Which Feminine Archetypes Are Strongest In You?
In my system, the feminine archetypes are the Queen, Mother, Wisewoman and Beloved. These images of our basic instincts serve our “feminine” drive for species-preservation and relationship. The ways we see and use their energies are transformed over time as our egos mature through three phases:
A Dream With Meaningful Symbols
Have you ever noticed how an ordinary symbol or image from everyday life suddenly feels significant? Perhaps it happens after a synchronicity like falling in love with a painting then finding the same image on the cover of a fascinating new book. Or maybe you have no idea why an image moves you deeply.
Is Self-Discovery Selfish?
I know people who find what they call “navel gazing” distasteful because of the apparent emphasis on “me, myself and I.” What they don’t realize is that self-discovery is often a response to problematic relationships that pays off big time by creating healthier ones.
Coming Home to Integrated Spirituality
This month marks the second birthday of this blog. Writing it has been an extraordinary experience in many ways, but the most meaningful and joyful part has been meeting you. Knowing you are out there has been deeply comforting, and reading your inspiring thoughts and figuring out how to respond has had a powerful impact on my work. I love it that our dialogues have motivated me to clarify my thinking and explore new ideas. Most of all I appreciate how you’ve helped me trust myself and be bolder about sharing my truths, especially concerning religion and spirituality.
Trees and Disney Princesses Revisited
Did anyone sign your high school yearbook, “Don’t ever change”? Maybe you wrote it in a few yearbooks yourself. This is the normal desire of an adolescent ego. What it wants is so simple: to be old enough to drive, get a job, earn a lot of money, become independent, satisfy all its instinctual desires as much as it wants to…and then stop growing.
Alice, the Anima, and Anorexia
I was pondering two questions this morning as we drove to the airport after a long family weekend away: What should I write about for this post? and How should I answer a recent e-mail from an Iranian student? She’s writing a thesis about the anima and animus archetypes in two of Virginia Woolfe’s books and wonders how to approach her task. Should she just look for images represented by the writer or should she study the characters or events as a Jungian analyst would?
Freedom to Feel
As a young married woman I was utterly captivated by the film, Blume in Love, for reasons I didn’t understand. The same thing had happened three years earlier when I read my all-time favorite book: The Magus, by John Fowles. Why did I find it so incredibly fascinating? Did it have anything in common with Blume in Love, or were these just random coincidences? I didn’t know then. Forty years later, I do.
Who Was Eve: Wanton or Warrior?
Adam and Eve had everything in the Garden of Eden, didn’t they? Well, almost everything. They didn’t know the difference between good and evil, but we are told that Eve and the snake changed all that. God had given Adam and Eve only one rule: Do not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. For a while, Adam and Eve found it easy to honor this rule, for there was much to discover in the beautiful garden and each other.
Dragon Lady: Shadow of the Queen
The myths that emerged in the Near East around 2000 BC featured a male deity who, unlike the son/lover of the previous Goddess religion, was a storm god of fire and lightning who conquered a dragon of darkness and evil.
The Soul's Twins
Carl Jung said, “Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. S/He speaks to us in dreams…” This Another is our unconscious, a mixture of unknown inner characters, complexes, untapped interests and disowned emotions. At an early age our ego adapted to the life into which we were born by incorporating the tastiest of these tidbits into our conscious personality and neglecting the rest.
