The Invisible Partners by John A. Sanford

Author:John A. Sanford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paulist Press

9 Jung, CW 7, p. 208.

10 Jung, CW9, i, p. 29.

Masculine consciousness has been likened to the sun, and feminine consciousness to the moon. At noon everything is seen in bright outline and one thing is clearly differentiated from another. But no one can stand too much of this hot, bright sun. Without the cool, the moist, the dark, the landscape soon becomes unbearable, and the earth dries up and will not produce life. That is the way a man's life becomes without the fertilizing influence on him of the feminine. Without a relationship to his inner world, a man can focus, but lacks imagination; he can pursue goals, but lacks emotion; he can strive for power, but is unable to be creative because he cannot produce new life out of himself. Only the fruitful joining of the Yin principle to the Yang principle can stir up his energies, can prevent his consciousness from becoming sterile, and his masculine power from drying up.

So the anima mediates to a man invaluable psychological qualities that make him alive. For this reason, at various times Jung has also defined the anima as "the archetype of life," and once said that she is "an allurement to the intensification of life."12 She is like soul to a man, that elusive but vital ingredient that alone1 makes life worth living and gives to a man a sense of something worth striving for. It is the anima who gives a man heart, enabling him to be strong of heart and courageous in the face of life's burdens and afflictions.

As the archetype of life, the anima contains the element of meaning. It is not that she has the answers; rather, she embodies within herself the secret of life, and helps a man discover it by leading him to a knowledge of his own soul. "Something strangely meaningful clings to her." Jung wrote, "a secret knowledge or hidden wisdom, which contrasts most curiously with her irrational elfin nature." And, he added, when a man comes to grips with the anima he comes to realize that "behind all her cruel sporting with human fate there lies something like a hidden purpose which seems to reflect a superior knowledge of life's laws.... And the more this meaning is recognized, the more the anima loses her impetuous and compulsive character."13 As a personification of life, the anima personifies for a man "the life behind consciousness that cannot be completely integrated with it, but from which ... consciousness arises," and "it is always the a priori element in (a man's) moods, reactions, impulses, and whatever else is spontaneous in psychic life."14

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