In her book, “Addiction to Perfection” (1982) Marion Woodman writes that in order for a person to be ravished by the ‘otherness’ or the unknown, they must firstly be in contact with their “maiden”. Providing an insightful interpretation of the Demeter-Persephone myth, Woodman expounds the need to be in contact with our fragile and innocent maiden consciousness. She believes this is essential in order to feel secure enough to “let go” and embrace the eternal and ongoing moment of creation (a frightfully insecure perspective indeed). Woodman’s interpretation reveals that through the constellated archetypal image of Persephone, Otherness may penetrate one’s being and bring New Life into the soul. To be open to this new sense of awareness, which is only perceived at the edge of unconsciousness, Woodman describes as “to be ravaged by the dark unknown”. The attitude of the maiden in relation to her abduction is, therefore quintessential to reading this myth as a way of engaging with the unknown. As a critical aspect of this attitude, Woodman advocates that only an ego strong enough to surrender may yield to the “integration of unconscious contents” (Woodman, 1982, p.160). This astute thesis orientates Persephone not a raped victim, but rather as a ravaged beloved.
Its worthwhile to note that Gaia, the supreme feminine principle in the myth, opens her sacred earth to allow Hades the ruler of darkness to bound forth and abduct the innocent maiden, carrying her off to his shadow kingdom underneath the world of daytime consciousness. Psychologically speaking, this myth creates an image of alterity penetrating our everyday habitual consciousness. For this process to occur we require an ‘innocence of being’ and ‘a deeply rooted trust’ that is open and adaptable, and can accept the introduction of otherness into our established ego complex. Because of her openness to otherness, even though the chariot of darkness descends at an incredible pace into the unknown, the young maiden discovers a new realm replete with magical gardens in which pomegranates grow filled with rubies of blood red. And as the myth later tells us, Persephone eventually through repeat visits, becomes acclimatised with this underworld kingdom, even embracing her destiny as the eminent queen of Hades.
In view of the Embodied Imagination paradigm this interpretation of the Demeter-Persephone myth coincides with a foundational pillar of our dream work known as Negative Capability. Taken from an idea or a mode of perception that John Keats expounds in a letter to his brother, advocating the benefit of suspending judgment. Keats promotes the importance of essentially, and I might add crucially, “being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason“ (Hebron, 2014). To let go of understanding, interpretation and the empirical search for knowledge, according to Keats required a turning towards the life of the senses. Situating the body at the centre, he concluded that to feel and sense a thing meant that beauty could be discovered anywhere and in anything (Hebron, 2014). Keats therefore reminds our enlightened western perspective of empirical realism that by way of the sensations of the body, we may discover Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, in the ‘ten thousand things’ of this world. In other words, by virtue of the alchemical goddess our awareness of reality enlarges and matter is once again illuminated and reinvigorated with soul - the archetypal feminine force of relatability.
Directly related to this phenomenological mode of perception is the notion “stick to the image”or to stay with what is given and to feel into the image with the body. This preference for a sensate awareness suspends judgement and thus becomes a relational act of what James Hillman referred to as soul making. Describing what constitutes an image, Hillman writes that it “is nothing more than a complex depiction in any medium that is precisely qualified by specific context, mood and scene. (Hillman, 2019, p. 73). Thus if we stick to the image we stay with the “specific context, mood and scene” that is “precisely qualified”. Therefore in a dream (which is an image) all is given to us, we do not need to amplify, reduce or actively imagine the dream any further. The detail in the dream, Hillman stipulates “works like a leading thread into the invisible weave or context of the image” (Hillman, 2019). By staying in the dream and engaging with its specific detail and context, the soul Hillman concludes, becomes “hooked". The central idea this article therefore presents is that soul is made by relating to the image by means of the sensate awareness of the body.
Embodied Imagination’s founder Robert Bosnak, realised the centrality of the body, saying that the physical as well as the quasi-physical or the imaginal is primarily an embodied condition. It is the primacy of the body, Bosnak writes, that “precedes all bifurcation between psyche and physical”, the embodied condition, he continues,“presupposes the foundation of all rationality, all value and existence” (Bosnak, 2007, p. 106). In this paradigm the body not only bridges the divide between psyche and matter, the body also becomes the bridge to the goddess herself. As we begin to feel into the image our body facilitates the descent into the depths of unknowing, taking our psyche as it were into the temple of Aphrodite. This essential domain of the soul, which Hillman says is an ontological necessity, (2021, p.37) is not only accessed through the body, it absolutely requires it.
When Corbin and Hillman after him stresses “The Thought of the Heart” as the seat of imagination and the mirror of the Divine Being, we can understand that the body as the container of the heart enables the perception of “pure hierophantic knowledge” (Corbin, 1998). To embody with compassion, sensitivity and empathy returns Soul to this World enlivening matter with Divine essence. The temple of Venus it seems isn’t a mere outdated poetic image, or New Age metaphysical ideal, entered through the heart, the temple of the Goddess it turns out, is right here, right now in every day life and every night in our dreams.
References
Bosnak, R. (2007). Embodiment: Creative imagination in medicine, art and Travel. Routledge.
Corbin, H. (1998). Alone with the alone: Creative imagination in the sūfism of Ibn ʻArabī. Princeton University Press.
Hebron, S. (2014, May 15). John Keats and ‘negative capability.’ British Library. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/john-keats-and-negative-capability
Hillman, J. (2019). From types to images. Spring Publications.
Hillman, J. (2021). Thought of the heart and the soul of the world. Spring Publications.
Woodman, M. (1982). Addiction to perfection: The still Unravished Bride: A psychological study. W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library.
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