Here, at the very dawn of literature, man’s anger at the feminine is clear to see. It’s painful to read, this womanizer’s raw hatred, so familiar to me across six millennia. The dark side of my soul knows it well. The story I tell in Savage Breast is not just the story of a man’s yearning to enter the goddess’ world of sweetness and harmony. I wanted to look at her hard and real, not romanticizing, not flinching, not accepting convenient or soothing explanations. I wanted to get to the root of what transpired between men and the goddess that put us so at odds.
In search of answers I traveled to the cradles of western civilization, to Greece, Crete, Turkey, Israel, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, France, Cyprus and Malta. I wanted to walk the ruins of her temples, gaze at her statues and icons. I wanted to see if they held a resonance for me. Just as a harp string will vibrate if another instrument strikes an identical note, I hoped the images created by my ancestors could bring to life a corresponding echo within me. To begin I sought out the goddesses we in the West know best, the ones from Greek mythology: Gaia, Ariadne, Demeter, Hera, Athena, Hecate, Artemis, Pandora and Aphrodite. But it soon became apparent that each of these goddesses had her own hidden past, and that the Greek myths were just one page in a much longer story. This led me to an era of European prehistory that began more than five thousand years before Classical Greece. Here there are no names, no myths, only raw and powerful images of women preserved in pigment and stone, clay and bone.
Over the course of three years and thirteen trips to Europe, I encountered thousands of representations of the feminine divine. Facing the goddess allowed me to unleash emotions so threatening and painful I never could have imagined expressing them directly to a real woman. It opened doors that I had long nailed shut. It’s one thing to contemplate the goddess as metaphysical idea or a psychological archetype, but when the feminine divine took shape inside my psyche, she often terrified me, evoking desperate longing, hostility, fear, shame—and also incredible beauty.
So what, in the end, did I learn?
The Goddess as Archetype and Anima
To begin with, in the course of this journey I became aware of my own anima and how it unconsciously projected archetypes of the feminine. When projected onto real women, these archetypes triggered intense and often negative emotions in me. The myths of the ancient goddesses helped me recognize these archetypal patterns for what they were. When I could be conscious that I was projecting, it was if a spell was broken, and I could shake myself free. For the first time I could see clearly that my relationship problem wasn’t just with women. It was with my anima.
When I turned my gaze upon the goddesses directly, I projected feminine archetypes onto them just as I had upon women. Since there were no real women present, only the archetypes, I could rage and weep and feel these emotions fully, without getting caught up in the drama of a relationship. Through many encounters, this helped me to finally grasp the contradiction at my core: my overwhelming need for the feminine commingled with fear that I would be completely engulfed if I ever got too close to her. Trapped between these two responses, I felt anger and hate towards women, and bitter self-loathing. The most amazing thing is that this gnarled psychological mess has been more or less resolved. I have come to see my anima as a blessing, not a curse. I now believe the anima is what makes possible a deep spiritual connection with women—as long as one can keep conscious of archetypal projections. The process of exploring the Goddess helped me reconcile my conflicting fears and desires and as a result, I’ve found that connection with Teresa, the woman I love who been my spouse for over a decade now.
I have come to see men’s archetypes of the feminine as perceptual pigeonholes, ways of sorting women into easily defined categories: as wife, mother, lover, etc. We often see women primarily through the projecting lens of our anima, or else like old Hestia, we don’t see them at all. Such perceptual shorthand made sense perhaps in patriarchal society where the roles of women were few, and mostly defined by relationship to males. But the feminine archetypes we have inherited do not reflect the diverse capacities and potential of real women. In an age of individualism, we men find our expectations foiled again and again when we attempt to relate to women through the archetypes. They don’t fit, and yet it’s hard for a man to see the person in a woman undistorted by our projections. I was completely unaware of my own impaired vision when I began to write this book, and I suspect it remains virtually imperceptible to most men.
The Cosmic Goddess
By the end of this exploration, I came to believe in a Goddess who is both energy and matter, who is aware, intelligent, creative, and beautiful, and whose essence connects us all together. When I conceived of divinity as God the Father, the cultural myths surrounding my beliefs left me feeling separated and sinful; at best, forgiven, at worst, condemned. The myths and symbols of the Goddess have helped me better thread my way back to her cosmic embrace. I used to feel severed and disconnected from the feminine and from life. It’s as if a wound in my soul has been healed. I am no longer a member of the cult of scarcity. Instead, I feel the Goddess’s abundance. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the life I have been given.
Of course, someone might point out that the Goddess as I have described her could just as well be a “he” or an “it.” Woman is the metaphor for the Goddess, but certainly the infinite divine is not specifically correlated more to one gender than to the other? Well, monotheists have described the divine as “Father” for over 2,000 years. Even if we neutered God, to be labeled only “It,” we would still have the masculine echo ringing in our ears for another thousand years. So maybe it would make sense to call her the Goddess for a millennium or so, if only to even things out. Then perhaps we could move on to something more gender inclusive.
That said, I do believe there is a distinctly feminine essence of the divine. And also a distinctly masculine essence—one that has long been obscured by monotheistic religion. Discovering the Goddess has helped me begin to see beyond Jehovah. The divine Bull of his Mother, Dionyos, the Minotaur, and the rare male statues of Old Europe point the way to a different masculine god who dwells within me and all men, and who perhaps resonates in the animus of women. This is a new path for me to explore (the first step undertaken in my most recent book, Zombies on Kilimanjaro: A Father/Son Journey Above the Clouds).
The Goddess and Moving Beyond Patriarchy
Traveling through Old Europe and the Near East and studying the work of Harrison, Gimbutas, Lerner, Eisler and others has convinced me that men did not always dominate women as they have done in historical times. I do not believe patriarchy is a natural or universal template for humankind. I think the sexual equality we are heading towards in the 21st Century is a rebalancing of gender relations that have been askew for some 5,000 years. Patriarchy was a raw deal both for women and for about 95% of all men, most of whom served as the slaves, soldiers and laborers throughout history. It benefits us all to get rid of the social, economic and political biases against women. There can be no true democracy without it.
How can I move beyond patriarchy in my own life? My experiences in writing this book have helped me see beneath the surface of things, to glimpse the myriad subtle structures that keep patriarchy in place. I keep bumping up against male prerogatives I’ve never noticed, and hearing the subtle language of domination in everyday speech. I’m often appalled at the casual sexism of my own behavior, and I realized after writing Savage Breast, that I was only beginning to see it clearly.
It remains challenging to speak of this to men. While I believe a substantial number of males do want to move beyond patriarchy, how many are willing to uncover and address their hidden anger towards women? It’s so pervasive, so invisible, so disturbing, who among us wants to see it? The key, perhaps, is that like me, many men yearn for a deep and satisfying relationship with a woman they love, and so often feel thwarted. For me this has become a place to start the conversation. In fact, what I believe most is that men and women need to speak more honestly and openly about what divides us, and what it will take to bring us closer together. It’s my hope that Savage Breast will serve as a good starting point to talk about how we can come together as equal partners in co-creating humanity’s future.
[1] Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur, p. 88
[2]Carl Jung, “Marriage as a Psychological Relationship,” The Development of Personality, CW 17, par.338.
[3]Gilgamesh, (Penguin Mentor edition) p. 43.
Editor’s Note: This essay was originally published in an anthology, Voices of the Sacred Feminine: Conversations to Re-Shape Our World, by Karen Tate; published by Changemakers Books and reprinted with permission.
No comments yet.