Duality, Feminine, Masculine, and the Androgyne in Myth
In the language of astrology, mythology, and Jungian psychology, the great energies of the universe and psyche are portrayed in the language of seeming opposites. These seeming opposites are imaged as Shiva and Shakti in Tantric traditions, Yin and Yang in Taoist traditions, and Feminine and Masculine figures in Greco-Roman traditions.
The Jungian, astrological, and alchemical use of the terms Feminine and Masculine felt somewhat jarring to me initially. I imagine they may for you as well, precisely because our culture has literalized those terms in ways that continue to harm so many. A few understandings helped me to engage these terms as symbols, which is how they are intended and used in astrology and myth.
In myths, the same archetypal figure may well appear in many forms: anthropomorphic (human form), theriomorphic (animal form), and phytomorphic (plant form). And, even in human form, the same figure may appear in Feminine form one moment, Masculine form the next, and Androgyne the next. It’s clear that gender was not nearly as rigid or literalized in the minds of our ancient ancestors as it is in ours.
Androgynous characters hold a place of power and reverence in myth and in our dreams. Astrologically speaking, for example, Hermes or Mercury is an androgynous, shape-shifting force within us and in nature, capable of communicating with all three realms of the human psyche: the realm of the gods (Olympus), the realm of humans (think Middle-earth), and the underworld. Their influence is so central to our unfolding that Jung suggested that They are the beginning, middle, and end of the work of healing.
In the language of astrology and myth as images from Psyche HerSelf, the terms Masculine and Feminine are not referring to gender. Rather, they are symbols; two faces of the same archetypal field. Yin and Yang are each other. Shiva and Shakti are each other. From the lens of astrology and Jungian psychology, Masculine figures in myths, tales, and dreams represent the inner Yang energy, and Feminine figures represent the inner Yin energy. Keywords like “active” for masculine and “receptive” for feminine are not helpful, since there is, of course, such a thing as active feminine energy, and receptive masculine energy.
While many traditions, for thousands of years, have seen through the inaccurate and harmful limits of our dualistic perception as humans, it seems that our consciousness may not be able to experience itself beyond duality without first traversing duality’s realms. Consider the images of Yantras, or the creation myths from cultures around the world. I like to imagine these as histories of the birth of consciousness in the human psyche, rather than as literalized cosmic histories. And in those symbolic histories of consciousness, duality is always birthed, whether as fire and ice, night and day, light and dark, earth and cosmos. Duality, it seems, is an inescapable part of human experience and perception, and an inevitable aspect in every creation myth with which I am familiar.