Into the Heart of the Feminine: Facing the Death Mother Archetype to Reclaim Love, Strength, and Vitality by Massimilla Harris & Bud Harris

Author:Massimilla Harris & Bud Harris [Harris, Massimilla & Harris, Bud]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychology, General, Movements, Psychoanalysis, Jungian, Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780692311448
Google: ZjQnrgEACAAJ
Publisher: Daphne Publications
Published: 2015-03-14T23:00:00+00:00

PART

THREE

Burning Clean

If we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

Chapter 7

Women Turned to Stone—

Confronting Fear

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.

– Marilyn Ferguson

Throughout this book, we have seen that when we encounter the Medusa deep inside of us, we become paralyzed by her gaze, paralyzed by fear. But in the myth, we see that Perseus becomes paralyzed, in effect, even before he gets anywhere close to Medusa and her cave. Once he had committed himself to the quest to kill Medusa, he ended up wandering in the wilds, overwhelmed by the task he had set up for himself and lost in fear. We, too, face this initial fear that is close to paralyzing, is confusing, and, more often than not, leaves us feeling hopeless.

If we look at Perseus from a psychological point of view, we could say that he had a traumatic childhood. There was no father; he and his mother were cast out of their secure home, abandoned, and endured a perilous voyage. With time, they found some degree of protection and shelter. But their security was never permanent, as Perseus discovered when he ended up having to face his journey to kill Medusa. These circumstances remind me that even in difficult circumstances, our psyche tries to protect us during our early years and to give us little islands of inner sanctity and security. They may be islands of fantasy, introversion, imaginary lands or stories to live in, imaginary friends, imaginary parents, a nurturing grandparent, or religious images. But whatever this world is, as we mature in adulthood, if we are to heal and become who we have the potential to become, we must leave this world behind and begin the quest to face the Death Mother and her power, which negates our source of life and vitality.

Perseus’s commitment to the quest has brought him face-to-face with a developmental paradox that we all have to face, and initially, it is a very unpleasant situation to face and accept. This paradox is that growing from one stage to another, from one state of being to another, is a process that involves loss, perceived dangers, risks, and some degree of suffering. And our culture is no help to us at all, because it vigorously denies this reality, which we all have to confront. Our society promotes the idea that childhood should be a happy and carefree time. It is anything but that. It should be a time of nurturance, security, and safety. Yet childhood must also be a time of risk, fear, discovery, failure, and accomplishment of developmental necessities.

From the beginning, we have to face the reality

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