to the King and instructs him to have her chained to a rock upon a high cliff to await her marriage to death.

Aphrodite employs the use of her son, Eros, (also known as Cupid and Amor) to destroy Psyche. So, Eros, with his arrows of love comes to en flame Psyche with love for the loathsome beast, Death, coming to claim her. Just as Eros attempts to destroy Psyche he cuts himself on his own arrows and falls madly in love with her. He has her taken down from the mountain to the “Valley of Paradise”, a heaven on Earth where he bestows upon her all that she desires.

Eros then gives Psyche all of these riches on one condition, that she not look at him nor inquire into his ways. Psyche has three sisters and all this time that their sister has been away they have been trying to find out what has become of her. They finally find her in the valley and start asking her questions. Psyche, unfortunately is unable to tell them anything so, she makes up a description of him for them. The sisters devise a plan and tell her that her husband is a beast and has plans to kill her and the child to be born. With this warning they give Psyche a lamp and a knife with which to kill her husband and prevent him from doing her and their child, to be born, any harm.

When Psyche finds her husband sleeping she raises the lamp to his face with the knife in her hand. To her surprise she sees the face of the god of love. She stumbles, drops her knife and accidentally pricks herself on one of his arrows and falls in love with him. As she jostles with the lamp, a drop of oil falls from the lamp and hits his shoulder awakening him in pain and then he flies away.

Let’s take a deeper look at this myth because within it is a lot of important wisdom concerning the inner nature of a woman. Marriage is a very significant time for a woman. In all the symbolism within the marriage ceremony that has been handed down through the ages, essentially for the bride it is the time in which the maiden within her is to die. In other words, when someone comes along who can understand and touch the quality of a woman then the woman abandons her role as a maiden to that her evolution as a noble woman can begin.

It is surely paradoxical of a myth such as this one that tells of the condemning to death of a virgin maiden by a loathsome creature. Surely this strikes a cord in most people who have read stories such as these or seen motion pictures depicting the story of the fair maiden sacrificed on top of a mountain in order to appease the dragon so to secure the safety of the local village. This type of story is a part of our western culture and that’s why this myth speaks so eloquently and so collectively to us all.

Myths thrive on paradox and this one is no different. According to Johnson, what may be a problem in today’s marriages is that the traditions and the customs have gone through a thorough diluting. Brides will usually cry at their own wedding. Why? Because she is keenly aware that something in her is changing. The maiden in her is passing away. But the marriage ceremony, as it exists today does not allow the bride the space for that to happen to her.

“We do not have a place for the girl’s dying experience in the wedding.”(SUMP p. 12)

So much effort is made to enhance the wedding atmosphere so that this dying component which is a part of the bride to go through is overlooked, neglected, leaving it only to be lived out later, manifested as the woman’s resentment against her marriage.

Let us next take a look at the demands established by Eros for his new bride. In this part of the story we can discover something about a woman’s inner quality or strength which she is called upon to utilize for the benefit of her new husband. Immediately following the unusual bonding of Eros and Psyche due to Eros being pricked by his own arrows, Eros demands of her never to inquire into his ways or even look upon him for that matter. Now, as was mentioned above, she went along with this for a while until, at the advice of her sisters, with the use of the lamp and the knife given to her by them, she became profoundly aware of him. (SUMP p. 19-20)

It can be agreed on that this happens quite often in most marriages. It is the woman who is usually more committed, exclusively to the family domain, while for the husband the family is merely one of the many obligations he devotes himself to. This may have been more relevant in the past when the husband was the sole income earner. However, it is more than an economic issue, rather a frame of mind influenced by the dynamic he finds himself in, relative to his wife. And it may, in a sense, be reasonable for this kind of subservience to exist in the marriage for a limited time in the early stages of a couples marital life but ultimately, as the story suggests, the wife must make use of her animus, her masculine inner self, to assert her role in the relationship and bring equilibrium and harmony to the marriage.

The death of the maiden nature of Psyche up on top of the mountain was an important evolutionary step for the woman. But it was merely stepping out of the old paradigm. What is needed in the next step of the feminine evolution, and what this story demonstrates, is the woman’s coming into her new role of conscious womanhood. In her assertion of her animus which is instrumental in taking that step she must exercise her moral potential within her in order to bring the man into his own true consciousness.

Now we come to the meaning of the lamp and the knife which Psyche brings at the advice of her sisters, to the bedside of her husband. Women, in their dealings with men can either use the lamp or the knife.

“The knife is that devastating capacity a woman has of impaling a man with a flow of words: It is the devastating remark that skewers a man. This is also one of the ways a man’s anima, his feminine side, behaves when he is in poor relationship to it. It is cutting and sarcastic; it comes with knife in hand. Our law, to use the lamp and not the knife, applies equally to the man’s inner anima as well as to the outer woman.” (SUMP p. 25)

It is to a woman’s credit that she has at her disposal such an acute intuitive resource from which she makes sense of the world. And if she had nothing to do with the evolution of masculine consciousness the discretion in which she used it would be of very little consequence. But as we know this is hardly the case. Within man’s inner soul where the inner feminine resides, the “woman” is very critical in his civilization as a mature adult in society. Outwardly, as well, it is the case; women play a very important role in the shaping of man’s character and his moral foundation. Hence, she may be very resourceful and cunning but it is best used with discretion and ecology or not at all in relationship to her husband to protect his dignity so that in turn she can find within him a source of strength and protection which her wisdom has allowed him to freely provide. Let’s take a look at a woman’s “lamp” capacity.

“A woman has the capacity to show the value of her man with the lamp of her consciousness. At his best, a man knows who he is, and he knows he has a god, a magnificent being, somewhere within him. But when a woman lights the lamp and sees the god in him, he feels called upon to live up to that, to be strong in his consciousness. Naturally he trembles! Yet he seems to require this feminine acknowledgement of his worth. Terrible things happen to men who are deprived of the presence of women, for apparently it is the presence of women that reminds each man of the best that is in him.” (SUMP p. 25)

The light bearing quality of a woman is something so essential to a man because it is her intuitiveness and totally different perspective than that of a man which allows him to make sense and bring meaning to the challenges he has gone through. Also, unlike the masculine light bearing quality which is more cosmic in perspective: lighting up everything and oftentimes overwhelming, the feminine quality illuminates a specific area and advises on the next step to be practically taken. (SUMP p. 27)

But of all the influential power that the woman wields in her relationship to a man it will never be honed to the service of man and herself if she neglects to be aware of her animus, her inner masculine nature. She must leave the naïve world of the maiden which gave her solstice for a time and shed it like the catepillar’s cocoon to reveal true feminine beauty and virtue. She cannot limit herself to a mere subservient role with her husband; neglecting her own consciousness and forfeiting his civility.

References
1. Johnson, Robert He: Understanding Masculine Psychology Harper and Row San Francisco 1974 p. 15-29 2. Johnson, Robert She: Understanding Feminine Psychology Harper and Row 1974 p. 5-10

Part 5 And Conclusion of The Integration Of Male & Female Aspects Of Men & Women