Caryatids: Images of the Queen Archetype
“The Queen is a mother impulse in all of us. She sits close to our Anima or archetype of the feminine. The Queen is the part of us that wants to see the people around us grow and flourish under our watchful gaze.” CG Jung Femininity is universally associated with beauty, softness, tenderness, receptivity, relationship, […]
Ego and God-Image: Part IX
“The crux of the matter is man’s own dualism, to which he knows no answer. This abyss has suddenly yawned open before him with the latest events in world history, after mankind lived for many centuries in the comfortable belief that a unitary God had created man in his own image, as a little unity. […]
Ego and God-Image: Part VII
Intellectually the Self is no more than a psychological concept, a construct that serves to express an unknowable essence which we cannot grasp as such, since by definition it transcends our power of comprehension, It might equally well be called the “God within us.” The beginnings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably […]
Ego and God-Image: Part IV
[T]he individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil, as it is posed today, has need, first and foremost of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of his own wholeness. He must know relentlessly how much good he can do, and what crimes he is capable of, and must beware […]
Repression of Women and the Human Brain: Part I
One of the most eye-opening and consciousness-raising books I’ve ever read is the revolutionary The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by brain surgeon, Dr. Leonard Shlain. Shlain proposes the thesis that since the invention of writing and then the alphabet, Western culture has progressively moved into a left-hemisphere masculine mode of thinking which is intolerant of right-brain feminine […]
The 52nd Week: My Year-End Rituals
I love the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It has always stood out from the other 51 weeks in a year like a peaceful Zen garden, a special oasis where I attend to soul needs that require annual closure.
Religion and the Sacred Marriage
In the first century Near East the concepts of femininity being as worthy as masculinity and humanity containing divinity were incomprehensible to most people and documents promoting these ideas had to be hidden away to prevent their destruction. Thus, much of the wisdom of the early “Jesus Movement” was lost to the masses for two thousand years.
Coming Home to Feminine Spirituality
I cannot overstate the importance of this dream. I knew “I” didn’t create it; it came from a profound source of wisdom deep within me. I think of this inner wisdom as Sophia, the Divine Mother.
Whispering Symbols: Dot and Circle
Both logos and mythos contribute to our spiritual development. Children use mythos thinking automatically. This is why they respond to life with spontaneity, enthusiasm, joy and wonder. But once the “masculine” phase of external striving begins, logos and the ego tend to dominate our thinking and spirituality and life begins to lose its savor.
The Feminine Symbolism of Vessels
Vessels accept, contain, protect and preserve the birth/death/rebirth cycle of life at both the physical and metaphysical levels. Our planet Earth is a living vessel whose life cycles mirror the soul-making processes of psychological and spiritual transformation.
