I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
In Goddesses in Older Women, Jean Shinoda Bolen writes that Greek goddess of the hearth Hestia was one-in-herself, beyond any need or delusion to seek something or someone outside herself to complete her. She was complete in herself, like the other virgin goddesses Artemis and Athena.
This idea was first presented in the classic 1935 psychological and anthropological study Women’s Mysteries: Ancient and Modern by Jungian analyst M. Esther Harding. She writes:
In the same way the woman who is virgin, one-in-herself, does what she does not because of any desire to please, not to be liked, or to be approved, even by herself; not because of any desire to gain power over another, to catch his interest or love but because what she does is true. Her actions may, indeed, be unconventional. She may have to say no, when it would be easier, as well as more adapted, conventionally speaking, to say yes. But as virgin she is not influenced by the considerations that make the non-virgin woman, whether married or not, trim her sails and adapt herself to expediency. I say whether married or not, for in using this term virgin in its psychological connotation, it refers not to external circumstances but to an inner attitude. A woman who has a psychological attitude to life which makes her dependent on what other people think, which makes her do and say things she really does not approve, is no virgin in this meaning of the term. She is not one-in-herself but acts always as female counterpart or syzygy to some male. This “male” may be an actual man, her father, or husband, or some man whose opinion she esteems very highly, or it may be some quite abstract idea of what people think, or an even more remote opinion, formulating itself as “one must do this to be liked,” or “a girl should act thus and so if she wants to get married.” These ideas and opinions are manifestations of the male within her, her own animus, and she is related to this psychological male in much the same way as many married women are related to their husbands. A woman with such an attitude is not one-in-herself, she is dependent upon someone or something outside her own psyche. Her qualities and characteristics are determined by that other just as the characteristics of the Egyptian goddess Nut were dependent on those of her syzygy Nu, or the Latin Fauna on Faunus. The woman who is psychologically virgin is not dependent in this way. She is what she is because that is what she is. [emphasis mine]
A syzygy, in mythology and ancient religion, is a paired combination of complementary, divine beings or cosmic principles, often male and female. These forces are balanced and complete each other. The word comes from the ancient Greek suzugia which means “yoked together” or “coupled.”
Carl Jung used this term to describe the universal archetypal pairing of masculine and feminine halves of the human psyche. He considered this dual-gendered structure one of the most fundamental configurations in the collective unconscious.
The syzygy, in this formulation, consisted of two primary archetypes, the anima (the unconscious feminine present within men, influencing his emotions, intuition, and capacity for relational warmth) and the animus (the unconscious masculine archetype present withim women, influencing her capacity for logic, assertiveness, and rational thought). To Jung, a person achieves psychological wholeness, or individuation, only once they recognize and integrate their inner gender opposite.
Jung proposed that people often unconsciously project their anima or animus onto a romantic partner, leading to infatuation if the partner fits the archetype and what they need to develop in themselves, and disillusionment when they do not.
The stages of animus development in a woman’s psyche
As a woman integrates her inner masculine energy, the animus evolves from a primitive, physical figure into a source of spiritual meaning:
- The man of mere physical power
- The man of action or romance
- The man as the professor and bearer of intellect and logic
- The man as spiritual guide
In my own life, I took a different pathway through these varieties of masculine power. I started with male archetype three: man as professor and bearer of intellect and logic. I shied away from studying computer science in college because I thought it would be too difficult, even though I started programming in BASIC at age 12 on my dad’s Apple IIe. After graduating, I discovered that there were a ton of jobs in computer programming, so I went back to school, earned a master’s in statistics with an emphasis on computer science, and went into software engineering. I developed “the man as professor” within myself.
It was later that I projected “man of action or romance” onto men in my life, rather than developing that side of myself internally. I won’t go into that sordid tale.
Once I divorced, I explored “man of physical power” along with “man of action or romance” and “man as spiritual guide” in one of the most potent romantic relationships of my life. It was a disaster, but it was also intoxicating, as I saw who I might become in another, a man. I projected everything I needed to develop in myself onto him.
Through multiple post-divorce relationships, I gradually realized that the physical capacity, the romance, the adventure, the powers of intellect and logic, and the spiritual wisdom I sought would not be found in another but rather need to grow and develop within myself.
The three virgin goddess archetypes
The three virgin goddesses — Artemis, Athena, and Hestia — each represent a different aspect of who a woman has become when she is one-in-herself.
Artemis, goddess of the wilderness, the hunt, childbirth, and wild animals, represents a woman’s connection to her raw, untamed, instinctual nature and her physical autonomy.
Athena, goddess of wisdom, tactical warfare, and handicrafts, represents a woman’s connection to her logical, intellectual, strategic, and — don’t forget — crafty side.
Hestia, goddess of the hearth fire, the home, and the temple, represents a woman’s connection to her inner psyche and spirit, her drive to make a home for herself.
This covers three of the four masculine archetypes a woman needs to integrate to become whole: man of physical power (Artemis), man of intellect (Athena), man of spiritual wisdom (Hestia).
But what about the man of romance and adventure? We have to look beyond the virgin goddesses for female archetypes in this realm. Perhaps Psyche suits. She starts as a passive victim of romantic fate, but is thrust into an adventure in which she must complete four seemingly impossible tasks to win back her love, Cupid.
To truly step into the world, a woman must temporarily leave the safety of Hestia’s hearth, Athena’s city, and Artemis’ private woods and go on a quest. In her quest she risks heartbreak and chaos, but returns with her masculine energy fully developed and ready for action.
The decade after my divorce was my own romantic adventure quest where I left all safety behind, in that I might emerge, with all three virgin goddesses’ power available to me, and having developed these faculties, through a Psychean quest.