Creativity – the River of Life for a Woman Entrepreneur
A few nights ago I asked some friends over for a practice run of a talk I’m preparing about Women’s Power & Leadership. At one point during a guided visualization I invited them to discover their own animus or what I call the Sacred Masculine and see if they could become present to his energy inside their body.
NO. That was just NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Their reaction spoke volumes to me.
How much pain and resistance we’re carrying around inside us. And out of that, how much we’re pushing against life. They questioned why in the world I would ask them to do that. I can call this “energy” or some other word. But, no, they were not interested in welcoming anything having to do with the masculine into their psyche.
I lived in that reality for most of my life too. This 4-part series about La Llorona shows us the consequences of resisting this essential part of our spirit.
When I listened to the recording I made of my own visualization, I got all teary when I felt that masculine support. And sad that I’d pushed it away all these years. It really is there for you as a woman to embrace and receive many gifts.
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“Animus is a profound psychic intelligence with the ability to act.”
In this 4-part series, we’re exploring who your masculine animus is in your female psyche and how we can tell if his energy has poisoned your feminine creativity. I was inspired by Jungian psychoanalyst and storyteller, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. In particular Chapter 10, Clear Water: Nourishing the Creative Life.
In Part 1, Creativity – the River of Life for a Woman Entrepreneur, I shared La Llorona, an ancient story about how the river of life can become the river of death.
In Part 2: Beware: 8 Signs You’re Being Poisoned I explored different signs that you’re drinking from a polluted river. This toxic waste in the water affects us in ways that might be very familiar… no energy, feeling scattered and disorganized, wishing, waiting and hoping things will be different, listening to your inner critic voices, and so on.
Connecting these common behaviors we all face, at least from time to time, to the awareness that these are signs a wounded woman is drinking poison from a masculine animus “gone bad” is a new idea for me.
Here in Part 3, see that you as the woman must clean up the river, but you cannot do it alone. Discover who your partner is in the river clean-up campaign.
Meet your animus, your action-taking masculine essence
He’s “the man on the river. The steward, caregiver and protector of the water.”
“Animus is not the soul of a woman, but ‘of, from, and for’ the soul of a woman. In its balanced and nonperverted form, animus is an essential ‘bridging man.’ This figure often has wondrous capabilities that cause him to rise to the work as bringer and bridger.”
“Another way to understand this is to think of the Wild Woman, the soul-Self, as the artist and the animus as the arm of the artist. Wild Woman is the driver, the animus hustles up the vehicle. She makes the song, he scrores it. She imagines, he offers advice. Without him the play is created in one’s imagination, but never written down and never performed. Without him the stage may be filled to bursting, but the curtains never part and the marquee remains dark.”
“Animus helps a woman put forth her specific and feminine inner thoughts and feelings in concrete ways – emotionally, sexually, financially, creatively, and otherwise.” He responds to her wishes rather than any culturally defined way of what she “should” be doing. In other words, he is there to support her.
He also helps set healthy boundaries for her. His gift is the ability to travel between the inner and outer worlds and sometimes the underworld. He knows all three and is constantly bringing messages and ideas from “out there” back to her. Then he carries her feelings and ideas “across the bridge to fruition and ‘to market’. Without the builder and maintainer of this land bridge, a woman’s inner life cannot be manifested with intent in the outer world.”
A healthy, functioning animus in a woman is vital to our well being. Dr. Estés does not agree that relying on the warrior-woman nature of the Amazons can take the place of the actual male parts of us. Which is what I, and many of us women, tried to do.
Our masculine nature inherently has a “certain kind of intellectual rule making, law giving, [and] boundary setting, that is extremely valuable to women who live in the modern world.”
“In proper balance animus acts as helper, helpmate, lover, brother, father, king.” When I talked about the Sacred Masculine archetypes, the King is a key aspect. It’s not like this takes over a woman’s psyche. When we can appreciate and welcome this King side of us, we discover this male energy that’s in Service to us and our feminine creativity. That’s his job and he’s very happy to fulfill it.
“Archetypically, the king symbolizes a force that is meant to work in a woman’s behalf and for her well-being, governing what she and soul assign to him, ruling over whatever psychic lands are granted to him.”
But if animus is a natural part of us,
why don’t we automatically feel his energy?
It turns out that we must consciously develop a relationship with our own animus.
When we affirm and welcome our animus in his positive aspects, he is there for us in important ways. The role of the animus in a woman’s psyche is supposed to:
- “help her realize her possibilities and goals
- make manifest the ideas and ideals she holds dear
- weigh the justice and integrity of things
- take care of the armaments
- strategize when she is threatened
- help her unite all her psychic territories.”
“Though we speak here of positive animus development, there is also a caveat: An integral animus is developed in full consciousness and with much work of self-examination. If one does not carefully peer into one’s motives and appetites each step of the way, a poorly developed animus results.”
… “Further, animus is an element of women’s psyches that must be exercised, given regular workouts, in order for her and it to be able to act in whole ways. If the useful animus is neglected in a woman’s psychic life, it atrophies, exactly like a muscle that has lain inert too long.”
What happens when our animus “goes bad”?
When we’ve neglected our animus, ignored it, rejected it, or surrendered to its wounding of our feminine nature – out of fear, suspicion, or survival – it leaves the door wide open for corruption and take-over.
The psyche hands over the power of the river to the hidalgo in the La Llorona story, the animus “gone bad.” This animus is corrupt. He, along with many others, benefits from the poison he manufactures in his factories along the river.
This weak and undeveloped animus gives no support. We flounder around going from this idea to that one, acting out our impulses with no inner awareness behind what we do. We question not only our ability to act, but our very legitimacy – our right to create whatever it is in the world. But are you a real artist, singer, mother, gardener, runner, quilter, cook, coach, healer? Are you sure about that?
“When a woman is afflicted with a negative animus, any effort at a creative act touches it off so that it attacks her. She picks up a pen, the factory on the river spews its poison. She thinks about applying to school, or takes a class, but stops in the middle, chocking on the lack of inward nourishment and support.
A woman revs up but continuously falls back. There are more unfinished needlework projects, more never-realized flower beds, more hikes never taken, more notes never written just to say ‘I care,’ … more weft hanging on the loom waiting and waiting…”
These are all La Llorona’s deformed children that we toss back into the polluted river.
So what’s the way out of this dilemma?
Bad news and good news:
“We have to go into the sludge and look for the precious gifts that lie under it all. Like La Llorona, we have to drag the river for our soul-life, for our creative lives. And one more thing, also difficult: We must clean up the river so La Llorona can see, so she and we can find the souls of the children and be a peace to create again.”
Here’s the thing, as we do that, we are also developing our relationship to our animus – or Sacred Masculine.
The animus “appears to have an innate or inborn quality to it, but also has to ‘grow up,’ be taught and trained. It is meant to be a strong and direct force.”
And as we begin the steps we’ll talk about in Part 4, we are strengthening the relationship to our animus. We begin to welcome his input, his strategies, his actions to help us clean up the river. When we have that direct dialogue with him, we begin to lay aside our victim mentality and admit that, “Well, yes, actually, you are a help to me.”
You’ve still gotta get your hands dirty though.
In the final article in this series, you’ll discover the ways we can reclaim the river and reconnect to our deep Wild Woman river spirit.
Giving thanks and credit to:
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., author of Women Who Run With the Wolves; Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, ©1992, 1995 Ballantine Books
All “ “ quotes from this article are from pages 303-309.
If you’re ready to go into the sludge and find the gifts in your river, I invite you to check out my free guide: Meet Your Sacred Masculine, Your Partner in Women’s Power & Leadership.
And Please Leave a Comment.
How is this series resonating with you? Are you open to see what this Sacred Masculine energy is all about? Or still reluctant?
This was first published on Nov 3, 2017 in Linda Kaun ~ The Power of You