The Wizard of Lothlorien

Ecopsychology, Neo-Druidry.

Animus work

(Image : The journal shown here is part of the work I did for my PS course, “Book of Merlin”, SG, 2005).

The Animus (the masculine part of women) is usually, and culturally, projected on men. We fall in love with the Aragorns of the world, we never stop to think that maybe this lovely ruggedy energy could actually be ours. Ever seen a hairy Arwen ? Lol. Such is our deep deep cultural conditioning.

But I discovered that lots of our courageous Prince Valiant energies could be ours, it´s a question of looking inside and being truthful with ourselves. In my PS work, way back then, I realized that I was sort of in awe with Strider (Aragorn)- (no, not the actor, Tolkien´s character), because these energies were mine. I didn´t want to be Arwen, I wanted to own my Strider energies, and what a wonderful addition to my life!… I also realized that a whole part of the events of my past life had incorporated these energies, oh yes, I certainly did some rather non-female things in my life!…

All of which, being my real life experience, had me thinking that maybe our culture has some rather shady agenda dividing people into male and female stereotypes. That´s what Jung (GrandPapa Carl Gustav) tried to say when he formulated that men have a female part of their psyche (the Anima), and women a masculine part (the Animus). Though…mmmm…Granddaddy being a staunch Swiss macho man (Goddess knows I´m familiar with those characters having had a very Swiss e-dew-kation!), he naturally thought that the Anima business was more “normal” than the other one!

Anyway, I did work with my Animus, and even gave him some really well-known faces at the time, Merlin for one, Gandalf, my inner Druid, (yeah, I know he´s a Mayar, not a Druid), Aragorn-Strider, and Elrond, the half-elven. (You must have guessed that I am a Lord of the Rings fan ?…).

It helped a lot to feel that these “masculine” energies were actually mine! So I stopped projecting them “outside”, and could finally let my men be the troubled, fragile, chinked beings that they really were…oh blessed relief for them…See my point?

This post goes with the preceding one about Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. The Sun was considered a female entity by the ancient Celts, as it still is in the German language : die Sonne, der Mond. When I speak about a shady agenda above, it is so, or why should solar qualities systematically be attributed to the masculine, and lunar ones to the female? Examining both, you get to understand the agenda, lol.

;-)

Note *** Just so you get this right : yeah, I am an Elf, and yeah, I am 3000 years old! (No, not Arwen.)

Hahaha

June 24, 2010 - Posted by | Art, Elderwoman, Psychosynthesis, Thoughts | , , , , , , , ,

1 Comment »

  1. I have been thinking about this since i read this last week. I have also been thinking about in in relation to Melville’s Moby Dick quote…

    All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principle, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines.

    How that we have a hole in us that is in the shape of a man. Possibly the hole that was left by our father or society. But this hole, this man is what we seek to complete the hole. We see a man we are attracted to or respect and we put our transparency over this person…not fairly but to size him up. Then we see how close the match is. If close enough we start working on him to fit our ideal. When he resist we start tearing at his mask, taking revenge on why he won’t work. We do not see the person but rather like Don Quixote we see wind mills.

    Better to realize that the man is in us to be completed and transformed within….and like you said leave the outside man alone.

    Now is this also what you are saying or thinking?

    Comment by cicadiaxiii | August 23, 2011 | Reply


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