The Sacred Feminine in the Bible: THE SAMARITAN WOMAN (Part 1)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus comes to ‘Jacob’s Well’ where Jacob had met Rachel. But this time a high representative of the Feminine doesn’t appear. Instead, a lower representative appears, a Samaritan woman who doesn’t recognize Christ (though she’s heard he’s coming and hopes to see him). She draws some water and Jesus asks for a drink. She’s surprised, since Jews did not share things with Samaritans. Jesus says, “If you knew who is saying, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

But this is the lower Feminine principle, and she gives herself away with a literal and superficial question: “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” Jesus answers “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water I give them will never be thirsty.”

She still doesn’t understand, and responds somewhat comically, “Sir, give me this water, so I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus, perhaps a bit exasperated, tells her to “Go, call your husband, and come back.” At first, this seems an odd bit of chauvinism, but he’s speaking symbolically and what this means is that her consciousness is completely attuned to her lower physical nature, which is why she understands everything literally, and he wants her to turn to her higher Mind, her proper ‘husband’. But she says, “I have no husband.” “You’re right”, he says, “for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” The five husbands are her five senses, none of which is appropriate. In other words, she is ‘wed’ – attached – to the material world.

Slowly, she begins to get a little clearer. She still can’t ‘see’ very well, but she wants to — and this means she eventually will. “I know the Messiah is coming”, she says. And Jesus says, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

(Come back tomorrow and read Part 2)

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