“The Goddess doesn’t enter us from outside; she emerges from deep within. She is not held back by what happened in the past. She is conceived in consciousness, born in love and nurtured by higher thinking. She is integrity and value created and sustained by the hard work of personal growth and the discipline of a life lived actively in hope.”
Marianne Williamson
Simone, Irena, Jan, Inger
A few of us formed a ‘Women’s Group’. It was initiated by a wonderfully dynamic woman, Leona, a Canadian who was Peter’s secretary at that time. It began quite small and we met once a week in the evening. After going around the circle giving a minute each to say how we were, we would then discuss issues that were at the centre of our lives, the difficulties, challenges and insights. I was always surprised how we all had so much in common – despite the differences in lifestyles and cultures. Grappling with the same kinds of dilemmas mentally and emotionally. As trust gradually developed the act of sharing deep personal matters, often helped alleviate the sense of stuckness and pain that individuals were experiencing and we all agreed, as time passed and we went through a few cycles, – there was a lot of good healing inherent in women coming together in empathy and love, affirming a sense of sisterhood. Certainly, tears were often shed and many ‘aha’ moments of shared recognition and sense of relief that our lessons were not ours alone – but all part of a mystery of collective feminine archetypal patterns of awakening.
Inger, Simone – celebration dinner (we cooked!)
Many of us had witnessed our mothers’ traumas at the hands of our fathers and societal pressures. The isolation of the 1950’s housewife, housebound and supposedly delighted to connect with all the new labour-saving gadgets appearing on the market that would ultimately lighten the domestic work load in every area except child raising – women’s raison d’etre. Many of my new friends had chosen not to go down that road, ardent feminists with PhDs, competent intellectuals, intent on raising women’s consciousness worldwide, through education and the Arts. All this was new to me and stirring stuff.
There was no doubt in our minds that women’s great liberator was – the pill – (as big a breakthrough in the sixties, as man on the moon.) Giving us the freedom to control our biological imperatives. Finding the autonomy then to create our own dreams, initiate our own ‘orbit’ and not necessarily as a ‘satellite’ to the needs and servicing of the male gender – the road well-travelled of helpmate and server to ‘his’ ambitions and dreams – his ‘other half’ – but finding instead, wholeness in ourselves. Two halves do not a whole make, when it comes to male female relationships, two wholes make a whole. We did a lot of brainstorming on these issues.
Some ground breaking books were written in the ’70s by women about women’s legacy that opened my eyes to the depths of our collective oppression. This age of patriarchy that denied the feminine, resulting in the glaring deficiencies of our times, and there were many of us still accustomed to being used as ‘barter’, like so many cattle, as child-bearing slaves, kept under lock and key, under veils, under privileged, with no education, shackled to one female stereotype. In cultures that condone misogyny where the masculine and feminine natures are severely polarised and ‘machismo’ rules, a woman could be stoned or murdered for stepping beyond the cultural fine line even by her own family; thankfully my culture was in the free world and the 20th century and even so, gender equality is still a work in progress, the feminine in our society still fettered and reined in but this is changing as we seek to redress the balance and change has been colossal since my mother’s time; hopefully these changes will filter through to more cultures where a woman’s work is neither recognised or affirmed, even now, as I write – in the 21st Century.
I began to keep a dream journal, and learned to understand some Jungian terms and how the nature of feminine consciousness is basically “diffused whereas masculine consciousness is more focused”, which made perfect sense! Also, how women have an inner masculine aspect, “the animus” that needs to be developed and find expression in her life in order for her to evolve and fulfil herself using dynamic masculine virtues such as initiative, courage, focus etc., whilst men have an “anima” a feminine side, or aspect, that needs to find expression in their lives, cultivating empathy and nurturing skills, learning to be more emotionally aware, to self and others and when we succeed in these tasks, we become whole and balanced human beings, no longer seeking so needily for those opposite gender virtues in relationships but bringing a sense of completeness to each other; this, it seemed, was the ‘new paradigm’ – as we saw it in our explorations each week.
Michael, Ruby, Simone
I wanted to be mistress of this inner domain, to map the terrain, become familiar with the environment, no longer such a mystery to myself and at the mercy of my emotions, lost in the dark, this, it seemed was all part of the feminine ‘awakening’. I had up till now, no constructive tool kit, no compass, in this psychological realm, except for positive thoughts and affirmation – better than nothing but a sort of bulldozer approach to self-awareness and denial too of unmanageable feelings, passions.
I dreamed I was being shown a stairwell into an unlit basement, a young man holds a torch and beckons me towards it, in the dream I fear the darkness, but he, the young man, takes my hand, shining the torch into the depths as we enter; I wake up feeling reassured that I have ‘light’ and an ally in my forays into the unconscious areas of my life – where I know – healing needs to take place.
“Call me and I will come” – says the light of my animus.
During our meetings over the many months there was often laughter and on occasion a few glasses of wine were enjoyed. Whatever the outcome, our sharings were always a blessing and helped me to get through some difficult patches over the times we had them up and running. It was as if the power of the group acted as a mirror shining light into the darker corners of ‘our consciousness’. It was often humbling and moving.
Ruby, Lief, Maggie, Loren
The men folk, those more daring among them – on hearing how supportive we were finding our weekly gatherings – decided to start a ‘men’s group’. They didn’t do too well at first, having no real examples, in our culture at least, of men coming together in trust and loving communion (without alcohol!). Many of them were ‘alpha males’, so there was a lot of ‘horn locking’ and jousting for power, so we heard; the usual male dominance issues surfacing, so that was where they had to begin. Eventually they received some help and direction from an extraordinary man, poet, writer and visionary, Robert Bly who wrote “Iron John”, a deeply symbolic, metaphoric journey into the male psyche. There was some mystery involved but we learned these meetings were held outdoors round a fire, in an isolated spot, in the Aboriginal tradition, involving a good deal of physicalisation and chest beating – so to speak – in order to promote the male bonding process that is necessary before any deep sharing could occur, a process known as locating the ‘fire in the belly’, unique to the male psyche.
Michael, Amber
Quite a lot later on, Richard Olivier, son of Sir Laurence Olivier brought his remarkable “Mytho-Drama” Workshops, to the community and by using the plays of William Shakespeare as springboards into the world of male female archetypal patterns – helping us to understand their power and how to work more effectively with them, rather than being governed by them.
One thing we women all agreed on, was the fact that we lived in a patriarchal age with the worse aspects of masculine consciousness apparent everywhere. The constant wars and aggression, abuse of the natural world, the oppression of women and minorities, this list goes on and on. David Spangler spoke of the “divine marriage” in the context of the individual and how our collective evolution depends on the intention of each of us to bring together the best of the feminine and masculine values and virtues within us – and to learn to express them in our daily lives, and this is what we did as much as possible, sometimes falling short.
It was recognised as fact that the feminine qualities of relatedness, connection, empathy and nurture were needed to be seen as necessary and valuable tools in mainstream society if humanity is going to regain balance and become wise custodians – to create reparation – a new alignment with the sacred on the Planet, Gaia, great Goddess. Thankfully, this awareness is now being embraced by many in our contemporary culture.
Around this time of becoming more aware of the psychological realms I asked Ed to give me an astrological reading. He told me not to worry or get too psychological about life, it was just my “Saturn Return” approaching and being a Capricorn with Saturn my ruling planet I would be feeling the effects of the “Lord of boundaries” more intensely than most; he also told me how the outer planets move so slowly that their influence is generational and our generation with its Pluto in Leo were a pretty narcissistic bunch, hungry to make our mark in original ways, predominantly through the arts; not content with the past treadmill existence in order to ‘earn a buck’. We wanted so much more – creatively speaking – which is why music, the film industry, theatre and the arts were transformed during the ’60s, ’70s and beyond as my generation began to mature and make itself known with ingenious creative achievements and stimulating visions of rock operas, space odysseys, electrifying outdoor orchestral concerts; goodbye ‘Muffin the Mule’, good bye ‘Billy Cotton’s Band’ show, hello brain numbing heart opening forays into brave new worlds and vision.
Ruby, Amber and playmate
Further down the line these influences would ‘morph’ into the creation of the world wide web – the world a potential audience – the web a stage and anyone a potential “player”, for better or worse!
***
Footnote: I have no wish to invalidate the arts before the ’60s; every epoch stands alone in its creative glories; I’m simply citing a ‘quantum leap’ that occurred, as in many other areas, in the late 20th Century.
About the photos: A big Thank You to my grandson Ziggy for enhancing the appearance of many of my somewhat battered and ancient photos from the ’70s.
I live very simply in this land I love. On returning to the area with my daughter Jade, I found joy in volunteering in the life of the Community; until Covid, then everything changed.
Leave A Comment