The role of feminine psychology in growth, transformation and change

What can we learn from the story of Psyche & Eros? Part 2

Myths tell us things that are true for an age, and for all people within that age or era. One of the most instructive myths for understanding the value of feminine psychology in our current era — an era of dramatic change and chaos — is the story of Psyche and Eros. This myth shares with us the powerful role that feminine psychology plays in activating shifts in consciousness.

If we consider the three main ways in which we can act in support of these turbulent times — Protect & Preserve, Redesiging Systems for Life, and activating the Shift in Consciousness — we can see that this is powerful for our current times.

Before we get into what we can learn from the story itself, we need a quick detour on the two major elements of the feminine psychology. And a reminder that this is not a gender specific story. Feminine psychology is present in all genders, it is more dominant in that gender which identified most with feminine or woman.

Aphrodite is the goddess of femininity. She was born when Cronus, the son of Uranus, cut off his father’s genitals and cast them into the sea which was then fertilised. Aphrodite was born. By contrast Psyche was said to have been born of a few drewdrops that fell to earth. Born of the sea, Aphrodite is oceanic and deep in her power, almost unapproachable in her majesty. A tidal wave of profound energy. Aphrodite has a mirror carried for her so that she can always see herself. Acting in the world as a mirror, we meet Aphrodite in a person who reflects back to us who we really are rather than what we are projecting onto others. She is embodied in the archetype of the over-bearing mother-in-law. She is in service to personal development; it is Aphrodite wielding her painful power for change that we feel when we are ‘pricked’ towards personal growth. The new energy which wants to emerge must be continually hindered by the old energy — it is what gives it the strength to carry on through the journey of growth.

Psyche was born from the land — from a dewdrop which fell from the heavens — which marked a shift away from the primitive energy of the deep ocean. She is a lonely, unwordly, ordinary innocent who cannot find a husband, and who often feels unrelated to by others in the world who care for her but maintain a distance from her purity and beauty. I often met supermodels in my earlier career in brand communications. Utterly physically beautiful women they were often worshipped from afar but had difficulty finding a deeper relationship with one person. Marilyn Monroe might symbolise such an archetype.

A very abbreviated version of Psyche’s Story

Psyche’s father, in despair of ever finding a husband for lonely Psyche, goes to the oracle for help. Aphrodite, as the oracle, pronounces that Psyche shall be married to the horrific figure of Death and be chained at the top of a mountain where she will meet him. Her parents accordingly organise a ‘wedding’ procession which looks more like a funeral, to the mountain. She is prepared for a great psychological change.

Aphrodite, using her regressive tendency to block evolution and change, — she is in many ways the voice of tradition — commands her son Eros (Cupid, Amor) to fire his arrows at Psyche to make her fall in love with Death. But when he sees Psyche, Eros accidentally pricks himself with one of his arrows, falls in love and carries her off with the help of the West Wind into paradise.

Eros makes her promise she will never look on his countenance or ask him questions (a common experience in marriage for many women!). This is the way in which Eros tried to contain the feminine demand for growth and evolution.

Psyche’s sisters come to her in their jealousy of her newfound happiness and push her to ask Eros questions and look upon him. They suggest she take a lamp and knife into their chamber and, once Eros is asleep, light the lamp and cut off his loathsome head. When she shares this with Eros he warns her than her future child will be mortal and a girl, and that he would leave her. Eventually Psyche succumbs to the sisters pleas but when she sees her husband is a god, accidentally pricks herself with one of his arrows in her surprise, and she falls in love with him. Oil from the lamp awakens Eros and he flees from her, dropping her outside the garden of eden as he goes. Both are deeply wounded. Eros has fled to his mother Aphrodite. Psyche wants to kill herself.

Psyche’s urge towards suicide signals the potential for emergence into a new level of consciousness. In a woman response to the touch of the immortal happens differently to a man. A man sets out on a Grail quest. A woman has to withdraw into silence or collapse. This is what Psyche does. She walks to the river, perhaps to end her life or find deep silence. Pan, the god of wildness, being out of control, being one’s self — is sitting the river and talks Psyche out of her suicide. He tells her she must apply to the god of love, Eros, for healing. Eros is currently in the control of Aphrodite.

In a similar parallel to Parsifal who is questing all over the place, Psyche tries almost every goddess other than Aphrodite but no-one will help her. She finally goes to Aphrodite who gives her four tasks. The four tasks are perhaps one of the most powerful stories of feminine development. Though there are many analogies for masculine psychology, there are few for women.

Task One: Sorting the Seeds. Psyche must sort an enormous pile of seeds before nightfall. Predictably she wants to commit suicide. An army of ants comes to helps her. Ant-nature is primitive, instinctive, earthy. Feelings, values, timing, boundaries — these are wonderful sorting grounds and they are special to woman and femininity.

Task Two: Collecting Golden Fleece. Psyche must cross a river and collect the golden fleece of some very aggressive rams. Again Psyche collapses and heads for the river to throw herself in. Just in time the reeds whisper to her that she must go at night and collect the scraps df fleece that have been caught on fences and branches. She must avoid the ram-power which represents a great instinctive, aggressive masculine quality which is numinous and can overwhelm. She must take just enough of this power to satisfy Aphrodite.

Task Three: Fill the crystal goblet with water from the Styx. The Styx is a river guarded by monsters and it simply isn’t possible to set foot near its shore. Predictably, Psyche collapses and is so horrified she can’t even cry. An eagle flies to her, takes the goblet and flying flow dips the goblet into the water and fills it.

Task Four: The ointment of Persephone. Psyche must travel into the Underworld and ask Persephone for a casket of her beauty ointment. True to form Psyche climbs a high tower to throw herself off in horror at the enormity of the task. But in the tower she finds guidance, her intuition has led her well. She must find the breathing-space of Hades where a path leads to the Palace of Pluto god of the underworld. She must take two barley cakes in her hands, two halfpenny coins in her teeth, plenty guard her courage and energy from distraction by other events.

As she journeys to the river she sees a man with a lame donkey laden with sticks. Some sticks fall to the ground and she helps him pick them up, wasting some of her valuable energy. As she crosses the river with the ferryman, a drowning man cries for help but she must refuse him. Arriving in Hades she meets three old women weaving fate but must walk on by and ignore them. Next she confronts Cerberes, the three-headed dog. Here the barley cake comes in handy. One keeps the three heads distracted in a fight as she passes by.

She is finally in the hall of Persephone and remember the advice she received in the tower and takes only light refreshment, refusing the tempation of luxury. She asks for the beauty ointment and is given it, whereupon she retraces her steps using her final barley cake for the three heaed dog and her final ccoin for the river crossing.

On reaching the other side Psyche succumbs to the temptation of looking into the pot of beauty and at once falls into a deep sleep. Eros, seeing is beloved’s plight implores the gods to help. Zeus calls all the gods together and Psyche is given a draught of immortality so that she and Eros can live togehter in harmony as man and wife.

What the story of Psyche teaches us about the power of feminine psychology in systemic change

There are so many lessons for contemporary female leadership in this story and for the future of society it’s hard to cover them all. In this book we are most interested in what will help women who are active in systemic change so I will not make commentary on the guidance in this story on relationships between men and women. There is however, a map in here that could help guide us towards reintegration of the male and female psychologies in the redesign of society and these are the points I want to try to pick out.

1. The most important point in the first part of the story is the paradox of evolution. Aphrodite condemns Psyche to death but is also the matchmaker who brings about the wedding she is opposing. Alongside the urge for conscious evolution is always an accompanying urge to regress and step backwards to the way things were before. I experienced this as oscillating between surety and fear, knowing and not knowing, — a bit like having part of me pulled through a portal into another world (like Dr Who for those of you who are sci-fi fans) and part of me trying to live in the existing world. Had I known this was an expected part of the process of growth, I could perhaps have managed it much better and gone faster? I will never know. But I would like others on the journey to know that it will happen because then perhaps they can manage it better than I did. Perhaps Jung, however, would say you have to come to this understanding alone. I myself, don’t believe that.
2. Asking of questions. In a relationship, perhaps every man hopes that his partner will not ask any questions of him — on many levels! In the old patriarchical idea of marriage, women asked no questions. For the purpose of this systemic changehowever, what the story tells us is that asking difficult questions is an important part of shifting consciousness. We need to create psychologically safe places to have difficult conversations. We must not shy away from being the people that provoke difficult conversations. I see this instruction embodied by people like Koann Vikoren Skyziniarz at Sustainable Brands, Sally Uren at Forum for the Future, Isabel Carlisle at The Bioregional Learning Centre, Sue Riddlestone at Bioregional, Ellen McArthur to name just a few.
3. Challenging the old: to bring in the new consciousness is represented by the two sisters urging Psyche to break her promise to Eros. The challenge here is to avoid being stuck in the mentally that you have to destroy everthing a man brings or masculine psychology brings. It must be challenged, it must be exposed, but it should be done in a way that is not destructive to the fragile psychology of man. This might suggest that non-violent communication is important for us for example. It also tells us that the less beautiful aspects of our nature serve us well. So the instruction is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the process of evoution. An extremely difficult task for us in our current economies.
4. The Lamp or the Knife?: the lamp is always a symbol of consciousness. A woman’s light is softer, gentler. It’s the light of early morning and twilight. It is often called Luminea Natura, the light of nature. When she is shedding gentle light on a subject she can produce transformations. With a knife in her hand, she could kill. Psyche only uses the lamp. If the lamp is used first there is a chance of growth. In shining a gentle light on the qualities of masculine psychology we can call forth the best of its nature — however much masculine psychology fears being seen as it truly is. So the instruction to us is that whilst we must question and challenge with rigour we must also call out the good qualities of man to give hime the courage he can only get from his own anima, or feminine psychology. It’s the voice that says ‘let’s sit down and talk about this’. Every man fears that sentence; every man needs to hear it — as does out existing patriarchical system.
5. Touching the Divine; the story of Psyche shows us the importance of touching the divine, the immortal, the god within. It suggests that in western society, the only experience we have to do that is when we ‘fall in love’. That incredibly moment in time where you become blind to all else, experience clarity and focus and a wild, earthshattering experience.
   When Psyche sees the divine being who is her husband, and when he sees that she sees him, they both experience a shock. Here is the potential for a shift in consciousness but it always causes extreme pain. Eros flies back to Aphrodite and leaves Psyche. They are both expelled from paradise. They become aware.
   For most women, their animus or masculine psychology, unconsciously dominates and dictates her relationship to the outer world in early adolesence. It is during this time that she can most easily — without knowing it — adopt the outer behaviour of masculine psychology. This helps to explain alpha females around the boardroom table behaving more aggressively than men. It helps to understand the subordination of women to follow and support Donald Trump. It helps to understand why it has taken so long for human society to arrive at this point of questioning patriarchical design in society.
   What does this mean for us today? The challenge for us is to find ways to access this experience intentionally as women and as representatives of feminine psychology — if that is possible. And then to manage the return to human ordinariness, that is to say to manage the process of change and shift in consciousness that is then sparked. In some ways the shock tactics of many NGOs are an attempt to activate awareness in political circles and for the public. Many CEOs of purpose-led organisations I interviewed for this book experienced a moment of shock, often an unexpected brush with death. Can we ‘manufacture’ this activation to accelerate a shift in consciousness?
   The next observations apply to the journey after the first awakening.
6. Standing Still: in her despair Psyche does the one thing she needs to do. She stands still. She stops, but she is still receptive to knowledge. She waits actively not passively. There is very little in western philosophy that helps us with this stage of development. Perhaps because so few people have even reached this far. The comparison I can make for those in organisational design and who have used Theory U as a change process, or for creative directors of agencies, is that is like the creative pause. When you have assimilated all the knowledge available to you, there is a painful wait for it to coalesce, converge, synthesise.
   Psyche goes to the river, ostensibly to drown herself, but in reality she is looking towards life itself for new nourishment. Her instincts are correct even if outwardly it looks as if she is going in the wrong direction.
7. Panic: Psyche meets Pan at the riverside. Pan is the source of what we know as panic. An uncontrollable burst of weeping is a Pan experience. The advice here is that if we can meet the energy of panic in the right way, this energy is the source that activates the next stage of the journey. I looked at the Extinction Rebellion strategy of using panic — declaring a climate emergency — in an earlier post.
8. Finding Love & Relationship Again: Pan’s instruction is to find Eros. To find Eros poor Psyche has to confront Aphrodite. She tries every altar for help but Aphrodite’s. Here is the parallel with Parsifal’s Grail Quest. When she eventually confronts Aphrodite she is subjected to humiliation before being given 4 tasks. The lesson here is that there is a period of pain following panic. A period of seeking for help. A period of going in the wrong direction. A period of constant rejection until you find the right place. It speak to activating a culture of experimentation, it speaks to cultivating an attitude of humility and gratitude. It speaks to the invisibility women feel when they first step forwards with opinions, support, projects, activations of their own. It speaks to the importance of cultivating joy. There is so much to think about in this one piece of the story!
   Now we arrive at the tasks, we finally get some instructions on what to do!!
9. Understand what needs to be kept: Psyche goes to the tower. The tower represents our civilisation’s cultural legacy. It provides instruction which suggests we need to fully understand the root causes of the need for this journey. We are reminded to seek understanding and possibly to go to a place to grieve before setting forth.
10. The Knowledge of Women & The Wise: going to the tower is symbolic of learning from the past. Community and learning from other women is vital. There is much to learn from previous activists, writers, psychologists — from St Teresa of Avila to Jacinda Ardern — what can we learn from the journeys of other women. Discerning from history and other cultures is important — east, west and indigenous wisdom will help us.
11. Seek the intelligence of Nature. In the first of the three tasks Psyche’s helpers come from the natural world; ants, reeds and an eagle. This suggests to us that there is powerful energy to be sourced from partnership with nature. We see this emerging everywhere in dialogue about the future of land management, food, regenerative agriculture. In the emergence of biomimicry, ecological design and permaculture practive.
12. Find and Trust your Instinctive Self: The ants represent instinctive nature, the unique ability of feminine psychology to sort what needs to be done — both in practical life and in our inner development. The ability to protect ourselves from the dangers of ego, depression, suicide. This is one of the key elements of feminine psychology which we have lost in our present era and it’s vital to restore it — individually, organisationally, culturally.
13. Listen to the Edges: the reeds grow where water meets land. This suggest to us we need to seek out and cultivate the energy that is at the edges of worlds, of society, of organisations. The places where the ground under our feet shifts.
14. Take only the power you need: Psyche is warned not to confront the violence of masculine ram power but to find ways round and through it — quietly in the dark and that remnant of fleece will be enough. There’s a real question here for anything from organisational design to individual women; how much of masculine power is enough, how much is too much, how much is too little? What do we use and how do we use it well?
15. One Step at a Time: the crystal goblet represents the ego. It is fragile and easily shattered. The eagle takes only one goblet at a time. We are reminded not to go at things like a bull in a china shop, but to proceed mindfully, intentionally, thoughtfully — absorbing one lesson at a time. It’s also a reminder of cultivating patience. This is hugely difficult in a complex world. Where do we put our attention first? Where do we begin? Feminine nature is flooded with the vastness of possibilities. Apparently many polymaths are, when studied, deeply connected to their feminine psychology. It’s also a trap, as many neo-generalists will recognise. We (I am one) can become caught in our excitement of seeing all the plethora of possibilities as we join the dots on the journey. As much of a gift, it can also be a distraction. We have to learn to manage unfocussed consciousness (see below). We have to learn to develop an eagle-eyed-view which is systems thinking — but then see the whole and focus on one ‘prey’ at a time.
16. The Final Task: in the final task the story shares with us the very last stage of a woman finding consciousness. For individuals, this is something few women in past history attempted to do. It is becoming more common now. In the shape of ‘guides’ that mysteriously appear, it strongly suggests to us that we should not attempt this part of the journey without guides to help us. I have broken out the lessons in the final task below.
    Finding focus: She must avoid distractions and conserve energy and focus. A laser-like focus on the end goal is what is important, self-care and resilience management, and an acceptance of suffering and loss along the way. There is a particular warning that the feminine traits of generosity and kindness can be a distraction so must only be used in pursuit of the goal. There is a whole book in the last part of that sentence but here it’s enough to say that it is an issue to watch out for. This has been one of the most challenging aspects of my own journey and in many ways I have got stuck here. Distracted by my own ‘seeing’ of the multiple inter-connected crisis in the world and not being able to choose where to act, and hampered by radical generosity.
    Receiving Nothing: when Psyche looks inside the casket, she sees nothing but is made unconscious by looking. This is the most dangerous part of her whole journey. It is where a road to becoming a hard and distant spiritual being is one option, but this leads to darkness. It may be akin in our current circumstances to relying on technology to save us.
    ‘Nothing’ represents something deep within which is akin to the invisible, unknowable gift and mystery of healing. I can tell you that is what the analysis of psychology says, but I cannot speak to the experience. I am not here yet. Some of you reading this may know.
    Love is the answer: when Psyche falls unconscious she activates Eros who comes to rescue her. Her interior masculine side calls to love. ‘Only love can save you from the hardness of partial spirituality’. Psyche finds her own immortality through her journey with Eros and fulfils the promise given and gives birth to a daughter. I wish I could speak more to this final and last stage. I can’t. I can say that I can see it in individual women who have finally stepped out into leadership in this crazy world and finally chosen the arena in which they will shine their light. They may be young, they may be old. They are no longer supporting men but truly leading with equality. I can see its influence inside whole systems appearing through those women and men who are leading co-creative collaborations for systemic change. I can see it in initiatives like the Economics of Happiness GDH in Bhutan or in legal measures like the Wellness of Future Generations Act in Wales. I can see the force of Aphrodite in Greta Thunberg, especially as she’s on the high seas as I write this blog but she hasn’t landed on the shores of love just yet.

I hope if you have got this far, some lights have gone off for you. I do believe there are really good lessons in mythology for us in these turbulent times. This is one small excerpt in a chapter on narratives in my forthcoming book. In the rest of book I explore strategies in the world that is, to help us activate this shift.

In our Connectle conversation on August 27th, I hope we may explore some of the dimensions of this story in our conversation about co-creative and collaborative leadership. You can register here.

I am deeply, deeply indebted to, and have learned so much from, the work of many historians, psychologists. Carl Jung of couse, but especially to the work of Robert A Johnson which I studied many years ago and which is now bearing so much fruit for me. Almost everything in this excerpt comes from inspiration from his stories of He and She psychology. I also thank my own Aphrodite in the shape of my jungian analyst Oona who is no sadly longer with us but who got me started on this path 10 years ago and with whom I engaged in many brutal battles on the path.