“Remember back to childhood, your favorite fairytale, and consider that that fairytale actually became your myth, the guiding light of your life. And if that fairytale had a really rotten negative ending on the end of it, then you may wish to choose a new ending. You may wish to actually sit down and write, to play, to act, to mask-make, to dance a new ending to that fairytale. If the fairytale had a positive ending, then see what you can do to live that out. See what you can do to make that true in your own life.”
When I heard this, I didn’t have to think twice, I knew immediately exactly what my two myths were.
I’ll start with the more difficult of the two first.
When I was in high school, I loved literature about tragic women.
The stories I loved were always about women who dared to resist the rules and limitations placed upon them. They were women who paid dearly for it, each of them ultimately paying the greatest price of all in the end.
Yes, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Edna (from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening) all paid for the price of their liberation with their lives. Sadly, each one committed suicide before the novel was over.
Each had left their stifled, boring and restrictive roles as wives and mothers, left to look for true love and sincere pleasure.
And each of them was punished greatly for it. There could be no other ending for any of them, it seems.
I, too, felt myself involved in a struggle for my own life.
I, too, wanted to reclaim my existence for myself, to wrench my destiny out of the hands of society, and claim myself for me.
Clearly, I identified with these women who felt trapped in their given roles.
What I failed to see was the moral lesson these stories now seem intended to impart.
I’d always thought the authors had portrayed these women sympathetically.
And yet, each of them had sentenced their protagonists to an early death.
Each died by her own hand for having disobeyed the laws of the land, the unwritten laws that required women to be docile, submissive, and in never-ending servitude to children and to men.
It seems to me now that these were in fact cautionary tales. While they depicted an alternative route a woman could take, it warned us all that it was only a dangerous dead end to be avoided.
They seemed to say, “Don’t ask questions. Don’t get any ideas. Don’t stray, or else.”
It took me years to realize I’d internalized these stories about women and what we deserved.
And to recognize that I had been living them out myself, in my own way.
I too felt that I had strayed. That I had chosen myself and my own desires over what men or the world wanted for me as a woman.
And I could, even now, feel the specter of death lingering near me.
For so many years, I suffered under the weight of feeling I had gone too far, that all hope was gone, and that death, yes, my own death, by my own hand, was the only “honorable” and “right” resolution to this story I was living.
Now that I see this, I’m ready to let it go.
Now I am willing to release this internalized demand for punishment, this death wish that exists for women who dare to belong to themselves.
In all honesty, I struggle even now to imagine a different outcome for any of the women from these novels of the 19th century. I don’t know if much else would have been possible, at least, without having these women face some other equally awful consequence.
But I don’t need to redeem them.
It is me, a woman living right now, that requires redemption.
And not through punishment or penitence.
No, the way I will tell my story from now on, those things aren’t required.
So what happens at the end of this story?
In this version, the woman realizes she had the right idea.
She has not only a right, but a responsibility, to belong to herself. To live her own life, for herself, as she sees fit.
This doesn’t have to mean choosing one of the two standard options offered to us. There are more choices to be had than blind submission or careless rebellion.
I can choose instead to live with integrity, to honor myself without putting myself in dangerous situations.
I can now choose a life that truly benefits me, because I finally believe that I have a right to.
Marion Woodman (1928-2018) was a renowned Canadian Jungian analyst, author, and lecturer who dedicated her life to exploring the relationship between the body, psyche, and spirit. She is best known for her pioneering work in the field of feminine psychology and the embodiment of the soul.
Born in London, Ontario in 1928, Marion Woodman grew up in a strict Presbyterian family. Her childhood was marked by a sense of spiritual longing and a desire to understand the mysteries of the universe. She pursued this interest through the study of literature and mythology, earning a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Western Ontario in 1949.
Over the course of her career, Woodman became increasingly interested in the relationship between the body and the psyche. She believed that our bodies hold a wealth of wisdom and that by listening to the signals of the body, we can gain access to our deepest truths. She developed a form of therapy that uses movement, breath, and other embodied practices to help clients connect with their inner selves.
Woodman’s work was deeply informed by her own struggles with anorexia, which she battled throughout her life. She believed that her eating disorder was a manifestation of a deeper spiritual crisis, and that by working with the body, she could access the spiritual realm and find healing.
Woodman’s work on feminine psychology has had a profound impact on the field of psychology, and her insights into the ways in which the feminine has been repressed and suppressed in Western culture have helped to open up new avenues for healing and transformation.
One of Woodman’s most influential books on feminine psychology is “Addiction to Perfection,” which explores the ways in which women in particular have been socialized to strive for perfection at the expense of their own health and well-being. Woodman argues that this addiction to perfection is a form of self-destructive behavior that is rooted in a disconnection from the body and from the feminine. She believes that we have been conditioned to believe that our bodies are flawed, imperfect, and unworthy of love, and have been taught to value ourselves based on external criteria such as beauty, success, and achievement, rather than on the deeper qualities of the soul.
In “The Pregnant Virgin,” Woodman explores the archetype of the Virgin Mary as a symbol of the feminine in Western culture. She argues that Mary represents a kind of split between the body and the spirit, and that this split has led to a profound sense of disconnection from the body and from the earth. Woodman suggests that the repression of the feminine has created a deep wound in the collective psyche, and that this wound must be healed if we are to find wholeness and integration. She believes that the suppression of the feminine has led to a profound sense of disconnection from the body, from the earth, and from our own souls.
Another key aspect of Woodman’s work on feminine psychology is her focus on the body and the ways in which it holds wisdom and healing. She believed that the body is a source of intuitive knowledge, and that by listening to the signals of the body, we can gain access to our deepest truths. In her book “Dancing in the Flames,” Woodman writes about the importance of embodiment and the ways in which movement and dance can help us to connect with the body and access its wisdom.
Woodman’s work on feminine psychology has also had a profound impact on the field of addiction treatment. In her book “The Ravaged Bridegroom,” she explores the connection between addiction and the suppression of the feminine. She argues that addiction is a form of self-destructive behavior that is rooted in a disconnection from the body and from the feminine. For Woodman, addiction is a symptom of a deeper wound in the psyche, a wound that is created by the suppression of the feminine, and that to heal addiction, we must learn to reconnect with the body and with the feminine.
Throughout her career, Woodman was also a passionate advocate for women’s rights and a pioneer in the field of feminine spirituality. She believed that by reclaiming the feminine, both men and women could find greater wholeness and healing, and she worked tirelessly to promote this message throughout her life. Her insights into the ways in which the feminine has been repressed and suppressed in Western culture have helped to open up new avenues for healing and transformation, and her message of wholeness and integration remains as relevant today as it was during her lifetime.
This morning, I was trying to keep reading. I didn’t know what else to do.
So I picked up Women who Run with the Wolves again, and opened it where I’d left off at Chapter 10.
This turned out to be a chapter that had more than one story in it.
So I finished the first part, with the story of “La Llorona,” and kept reading into the next one.
This one was called “The Little Match Girl.”
It was not what I expected it would be.
I’d heard of it, and even read it once before (as part of an assignment Mama Gena had included as part of our homework in GPS).
But this time, it shocked me. Because I saw that this story was about me.
It told of a poor little girl who lived alone in a dark forest. She had no mother and no father. She had no money or possessions, either, except for a few matches that she bought for half a penny and sold for one.
Winter came, and the cold weather, and she tried to go sell the matches in the nearby town.
“She wandered the streets and begged strangers, would they please buy matches from her? But no one stopped and paid her any attention.”
One night, suffering from the cold, she decided to light her matches to warm herself, though she had no wood and no kindling.
Every time she lit a match, she found herself immersed in some fantasy, only to awaken again colder than ever.
She struck the third and final match, and in her fantasy her grandmother appeared, “so warm and so kind, and the child felt so happy to see her…” But then the grandmother began to fade, as the little match girl felt herself rise up into heaven.
The story ends sadly, with the little match girl found cold and dead between the houses the next morning.
It wasn’t this telling of the story that resonated with me so much as the commentary that followed.
Here is the first paragraph of interpretation after the story:
“This chid lives in an environ where people do not care. If you are in one of these, get out.”
Hm. Well, that was pretty direct.
She continues: “This child is in a milieu where what she has, little fires on sticks–the beginnings of all creative possibilities–are not valued. If you are in this predicament, turn your back and walk away.”
Estes seems to feel pretty strongly about this. She goes on to say, “This child is in a psychic situation in which there are few options. She has resigned herself to her ‘place’ in life. If this has happened to you, unresign yourself and come out kicking ass.”
I feel that this has been where I have been most of my life. I had resigned myself to place for so long. I had come to believe that there was no other way for me.
“She cannot awaken to a life with a future because her wretched life is like a hook upon which she hangs daily. In initiations, spending a significant amount of time under difficult conditions is part of a dismemberment that severs one from ease and complacency. As an initiatory passage, it will come to a conclusion, and the newly ‘sanded down’ woman will commence a refreshed and enwisened spiritual and creative life.
However, women in the Match Girl condition could be said to be involved in an initiation that has gone awry. The hostile conditions do not serve to deepen, only to decimate. Another venue, another environ, with different supports and guides, must be chosen.”
I think this is why I have been so focused on wanting to move to Mexico City. I have intuited the fact that this is not an environment where I will ever be able to grow. I’m 32, and it still seems impossible. I don’t think the conditions around me will ever change. So I’ve decided I must go somewhere else.
“The Match Girl wanders the streets and she begs strangers to buy matches from her. This scene shows one of the most disconcerting things about injured instinct in women, the giving of light for little price… Bad lovers, rotten bosses, exploitative situations, wily complexes of all sorts tempt a woman to these choices.”
This has been true about me. It has been the saddest thing about me, about my life: my willingness to lower the price, to just give myself away to anyone, to beg them to accept me.
But how was I supposed to know better? I was always taught (by words and by force) that this was the only way.
“The Match Girl lights more matches. Each fantasy burns out, and again the child is in the snow and freezing. When the psyche freezes, a woman is turned toward herself and no one else.”
And it was all for no use. Every shitty boss, emotionally abusive partner, it all ended the same. With me left even more out in the cold, again. Everything I did to hold on to the fantasy ensured my own future end.
“It is a psychic fact that when libido or energy wanes to the point where its breath no longer shows on the mirror, some representation of the Life/Death/Life nature shows up, here portrayed by the grandmother. It is her work to arrive at the death of something, to incubate the soul that has left its husk behind, and to care for the soul till it can be born anew.”
I’m at that point now. I’ve spent this past year in surrender, dying to everything I’ve ever known or believed to be true.
I’m ready to move forward. I’m dying to be reborn.
“And that is the blessedness of everyone’s psyche. Even in the event of such a painful ending as the Match Girl’s, there is a ray of light. When enough time, discontent, and pressure have been brought to bear, the Wild Woman of the psyche will hurl new life into a woman’s mind, giving her opportunity to act in her own behalf once more. As we can see from the suffering involved, it is far better to heal one’s addiction to fantasy than wait around wishing and hoping to be raised from the dead.”
During the last days of my medical treatment for the parasite, I was still feeling a lot of generalized fear and anxiety that would seem to come from nowhere and overtake me without warning.
One night, I was in meditation and I started to have a lot of fear regarding the way the vision had ended, with me being eaten by the turquoise serpent.
I think it was in response to one of the images Noé had sent me, of the man being swallowed by the serpent.
In his message he had said, “we see the being consumed by the matter planes and lower body impulses (Coátl) and unable to act for itself controlled by the parasites..”
😬
I was like, “Uh oh…this guy on the Mayan vase looks A LOT like me being eaten the other day. Am I in trouble?”
I started to panic, thinking, “Oh no, it’s all over, I’m doomed,” etc.
But a stronger voice from above said, “Hell no! Don’t believe it. You will be given another vision, you’ll know what to do.”
I thought, “Oh no, not now! I’m too scared. I couldn’t…”
But it came more quickly than I’d imagined it would.
First, I saw the turquoise serpent to my right, with my body still in its belly.
Then a very large dragon appeared: a bright green, distinctly female dragon. It had a cute little red bow attached to the left side of its head. I feel a bit silly saying this, but that’s kind of how I knew it was me.
But not the personal, little me, not Eleanor, lying immobilized in the serpent’s stomach.
It was my higher self, my soul, the part of me which is eternal and beyond.
She took a step toward the serpent and looked him right in the eyes. He bowed his head, and though he didn’t seem to like it, he didn’t make any move to resist as she stepped forward and swallowed him whole, head-first.
It’s your turn now hehe 😉
I was a bit confused by this detail. “Are you sure?” I had always seen those images of the Ouroboros, the snake (or sometimes dragon) eating its own tail, and I thought it would be the same here.
“No, it has to be this way,” was the answer.
As I watched the last bit of the serpent’s tail disappear into her mouth, the dragon gave herself a little pat on the belly. With a wink, she said, “Don’t worry, babe. It’s not to hurt you, it’s to integrate you.” 😉
[Apparently my higher self has a sense of humor.]
I immediately recognized her words as echoing those of the serpent as he swallowed me to “transmute” me.
And then I saw as the head of the serpent reached the tail of the dragon, and vice versa. In this way, the opposites met and were joined.
The insides of their bodies dissolved into a golden, liquid substance, while their skins hardened into the shell of an egg.
I saw my body inside the golden amniotic fluid of what was, I soon noticed, not an egg but a chrysalis.
I lay inside this cocoon where, like the butterfly, I would soon begin to undergo the process of digesting myself, dissolving the cells of what once was in order to be transformed into the self I was born to become.
And with that, the vision ended: with me, in a gentle sleep before the last decay. Relaxed, safe and enclosed within my own energy, ready to release and to regenerate anew.
That night I slept more peacefully than I have in many months. I felt it was an important conclusion to something which still felt unfinished after the first vision.
According to Richard Tarnas, the archetypal is the spiritual and energetic. It was originally experienced by human people as “Gods” and “Goddesses,” and described in terms of mythologies.
The archetypal is about the essences and qualities that transcend the human.
These ideas were later expounded upon in Ancient Greece, with the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus, among others. They were forgotten for many years until their recovery by the likes of Nietzsche, Freud, and Carl Jung.
Jung’s depth psychology explored the idea of the archetypal pleroma, the pantheon of archetypal energy, both within and without. It was Jung who recognized that we are in psyche. It informs not only us but all of nature. This is what is meant by the Anima Mundi, or world soul.
It was through myths that man tried to understand and convey its experience of this world soul. Myth, as well as dreams, are the narrative form of archetypal energy. According to Tarnas, this is how the cosmos pours its consciousness through us humans. The archetypes are thus the mediators of the cosmos, the way the Anima Mundi often speaks to us directly of its secrets.
Plotinus says that astrology is like a script that the soul of the sky is writing. Meaning is something that extends and permeates through all levels of reality and existence. We are living in a pan-psychic universe, and if we wish to, we can be active participants with this consciousness or sentience.
The cosmos gives us guidance on how we can participate constructively. The archetypes don’t “cause” human affairs or outer events to occur in some mechanistic way. Instead, it is open to our human participation.
It is as if the universe or nature is providing us with symbols or guideposts regarding the qualitative meaning of our unfolding. We can choose to participate actively in our own evolution by noticing and following the signs provided for us by the macrocosm.
Last week I had the privilege of attending an online talk led by Richard Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche, on the astrology of 2021. It truly an honor to be in the presence of a man who is widely recognized as one of the great minds of our time.
During his presentation, Tarnas chose to focus on three of the most significant transits of the past and current decade:
Uranus square Pluto, lasting from 2007 to 2020
Saturn conjunct Pluto, from 2018 to 2022
Saturn square Uranus, from 2019 to 2024
The Uranus-Pluto square brought to the surface many of the things which lay in the collective shadows. According to Tarnas, Trump was a potent symbol of the shadow side of this Plutonian energy—he gave permission to other to express many of the things which lay beneath the surface in our society (racism, misogyny, etc.), bringing them into open expression.
The Saturn-Pluto conjunction, which also aligned with Jupiter last year, was one of the most significant of our time. This triple conjunction saw discovery and proliferation of COVID-19, as well as a host of other dire effects. Whenever Saturn enters the picture, it brings with it a great heaviness and seriousness, during which judgements are made and there are consequences.
According to Tarnas, the triple conjunction of Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn was in many ways an initiatory crisis for us. In many ways, it provoked a moral crisis, an awakening which asked us to die to our old identity and be born into a life of meaning. Tarnas spoke of this on a collective level, but I also have felt this to be true on a personal level during the past year. By confronting death, I was able to see life more clearly, and was forced to find a way to live it more courageously and with much more integrity.
The two transits mentioned above are all coming to an end, and we are now left with the major, definitive transit of 2021, the Saturn-Uranus square. The transit will be exact on three dates this year: February 17, June 15, and December 24.
This is not an easy transit. However, Tarnas believes there is still more room to maneuver here than under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of last year. The energies are now fully engaged, we feel less trapped and are more inspired to face the challenges directly. It’s as if we have gone through a near-death experience, and the life that remains has been imbued with greater preciousness and significance. We are willing to fight for the changes that we need to make in our lives.
Uranus, the unconventional, rebellious planet of change, will meet Saturn, the wise but severe taskmaster of the sky several times through this year, leading to an energy which is great for making creative structural changes in order to permit wiser living and greater freedom. It would be well-advised to make prudent changes slowly and gradually; if we choose to ignore the lessons imparted by Saturn and Uranus, we may find that a sudden break or collapse may occur when we least expect it.
As challenging and disruptive as this may be, the Saturn-Uranus squares of 2021 have the potential to be a sacred marriage of the past and future. If we use this time wisely, we may be able to carry forward what is most valuable from the past, discern what is most promising of the future, and together bring both into structural embodiment.
These crises can be opportunities for us to reconfigure our moral values and make creative, structural changes that will serve us well for years to come. Like with any difficult transits, the more consciousness, creativity, imagination, and courage that we can bring to bear on this situation, the better.
Many of us consider a maze and a labyrinth to be one and the same thing, but there is actually a subtle difference.
LABYRINTH is the term used when there is only one fixed, or unicursal, path to the center.
A MAZE, on the other hand, refers to a multicursal path that may contain dead ends or different ways to reach the center, and where the possibility always exists to become lost within.
For example, the structure built by Daedalus to hold the minotaur in Ancient Greek mythology has usually been referred to as a labyrinth, but today we might all this a maze, as it was clearly multicursal, with many complex paths and dead ends meant to trap the minotaur.
The unicursal labyrinth is powerful symbol of spiritual transformation. The labyrinth was a symbol which combined the circle and the spiral into one symbol of wholeness.
The Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral
To move from the outside starting point of the labyrinth to the center, and then back again, is symbolic of the spiritual journey to the center of the self and beyond.
I found a lot of insight into the symbols of the maze and the labyrinth in the words Marion Woodman, renowned author and Jungian analyst:
“A maze is a puzzle to be solved. It has dead ends. You may get lost in a maze. You run into a minotaur and be killed.”
Marion Woodman
Like Woodman, I spent many years of my life feeling like I was trapped in a mazed, living as if in fear of a deadly minotaur, and confronting dead end after useless dead end.
“A labyrinth looks superficially like a maze, but it’s different. There are no dead ends, no traps. There is only one path, and it takes you by a circuitous route to the center.”
In her own life, Woodman found that when she at last confronted her deepest fears and faced death, she was also able to realize the perfection of her life experience and see the purpose of her path.
“I was finally able to surrender to life, because at long last I KNEW there was a center and that if I kept listening, opening, and walking forward, my path would lead me to that center.”
I am finding that the same is true for me. I am going to keep walking. I know the center is there, ever present, just waiting for me to open my eyes to it.
The Caduceus is one of the most well-known symbols in the world today. However, the true story and significance of this symbol remains obscured to the vast majority.
Most of us will recognize the Caduceus as a symbol belonging to the medical community. If asked, most would likely say that this symbol was adopted by doctors and other medical professionals as their symbol representing the power of healing, and that its origins can be traced to Asclepius, the ancient Greek physician.
Others, however, dispute this theory, arguing that in reality, what we know as the Caduceus is of much greater antiquity, having been traced back even further to the Greek legend Hermes Trismegistus.
There is a Greek legend which tells the story of how he came to possess what has also been called “the Staff of Hermes.”
It begins with a Greek seer named Tiresias, who discovered two mating snakes in the middle of the road on Mount Kyllene. When Tiresias went to separate the snakes with his staff, he was turned into a woman. He remained a woman for seven more years, until again he encountered and separated another pair of snakes.
The powerful staff, together with the snakes, was then hidden in a cave on the mountain; it is said that it is here where Hermes would eventually be born, and would make his home.
It is often thought that the snakes represent the life force, or inner creative power within man (and woman). Some even speculate that, since the caduceus looks quite similar to the double-helix structure of DNA, this could be clue hinting at the possibility that Thoth/Hermes may have somehow manipulated the structure of the human genome to advance our progress and hurry us toward the future evolution of humanity.
These are all interesting ideas, but the possibilities are not limited to these two options. I believe there are many ways of reading this myth, especially in light of certain alchemical principles.
I have my own inclinations when it comes to interpreting the symbolism of this mythic origins story, but I’d love to hear what you think.
Do the snakes and staff (and wings, in some versions) have any personal significance for you? What does it mean to heal or be healed, and how does the symbolism of the Caduceus represent that?
Most people are familiar with the story of Oedipus Rex, the ill-fated king who murdered his own father and married and bore children with his own mother.
Freud famously interpreted this as a tale which shows man’s secret, repressed desires to kill his father and take his place as lover to his mother. This fits into his narrative about our discontents as members of civilization. He would have us believe that men have a savage primal instinct, an id that lusts for power and sexual dominance so much that it is only society’s control by way of the superego that stops them all from committing fratricide and incest.
It’s an interesting take on this myth, if only for what it tells us about the state of the psyche of Freud and modern man.
When the Oedipus Rex begins, we find that a plague has fallen on Thebes. Sickness and death are everywhere, and after receiving word from the oracle that the plague is the result of a curse, or “religious pollution,” due to the murder of the previous King Laius, whose murderer was never found.
Oedipus rants and rages, demanding that the murderer be found. He vents his anger on anyone who will hear it. When he hears news that he does not like from Tiresias, then Creon, then his wife, Jocasta, he accuses each of deliberately undermining his authority, of plotting to destroy him, and wants them to be killed or banished for treason.
But soon, events start to unfold that reveal the truth of his past, and the nature of the curse upon the city.
Before Oedipus was born, his father, Laius, received a message from an oracle which said that his newborn son would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother.
Laius knew this, and upon the born of his son handed the infant back to his wife, Jocasta, ordering him to be killed. Unable to do so, she hands the boy over to a servant with the same orders that her husband had given her.
The servant takes Oedipus to the countryside, and leaves him exposed on a mountaintop. A shepherd, Polybus, takes him and adopts him as his own son. Once grown, Oedipus begins to suspect he has been adopted, and goes to the oracle to ask about his parentage.
The oracle repeats the same terrible prophecy: that Oedipus is fated to kill his father and marry his own mother.
Horrified, Oedipus flees the town where he has grown up and heads towards Thebes. On the way, he encounters Laius on the road to the city, and when Laius refuses to let him pass first, Oedipus strikes and kills his own father.
Outside the city of Thebes he meets the feared Sphinx, guardian of the city, who demands he answer her famous riddle or suffer death. She asks him, “Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?”
Oedipus answers: “Man.”
He crawls as a child, walks as an adult, and uses a cane into old age.
When the Sphinx hears his answer, she devours herself, and Oedipus enters the city, victorious.
Most scholars have unquestioningly assumed that the Sphinx committed suicide because Oedipus was correct. He gave the “right” answer.
But many others have started to question this interpretation, myself included.
We can start by asking ourselves more about the Sphinx, and what she represented.
According to Apollodorus, the Sphinx was a creature having the face of a woman, the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle and a tail bearing a serpent’s head at the end.
The name Sphinx is said from the Greek word meaning “to squeeze”, “to tighten up.” This could refer to the fact that, in a pride of lions, the females are the hunters, and they kill their prey by strangulation, biting the throat of prey and holding them down until they die.
Another interpretation, from the historian Susan Wise Bauer, suggests that the word “sphinx” was instead a Greek corruption of the Egyptian name “shesepankh”, which meant “living image.”
It’s possible that this could mean “the living image of God.” The Sphinx may well be a representation of the divine. She is connected to the old mystery cults that existed before the incursion of the male-dominated Olympian gods.
The Sphinx is a manifestation of the divine in her forms, according the ancient feminine religions.
The lion represents the animal consciousness, or the libido or life force within the physical body.
The next step in this evolution is represented by the face of the woman. When we are able to able to consciously work with and harness our life force (which is intimately connected with our sexual energy), we are at the stage represented by woman. The capacity to use reason and our minds to direct our desires is truly what makes us human.
The final stage in this development involves the snake and the eagle. We can look to ancient Egypt for more insights regarding the meaning of the snake. Uraeus was a coiled or rising serpent representing the force of Kundalini in the body. This was the divine energy, which, when properly awakened and utilized, would allow one to transcend our human condition and soar (as if on the wings of an Eagle) and reach the heights of heaven.
We can see here that the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx could well be the Sphinx herself. She walks with four feet (of the Lion) in the morning, two feet (of a woman) in the afternoon, and three in the evening (the eagle & the snake).
It is interesting to note that this play, Oedipus the King, was written at a time when the ancient Earth Goddesses were losing prominence and being replaced by the male-dominated Olympian gods. These feminine, chthonic goddesses of Life-Death-Rebirth were overthrown, sometimes violently (through the destruction of temples and killings of priestesses & adherents), to be replaced by male-dominated gods led by Zeus and other violent & often predatory gods.
So we must ask the question: what happens when Man becomes the center of all things?
What happens when we do not honor or respect the interconnected roles which we must play in our families, our communities, our world? When the Ego takes over and crowns himself king, ignoring his Nature and his higher Self?
Laius sealed his own fate by sending his infant son to be killed. He bequeathed his cursed self-centeredness and violent disregard for innocent others to his son Oedipus. And we, us modern men and women, have inherited this curse.
Lest we be too quick to pity Oedipus, we must remember his role in fulfilling the prophecy: he kills his father not in self-defense, but in an incident of road rage, when his father does not let him pass first.
As king, he looks to everyone but himself for the evil which has been done. He rants and he rages at the plague, at his people, at the Gods for what has befallen him. But we must not forget that it is his own blindness to the evil done by his very hand that creates his destiny.
What happens when we crown our ego King, and stay committed to ruling and dominating others, ethics and consequences be damned?
We end up here: blindly imposing our violence on the world around us.
We end up here: denying our own shadow, projecting it out onto whatever we happen to encounter outside of us.
When we crown our Ego self King, limited our sense of self to the conscious rational mind only, we become blind to the evil that is done by our own hands. And here, the left hand knows not what the right is doing. In demanding that our Ego’s sovereignty is the only thing which matters, has value or exists, we violently repress all of us (and all of the others) which we do not identify with the False Self.
This inevitably leads to violence, against self and others. It is a violence that starts from within, with the disconnection from our shadow and our true selves, and this violence and destruction seeps outward to contaminate all it touches.
This points to the part of work that we must do. We need to recognize that evil is not just a thing “out there” to be violently controlled, eliminated, or crushed in others.
Evil is a poisonous weed whose seed first sprouts from within. Left to grow unchecked, its tendrils snake outwards, wrapping themselves around whatever and whomever it comes into contact with.
But I have hope that we can do this work of transformation. There was a second riddle of the Sphinx which was left behind for us.
According to Theodectes, the riddle goes like this: “There are two sisters. One gives birth to the other, then that one gives birth to the first. The answer is Night and Day.”
According to some scholars, this points to an even more ancient riddle from the Basque region of Europe. It states: “The brother is white, the sister is black. Every morning, the brother kills the sister. Every evening, the sister kills the brother. Nevertheless, the brother and the sister never die.”
I see the sunset coming. The time has come for this long day to journey into night.
The moon is rising, and she will shine on this long-delayed night, and we will rest.
Harmony can return to the earth. Day and night, night and day, they will live and die endlessly, again in balance with the law of nature & the will of life.
Known as the “Father of Alchemy,” Thoth is the Egyptian God of wisdom, writing, science, magic, art and judgement. Considered “the divine intermediary between spirit and matter,” he is also the God of the dead.
In the myth of Osiris, it was Thoth who gave Isis the words she used to resurrect him after she had gathered all the dismembered pieces of Osiris’ body.
According to Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, “The ancient Egyptians regarded Thoth as One, self-begotten, and self-produced.” It was said that he spoke the first Word of Creation; what he speaks, he creates. It was he who brought all the other Gods into existence.
According to some sources, Thoth was born at the beginning of time “from the lips of Ra” and was even known as the “god without a mother.” According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, “Thoth is self-created at the beginning of time and, as an ibis, lays the cosmic egg which holds all of creation.”
Thoth was also known as “Lord of Ma’at”, “Lord of Divine Words”, “Revealer of the Hidden”, and “Lord of Rebirth.” Later, the Greeks would know him as Hermes Trismegistus.
He is credited with writing thousands of scrolls containing ancient wisdom and knowledge. Among these are:
The Book of Breathings — teaches spells and breathwork that can be used by humans to become like Gods.
The Book of the Dead — teaches how the departed can navigate the underworld to reach the afterlife.
The Book of Thoth — this text is said to have “revealed the true story of the creation of mankind and described an afterlife in the stars for those who followed his teachings” (Hauck).
