written 3.28.22 – archetypes class at pacifica

The cycles of life are poetic and paradoxical. Each human writes their own story, but the myths informing and underlying the human experience are collective by nature (Jung, 1968/1951). Indeed, nature often plays a part in how trajectories are mapped onto the cycles of life and death. Numerous aspects of the human experience are unique to women, such as being pregnant and bringing life into the world and sacrificing individual motives for the sake of relationship. Although it is becoming more widely agreed upon that gender exists on a spectrum, it is nonetheless important to highlight the distinctions between mythological hero’s journeys of the traditional sexes as they emerge in history. Discussing the common trajectories of both masculine and feminine myths is crucial for all genders, especially because patriarchal values have largely muffled the ancient wisdom of feminine character development to the detriment of all people. This paper provides a brief overview of human myths across the spectrum of gender identities and discusses my own journey of transformation in light of these insights. 

Renowned writer Joseph Campbell (1969) discusses the mythological underpinnings of human transformation in The hero with a thousand faces. Campbell beautifully illustrates the metamorphic cycle of a hero’s journey, first initiated by the acceptance of a call to adventure. Guides, demons, ego dissolution, and other trials leading to expanded consciousness characterize the hero’s necessary solitary plunge into the dark unknown. The trials along the way swallow the hero into a great vessel, where he “would appear to have died” (p. 74) to the outside world. Confronting the egoless foundation of life itself through the atonement with the father and meeting with the goddess, the hero eventually comes to possess a non-dual understanding of his true essence. Only once he has undergone a total transformation may he return, changed forever, to the mundane world. Campbell writes that once he arrives with the elixir in hand, “instead of thinking only of himself, the individual becomes dedicated to the whole of his society” (p. 133). The hero emerges from his cycle of transformation more secure in his humanness, willing to address the needs of the collective now that he has discovered his own capacity to renew.

Campbell’s genius and expansive insights surrounding transformative capacities of humans are in some ways applicable to everyone. As Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1989/1961) wrote in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, “one form of life cannot simply be abandoned unless it is exchanged for another” (p. 166), and this surrendering of the self is a common truth in heroic mythology. However, the process of change differs in masculine and feminine stories, and this distinction is something Campbell does not address. There are notable limitations in his depiction of the cyclical journey of the transforming self in that the masculine journey of individual conquest and unencumbered selfhood do not typify the lived experience of women. Twists and turns on the pathway of life are patterned differently in the feminine experience. Thus, armed with an incomplete map of the landscape tailored only toward a patriarchal eye, people of all genders can benefit and achieve balance by remembering tales of femininity often forgotten.  

Filling the gap of feminine myths in Campbell’s work, a complementary heroic tale is told by psychologist and philosopher Erich Neumann (1956/1971) in Amor and Psyche. Neumann’s recounting of this ancient narrative details the journey of Psyche, a human girl cursed with the gift of goddess-like beauty which dooms her to an unavoidable fate to grapple with the jealous wrath of Venus thereafter. Psyche’s quest for wholeness leads her through grueling tribulations requiring surrender and continual guidance as she faces death, love, and the unknown to illuminate a path of unobscured truth through the darkness she repeatedly encounters. Psyche’s story is one of paradox, with grim hopelessness juxtaposed against shining hope, irreversible blunders leading to moments of salvation, and the loneliness of virginal floundering eventually resulting in a marriage to love himself. Psyche’s ongoing pregnancy is symbolic of the creative capacity of all mothers, and Mother Earth herself, who gives “form and rest to what is formless and flowing” (p. 103), growing new life by transforming her own matter naturally and effortlessly. Psyche’s journey requires continual reliance on Mother Earth’s helpful companions as she reluctantly finds the receptivity and will to continue, even when she would rather die. In this way her marriage and separation from Eros propels both the masculine and feminine principles into consciousness, allowing for a textured and complete existence instead of blind, illusory acceptance of the luscious castle he begged her to stay perfectly unconscious in.

Completeness versus perfection is the undeniable crux of distinction between feminine and masculine heroism. Jung (1969), writes about this polarity in Answer to Job, asserting that “perfectionism always ends in a blind alley, while completeness by itself lacks selective values” (p. 33). The classically feminine lack of selective values is initially indicated by Psyche’s burning of Eros and naivety in belief of her sisters. Even more glaringly, this weakness manifests as her final ultimate debacle of opening Venus’ beauty box only after she herself had retrieved it valiantly in four laborious tasks that eventually landed her in the depths of the underworld. These outwardly erroneous events in Psyche’s myth are far from accidental; indeed, Jung knew that the nuances of ancient tales were far more than arbitrary fictional stories, stating that myths contain “facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again” (p. 47). This continual repetition of groundless trudging onward has been my experience as an individual of female sex, as a new mother, and as a perpetually imperfect human with many masculine ideals at my archetypal core. Missing the mark of my perfectionism has continually proven to be the humbling outcome of my striving for something other than authentic being inclusive of its disappointing and ugly facets alongside the beauty and splendor in the plight onward.

Some of my classmates reactively dismissed the journey of Psyche, citing the writing as patriarchal and arguing that Psyche’s character is childish and lacking nobility. But I feel, just as Neumann states, grateful that “Psyche fails, she must fail, because she is a feminine psyche. But though she does not know it, it is precisely this failure that brings her victory” (1956, p. 121). Beauty is a component of my aesthetic presentation in the world I feel I have been robbed of due to my pregnancy and subsequent weight gain. Being a mother is far from a walk in the park, and especially when one’s pregnancy is filled with traumatic events as mine and Psyche’s were, the transformation leaves a lasting scar of inevitable loss of the old self on body and soul. I will never be the same person I was before I unexpectedly got pregnant, and my inner maiden still cries in longing for her days of unquestioned selfishness and irresponsibility. For this reason, I completely understood and admired the shameless vanity in Psyche’s moment of impulsive self-interest. In some ways I feel as though this juncture in the story made me feel less worthy of condemnation in still privately grasping at slivers of my maidenhood, just as Psyche did. Indeed, “to enhance her beauty, she is willing to take the greatest misfortune on herself” (p. 122), even at the expense of being with the one she loves most. This moment of assertion is absurd in its timing, occurring after all the pain she endured at the command of her frenzied mother-in-law, and reminded me of every “mistake” I have ever made against my better judgment. In the grand scheme of existence there is far more that compels humans than logic and reason, and Psyche knew and personified this folly with every step she impetuously took in the cosmic dance. I can only hope to flounder with such harmony with the earth in my own life, as did Psyche and Jung (1989): “every stone, every plant, every single thing seemed alive and indescribably marvelous. I immersed myself in nature, crawled, as it were, into the very essence of nature and away from the whole human world” (p. 32). The journey of the feminine is one of bewildering wholeness.

References

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces (3rd ed.). New World Library.  

Jung, C. G. (1968). The psychology of the child archetype (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 9 pt. 1. Archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., pp. 151-181). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850969.151

Jung, C. G. (1969). Answer to Job (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 11. Psychology and religion (2nd ed., pp. 355-470). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1952). https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850983.355

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections (A. Jaffé, Ed.) (R. Winston & C. Winston, Trans.) (Rev. ed.). Pantheon. (Original work published 1961).

Neumann, E. (1956/1971). Amor and psyche: The psychic development of the feminine. Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.