Woman Women

In life the conscious attention a woman has to give to her animus (her inner male) problem takes much time and involves a lot of suffering. But if she realises who and what her animus is and what he does to her, and if she faces these realities instead of allowing herself to be possessed, her animus can turn into an invaluable inner companion who endows her with the masculine qualities of initiative, courage, objectivity, and spiritual wisdom. Archetype of the Animus

Example: For women in particular there is an urge to give their love. What are you going to do with that love, have babies? If that is the direction you want to go, wonderful, go for it. Let all the power of your love and energy stream into it. Claim it as yours. Fill it with yourself. If that is not what you want, don’t flap about thinking that’s not what you want and being half-hearted about it.

Don’t kill that energy however. The energy of procreation is the fundamental river of life. But if you want it to go elsewhere let it build up and build up until it bursts through into the area you wish . Awareness is the key. What are you going to spend your wonderful female energy on? Are you going to spend it on a man? If you do, he might not even know the wonderful thing you are offering him. Is that what you want to do with it? Well, maybe spend some on him. But not all of it. You have so much of it. Awareness is the key. It is the flow of your life. Do not block it or allow it to become tangled up by pain. If it does, return to the source of your being for renewal and healing. Take the energy up to expanded awareness. Feel the pain of giving birth to that new self. Become a whole woman. I see all women, as holding within themselves, all women who have existed. They are agelesss, and at the same time the latest, the top of the heap, the newest model with all the bells and whistles. But unless they keep in contact with the stream of their own life, their source of womanhood, they will desiccate, dry up, as a person. If they lose contact with that, they are simply a painted face. You are simply what the plastic surgeon does. You might look like a beautiful shell, but you are dead inside. See Core

A woman has a variety of ways she needs to be fulfilled. That is, by being cared about, being loved sexually, having her man do something valuable socially, and having a companion of depth and width she can play and cry, work and talk with. So a powerful woman can face a powerful man because she knows her own power. She feels within her the ability to stand as a force in the world, as well as the ability to care for her own children or even others. She acknowledges everything everything she is, from her animal within her to her human ability to take hold of the world and create, children as well as business or social functions. She has a natural religious feeling which may have nothing to do with the church or other religious bodies, but is a love of life and its creatures. She is a WOMAN.

Example: Part of the imagery I had experience was that the spider creature, the woman, the female of the species, has a fundamental message that she is crying out either unconsciously or consciously. It is, “I am different. I am different. I am different!” “I’ve got something wonderful.” This is a very basic thing, a cry from her own genetic material. She is saying “Mate with me I am offering you something that is different to anybody else.” This even flows into the personality where the woman might present herself as better, different, more wonderful. Very often the woman is trying to get a particular male, or a particular type of male. She has, consciously or unconsciously, an ideal that she is seeking. But that male, or that type of male, may not actually become her partner. So then she looks around to see if she can attract the nearest to that ideal, and if that fails she may take whatever opportunity allows. She looks to see who’s next in line.

A young woman may need to create an inner man, an image or concept of manhood, within herself, before she can relate to a mate. But before a woman takes a man as a mate she needs to define exactlty –What is a MAN. That is not what her fantsies or romantic ideas are but see the whole spectrum of maleness from murders; sexual predators; young inexperienced males, older males who have been married to old men.

A woman in a woman’s dream: An aspect of yourself, but often a facet of you that is not immediately identified with. See Being the Person or Thing

Goddess, holy or oriental woman: The dreamer’s highest potential; what she is capable of but may not yet have lived; her intuition and wisdom transcending her own personality. Something she has brought to life what lives and expresses through all life – a universal sympathy. If you have lived with someone for a while with a girl or a woman, you have developed an inner female.

Inner female woman: Many people do not realise that they have an inner woman equally as powerful as an external woman. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your the girl or woman, and they are what makes you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner woman can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

Example: I dreamt of being with a woman who was desperately seeking a man. I was also with my own female companion. I believe the woman had been suddenly dropped by her man, and I and my partner were close and with her.

Still in the semi-awake state I tried ‘being’ the woman, and had a very clear response. I experienced being her, but was also me with experience of seeing into myself in some degree. I saw that the woman, like most of us, was a female creature whose instinctive drive was to find a mate. But she was not aware of this as an instinctive drive but as a personal feeling. As such she had become, like many women and men, lost in a huge web of personal ideas about whether they were attractive, sexy, with many complications about love, gender mixed with childhood unconscious traumas and the heartbreak all that brings.

But women have a much older and more wonderful inner woman. Yes, you grew from a seed, but no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very huge and ancient self. For in a real way, you are simply a conscious personality riding an ancient beast, your body.

Example:  I could then see a fairly easy way to climb the great tree. So, I climbed up and the top of the tree was like a massive bell of a flower, like a crocus shape. And it was light and colourful. Suddenly I saw a spirit, a beautiful female. It was the spirit of the tree. At this point I was semi awake, and I wanted to hold the beautiful spirit, but realised that the tree was a representation of my life, and so was the spirit of the tree. The spirit sat on me in a sexual position, so I was lying on my back and she was upright. She slowly took me into her, I mean the whole me, as if she was sucking my whole body into her. I realised that I had to die because she wanted to take all my experience of life and endeavour into her and fertilise herself to form a baby. So, I was ready to die and watched her form a new baby, a mixture of her and me.

Older woman: Could be the dreamer’s mother; her feelings about ageing; her sense of inherited wisdom; sometimes, if you are a woman, she represents the person you are becoming.

One woman one man: Behaviour patterns arising from parental relationship.

Two women and the dreamer: Conflicting feelings or drives.

Woman’s sister and female children: Particularly used to represent herself. The character of the dream woman, loving, angry, businesslike, lazy, sexual, give a clue to what part of the dreamer it is referring to. If the dream woman is a person known well, the above can still be the case, but the woman may represent what the dreamer feels about that person.

Woman in a house: Can represent your mother or wife.

Woman younger than the dreamer: Oneself at that age.

Woman in a man’s dream: This is fundamentally about your felt relationship with a particular woman, or women in general. What is happening in the dream will depict the aspect of relationship being illustrated. The dreamer’s present relationship with his own feelings and intuitive self; his sensitivity and contact with his unconscious through receptivity; or how he is relating to his female partner. The latter is especially so if the woman in the dream is his partner.

Old woman: Usually the dreamer’s mother. The woman, because she is his feelings, is obviously also his sexual desires and how he meets them. But very often it represent the power of experience, or old experience and wisdom. In terms of the dreamer, it can signify your own intuitive power – a power because it carries a lot of your own energy and wholeness with it. It can, in some dreams represent what you have brought to life what lives and expresses through all life – a universal sympathy.

Oriental woman in occidental dream: The aspect of mind and emotions that links the conscious personality with its unconscious transcendental wisdom and intuition, and perhaps the capacity to love.

Two women and the dreamer: An ‘eternal triangle’ situation; conflicting feelings.

Unmarried woman: Dreaming of being unmarried – is it a desire for freedom or independence, or comparison with present situation if married? Also it might point to the way you were prior to marriage. Possible hope for a new sexual partner, a husband prior to marriage or an unmarried male friend. Recent documentaries on tribal life showed clearly how polygamy in such groups was a powerful force in child care, women’s support, and leaving no one unmarried and uncared for at the death of parents.

It worked well in a group that had no social welfare and survival in a harsh environment that was hard for all. An argument against polygamy is that of females being subordinate to males, but in some cultures the polygamy is that of a woman having several male partners. An Indian young woman states she had no conflict over the fact that Hindus in Asia closely protect unmarried girls and that she was living with a West Indian. She said, “I am not being unfaithful to anyone and after all this is quite the usual practice among students in London”.

She finished the interview by saying that she felt much more united with the Almighty and at peace inside herself. She is certainly completely relaxed and able to discuss her situation living in Western culture with great charm and understanding.

One may remain unmarried because of immaturity or a powerful mother influence. An unmarried woman secretary of 28 was referred by the family doctor in 1959 because of her fear of being sick, for which he could find no organic cause. She was the only daughter of middle class parents and lived at home in comfort in a London suburb. She was of superior intelligence and a first class secretary. The details of her social relationships showed evidence of marked emotional immaturity and she was leading a social life appropriate to an 18-year old girl. After treatment she sums up – “I see now that I was terribly immature and very very greatly influenced by my mother, who had the most tremendous power over me. It was quite unconscious on her part, but she was my God, and that is what I saw under the treatment.

Example: It all started off, by this awful fear of sickness. I wasn’t sick but I was absolutely petrified that I was going to be. I think is was the fact that when I was sick, I associated that with being ill in bed and therefore under Mummy’s power completely. I was very much worse after I had glandular fever, which I had very badly, and I was in bed for three weeks. It also got worse every time I fell in love with anybody. I had lots of boy friends, but twice before I met my husband I fell in love, and then this fear of sickness became very much worse. Every time I went out with a boy friend to a restaurant I got quite panic stricken that I was going to be sick, and of course, I felt sick because I got in such a state about it that I made myself feel really sick.  Well of course, having been married for two years, and knowing what real love is, I would say no. I used to get these “little pink cloud” romances, which is the sort of thing that happens to teenagers, which was merely infatuation, but it was never a really deep love.” Quoted from LSD and Ritalin in the Treatment of Neurosis, by Ling and Buckman.

Example: I was getting married with two other couples. We all wore Cinderella dresses, but I didn’t have a husband. Then I changed into peach coloured long skirt and danced – really let my hair down. The others went off on their honeymoon. I’m 21 and my boyfriend and I have decided not to get married as both our parents are going through awful divorces.  Theresa

Cinderella is of course the girl without parents. So you are taking into your decision – to wed, or not – Cinderella is of course the girl without parents. So you are taking into your decision  feelings of being unsupported. Obviously your parent’s divorce contributes to this. Do remember Theresa, that neither marriage nor living as an unmarried couple, guarantees against break up. Many unmarried couples I personally know have gone through the most bitter separations.

Divorce is not necessarily failure, it is change. If you don’t live in make-believe-land where all things forever remain in a state of sleepy permanency, then you can plan for change. Most bitterness in parting is about money and hurt hopes, or maybe misplaced dependence. If you can learn to love each other without possessiveness, and with awareness of normal change, you can avoid many of these hurts. It makes the relationship stronger too. See Ages of Love

Younger woman: Can depict his desires for a woman of that age, or his more vulnerable emotions.

Example: ‘I gave birth to a baby girl I named Charlotte. I had mixed emotions about this, uncertainty, excitement. I wanted to share the news with my friends. I phoned one, a woman in Australia. I told her with enthusiasm, but she listened quietly and remained silent. I felt uneasy, then she said ‘We lost Luke’ – her son – ‘the week before.’ I then woke with muddled feelings.’ Mo.

The example helps make plain how the other woman in mo’s dream is the aspect of her that is in pain and mourning. Mo explored her feelings about the dream characters. It all fell into place when she asked herself what she had ‘lost’ recently. She had left a lover of some years standing. This gave her a lot more freedom and new opportunity, depicted by the baby, but also muddled feelings of loss. Her Australian friend represents her feelings of grieving for the ‘death’ of her relationship. Her muddled feelings arise because she both loves the new life which opens up, but grieves the death of her romance.

Example: ‘On a raised mobile platform a goddess stood. I loved her and flew to her, skimming above the heads of the people. I talked to her. She told me the only love I could receive from her was that which I gave to a human woman. Inasmuch as I gave love to a human female, she would love me. She was all women.’ Andrew P.

The example shows Andrew meeting his archetypal conception of a woman, his ideal. But he understands that you cannot love an ideal. His love must find a real woman. Through a real love he would call love from out of himself, out of his unconscious reserve. The conditions or situations of the woman, see under appropriate entries, such as illness, murder, swimming, etc. See: anima; the great mother; old wise woman – old wise man under archetypes.