The Feminine & The Power of Myth

May 14, 2013

The feminine element lies dormant in us all, eager to be retrieved from the archives of the world of imagery and myth. Basically, the feminine aspect encompasses the mystical, nurturing, healing aspect engendered through unconditional love and intuition. It is this aspect of our nature, which connects us to spiritual truths and allows us to choose wisely in any given moment. It is our protection, and we have all but had it, dare I say, deliberately educated out of us in a pre-meditated dumbing-down of mankind.

Historically, mankind has developed through various stages of matriarchal and patriarchal societal trends. The pendulum has swung through macro and micro cycles where one gender has played a particular role in cultural dominance and responsibility. These trends are observed through varying developmental stages of our evolution both personal and global as we wander through life and this apparent pattern. Myth portrays archetypal patterns of our multi-dimensional psyche. They are raw symbols of our essentially androgynous human nature.

Although societal trends may change with time and fashion, the fundamental pattern is still contained within the seed of our conception. Today, at last, there is a trend emerging amongst astrologers, psychologists and society in general to resurrect the ancient Pagan gods and the art of Story-telling, which has been buried beneath centuries of patriarchal dominance.

Myth and the universal unifying principles they contain from the loom on which the fabric of a family, tribe, and nation is woven. Myths and stories have been sung and told since time before time. They form the basic design of our psyche from one generation to the next and from culture to culture with similar trends and varying forms. Mythology is a language invented to speak on the instinctual plane where answers are not known, but felt with a great impact. We cannot effectively describe a mythological tale in precise terms for in so doing we strip it of its loving qualities. It dies in the grasping act of thoughtful consideration.

These symbols trigger images in our mind, which give us an opportunity to understand and gauge our progress along our individual path. Whether we believe these images to be past life memories or emerging from some inherited genetic code is irrelevant. The art of visualization and imagination is an imperative aspect of the healing process. These archetypal codes unlock pathways to deeper symbolic realms or levels of consciousness, which we all share. They allow us to access worlds inhabited by the elemental spirits and devas of Nature; the angels and god-forms of other dimensions, which exist because we believe them to. These patterns are often strong enough to have universal archetypal meanings. Through them, we learn to recognize and acquaint ourselves with our higher-selves. We momentarily step outside of time and space and view our reality from a different perspective enabling self-healing and illumination.

Women of our times have surfaced from a long underground period of suppression and servitude to a social system that imagined they were of secondary importance. The challenges and opportunities for women these days are enormous. The radical political and social changes world wide, however, have brought about a disintegration of familiar traditional roles for woman. These days, many women have reached the maturity of their post child-bearing years in good health and with the freedom and resources to explore their true nature and to influence the social and political structure around them.

We are all taught to identify with male methods of thoughtful, reasonable and linear concepts. Instead there is so much more to us, buried in the unstoppable power of illogical co-existence of opposing forces. The Feminine is the faceless presence met in ordinary, everyday affairs and in the unbroken paths of the unknown. Woman’s responses to the outer world are influenced and to a great extent generated by her hormonal changes within. She is like a breath of fresh air in the fixed patriarchal orientation of life, for she responds with renewed freshness to each event as it is presented to her.

The beauty of the feminine is her potential for many dimensions, embracing in her way of being the nuances of many archetypes at once and perhaps constantly confusing those in the world of a more rational propensity. Any and all archetypes are present within each of us and can be “up” at any stage of growth. Cycles within cycles. This is possible without being in conflict with the multi-dimensionality of her psyche, for each trait is exposed in different moments. It is in this fundamental process that woman gives herself a chance again to be born into the light as a child of moonlight.

Once we honored the tantric union of man and woman, Adam and Eve, Isis and Osiris, Jesus and Mary, Merlin and Morgan; all archetypal reminders of the male and female, which lies within us all. We existed at that time with the perception of the beauty and reality of the earth directly, by existing in the immediate moment in time, in an utterly discontinuous present, ever now. When we existed in the eternal, the timeless consciousness of earth itself was immediately present in our perception.

Every one of us has a birthright to find out who s/he is. To strip culturally imposed roles and to allow us to unveil our own mystery. It is therefore imperative that the archetypes represented in myth should not be adopted as yet another rule to follow. Each archetype limits, points the finger to the core of our own unique nature, which is waiting to sing the chorus of its own song and to freely express the love that we are.

Lady of the Oak – Jyoti Eagles.