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Absolutely beautifully written Carecare7, thank you for this vision!
And may I add this bit that I found on the BBC today… the message is coming thru in many places and in many ways! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and power as a woman. We all benefit from such strength in modelling vulnerability and honesty.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27715006
One more thing; that vulnerability “he” fears was always something I held space for (even before I knew what “held space” meant). The more vulnerable he was, the more I wanted to give myself because I know how that feels to be vulnerable and in giving myself, I hoped I would not only have some amazing sex (and I mostly did) but maybe, just maybe, I could help him along the way. Even now I feel that desire to give to men if I sense their vulnerability.
Imagine if everyone looked at sex that way instead of as an exchange of power? Instead of an exchange of control? Instead of the opposite sex as an adversary to be controlled or conquered? Imagine if we looked at it as an exchange of compassion, of healing, of pleasure for both. That would remove the predatory feeling of men trying to “get it” from women and women “withholding it” from men as a function of power and control. That dance harms everyone.
” “He” is vulnerable in that moment because he is not in control.”
That right there is the evil that patriarchy foists upon men; the idea that they “must” be in control all the time. Living up to that means seeing that vulnerability as a bad thing instead of as a good and positive thing.
When I was younger and not consecrated in marriage, I freely chose to have sex with men I didn’t even know without all the usual trappings of dinner and other “payment” forms because I was honest with myself and them and just wanted to connect and have sex. The men always were unfailingly considerate of my pleasure in these encounters. They never treated me like a piece of meat or an object. It was as if by offering myself honestly and freely, they felt they could do the same and not feel bad about their desire for me. They told me it was so relieving to not “have” to be the proactive one facing rejection; my outright asking them meant they didn’t have to worry about that at all but they could still be themselves and not face an affronted woman the next morning. I was never drunk or impaired so they knew it was of my own free will. I didn’t only sleep with buff good looking guys; I slept with average guys and even some that most would have thought somewhat unattractive but I saw in them something; a sweetness, a vulnerability they were trying to hide, a friendliness or they made me laugh. Being less choosy meant I got a lot of good sex more often and these guys got laid by a woman they thought of as beautiful. Some were too afraid to approach me back then because they thought me too beautiful; so I approached them.
If women stop allowing anyone to put the shame on us for wanting sex just for sex (if we want that) and we stand up for that right, a lot more men (and women) would be getting sex and feeling less of the anxiety about possible rejection. The bonobos have less violence because they have a lot more sex. Studies on human societies have shown that in those where sex is more allowed and less shamed (and where parents hold and co-sleep with their babies) violence is way lower.
I tell this because I feel both genders have things they need to do to make sexuality and rape culture and all the negatives of patriarchy end. Yes, men do need to understand women’s fears; listen to us and stop defending yourselves but instead work to end patriarchy. Men also need to do their best not to encourage rape culture (objectifying women with the joking and the cat-calls and the sense of entitlement that some good-guys seem to have when they befriend women). Instead of always being a cunt-hound, guys can actually relate to women as human beings.
Women need to stop acting like pussy is a commodity to be only doled out to the wealthy, good-looking, buff (worthy) guys I found those wealthy and good-looking guys were the worst in bed; they relied on their looks instead of developing an interesting and compassionate personality. I can’t say ALL good looking guys are like that but a lot of average and even less attractive guys are really amazing lovers if given the chance. Sex is good, let’s have responsible (think STDs and pregnancy prevention) sex as much as we want and not let anyone make us feel shame for wanting it, being honest about wanting it, and having it.
All this comes down to people knowing themselves; their programming, their lenses, their values. Instead of approaching sex from the control-over standpoint that patriarchy is, we can approach it from a control-from-within standpoint where each person makes choices of their own free will without shame.
Though I dislike saying it, I believe (and sociological studies have shown this to be) religion has been (and continues to be) an extremely negative reinforcer of patriarchy and all the bad in it. The less religious a society is, the more sex people feel free to have and also the less violent people are.
Two possible suggestions for alternative reasons for culturally controlling female sexuality:
– an attempt at controlling the (mistaken) source of male arousal? It is so difficult for modern humans to estimate how much or how little was correctly understood by ancient peoples in terms of how their bodies worked. If they did not understand the biology of arousal, perhaps they thought that women wielded some sort of mysterious power over them when males became aroused. If women were seen as the “source” of this energy, then young and sexually active women would likely be seen to hold more of this magical property that affected male bodies so directly. We have to remember that at various times humans have not understood reproduction, as we’ve seen mentioned here before – we once believed that tiny, fully formed humans were in the male “seed” which was “planted” in the earth/feminine. But what CAUSES that original desire response in the male? If patriarchy means that males hold dominion and power over everything, here is one area where they are sometimes NOT in control and perhaps this is the cause of the fear of the sexually-charged woman. We have remnants of this line of thinking present in phrases like “I just can’t help myself…” and in songs and music that echo this theme… that somehow some males experience being momentarily de-powered just at the initial moment of arousal. “He” is vulnerable in that moment because he is not in control. Being not in control produces anxiety. Regaining control over females sexual availability means reducing the exposure to feelings of vulnerability and anxiety. I have heard more than one man admit this is part of the arousal experience for him – the fear of not being in control.
OR
– if a culture is deeply patriarchal then (generally speaking) some sort of male Godhead sits in ultimate power in some sort of Heaven. As the biological representatives most closely aligned to the head Deity, all males would sit at the top of the heap in their cultures and everything else is “below” and thus less-than in terms of value/power/importance. In this framework controlling women’s fertility/reproduction becomes an outreach of all the other means of control that is exercised over the other aspects of “His” world just as the Godhead is supposed to exercise dominion over what goes on here on earth. Everything is objectified and interpreted as being created to serve the males in the culture who are representatives of the male deity(s) who are supreme in the religious beliefs of those cultures. The assumption of power over females may not have a genetic component but more of a social/religious one as a reflection of a particular belief system. There are threads of this present in many modern religions.
“But if a female archetype ventured into explorations/expressions of her sensual/sexual nature then all sorts of havoc would arise, so it is the sexuality of the Feminine that is to be controlled/feared most of all, apparently.”
The sexuality (aka fertility) of females is STILL controlled worldwide from puberty through menopause. I can think of only one reason to control that; doing so assures any males that their resources are going for their genetic offspring. Can anyone here think of another reason? I am open to suggestions.
@ Carecare7 🙂
I have often wondered if the archetypes themselves are tired of all these one-sided projections that have been heaped upon them from having been conceived in and living THEIR entire lives within the framework of the patriarchy. They are “stuck” just as we are with these moldy, old stories! 🙂
There is ONE example that comes to mind from the traditional pantheon of Astrology archetypes where there is Female/Goddess who is seen as an equal to any of her male counterparts and that is Athena. She’s the closest we have to a fully realized Goddess – able to beat Mars in war even! For those who don’t know Herstory <( pun intended) I recommend reading about her. The thing is however, as powerful as Athena is, she's not very warm and fuzzy, or sexy for that matter. She is the goddess of many, many attributes having arrived fully formed and clad in armor from the forehead of her father Zeus but she is a Virgin Goddess, like Diana and Vesta. It seems that to the Greeks, as long as a woman/goddess didn't enter into the sexual arena, she was allowed to keep her intrinsic power. But if a female archetype ventured into explorations/expressions of her sensual/sexual nature then all sorts of havoc would arise, so it is the sexuality of the Feminine that is to be controlled/feared most of all, apparently.
One of the things that I love about the way I was taught astrology was to think of all the particles in astrology ( planets, signs, houses, aspects, the traditional myths that underpin much of the symbolism etc.) as characters able to speak their own stories which may be different from the traditional ones we all learn in the beginning. Going into an attentive imaginal space (akin to a Shamanic state) we can dialog with any of these characters and learn more from them by engaging in direct conversations and LISTENING for the new stories that may be wanting to emerge. I've gained a lot of insight from my own natal chart by going in and dialoging directly with the characters as they are mapped out by the chart.
So much to say on this subject but I'm at work right now. The rich discussions here in PW are so nourishing!
“Having read this presentation of the myth and the etymological explanation of the name Deianira, I wonder if she could be read as a metaphor for a powerful weapon.”
And to follow that thought, what is it under patriarchy (which has within it the belief that males are superior) that sees females as DANGEROUS (a weapon)?
If males were/are truly superior, why do they fear the “power” of females so much? Why ascribe to females any power or danger at all? That’s the question, isn’t it?
[Note; I use caps because I don’t know how to make words show up in bold type.]
“This story only makes sense to me if I read this metaphorically — the river crossing is about life’s journey and how we maneuver through changing waters. The male aspect seems to sail through while our female side suffers … please forgive me if I’m too simplistic on this … mmm.”
As this myth was written while under the influence of patriarchy, if looked at in that sense it makes sense. Imagine this myth if it were NOT written under patriarchy; what would have changed in the story? Or, what if it were written in a matriarchy…how would the story have changed?
I know astrology deals with the myths but all of them, ALL so far (that we know of), were written while under the influence of patriarchy which assumes the male as the default human and anything else (females and in some societies, gender queer or homosexuals) are the “other” and “lesser.” That means males will be dominant and females subordinate in these stories/myths.
I can only wonder how astrology would be interpreted if those myths were written (and astrological attributes and rulerships ascribed) under an equal paradigm where gender is not the important thing.
It bears thinking about. Always note the lens that is being used when looking at anything (myths, astrology, stories, HIStory, etc).
2 pence to add to the anger/rage discussion.
Also to do with how we go for the ‘best’ (meringue, lifestyle, advertising) rather than looking for nourishment. ie perhaps making a perfect life like a pretty frame with no tolerance for ‘lesser’ people and emotions.
A tendency to always play your ‘strengths’. This one occurred to me when I found myself in situations I didn’t like which i had to stay with for one reason or another and finally found myself with skills I wouldn’t have had by choice. And another where the only thing which worked was identifying my bad qualities (relevant) one by one and getting rid of them (building them into strengths of one sort or another).
Having read this presentation of the myth and the etymological explanation of the name Deianira, I wonder if she could be read as a metaphor for a powerful weapon.
Marymack, you are onto something. The female is caught in a triangle of masculine entities without agency of her own: her dead brother, the hero, and the centaur. Her only exercise of power is an undercurrent, and seems to lie in her sex. Seen as archetypes, it must be necessary to deploy the feminine in this duel. Why?
If I am Heracles, Nessus, and Deienira, what does it mean that the feminine is “destroyer of men?” the sex is key. The Victorians gloss over the sex with the translation violate. When sex shows up in these ancient stories, always look for the parts they left out, or were too repressed to even see.
I don’t know about Greece, but in parts of the ancient world, it was hospitality to give a guest a female member of the household for sex. If the idea of violation is removed, then perhaps Deienira is exercising her available power with intention.
So interesting. Thank you, Eric.
This story only makes sense to me if I read this metaphorically — the river crossing is about life’s journey and how we maneuver through changing waters. The male aspect seems to sail through while our female side suffers … please forgive me if I’m too simplistic on this … mmm.
Yes Linda this seems to be an inherent contradiction that’s been bugging me the past couple of days.
I am only a lowly lay-person, but it certainly would appear that (sex with) Deianira was “the fare”. The outstanding question that I have is, “why did Heracles pay the fare (as it seems it was his to pay with her) and then shoot Nessus anyway? “Paying the fare” and then renigging on it (in a sense) seems to have a lot to do with something here.
Re: the preponderance of violent rage in our modern culture that Carecare7 asks about is a pivotal question and one I’ve been pondering a lot ever since The Mars retrograde cycle started. I’m not a neuro-scientist but I enjoy listening to them talk about our brains which are a true miracle.
Our species has been on a phenomenally rapid trajectory of development that has been artificially augmented by our own successful technological developments especially those of the last century. These advances highly favor and are the continuing results of increased left-brain thinking and values. A hugely simplistic metaphor is to say that the left-brain style of thinking is similar to technological thinking/valuing and right-brain thinking is similar to natural world feeling/valuing. Left-brain loves to solve problems and work faster faster FASTER!. Right brain loves to merge into wholeness and dwells in feelings and processes wordlessly and slowly. Left-brain uses language to identify everything that the body senses, but the right brain does the pure sensing without the labeling.
I am beginning to understand that our collective conditioning in our modern world might be more about our elevation of left-brain processing than the easier to define male-female, patriarchal programing issues currently being (so beautifully and fully) discussed here in PW. If you think about it, just a few hundred years ago most people lives lives more closely aligned with nature and agrarian life-needs which enabled us to work in slower cycles of time which promoted attributes such as sensitivity to signals arising in the outer/natural world, patience, cooperation, respect for natural systems and cycles etc. As our left-brain based societies and technologies advanced quickly, we have elevated our capacities for problem solving, quick/rational thinking, aggression and competition, and all manner of lifestyle choices that reflect this half of our big brains. What has not been allowed to keep up with this rapid development (as far as we can tell) is a similar level of advancement in right-brain processing and valuing. I believe that much of the violence that we see now in our culture is a natural outcome from and symptom of this schism. As we move further and further into left-brain territory and abandon our right-brain’s ways of processing and developing we are loosing our abilities to be patient, to be comfortable with ambiguity, to have empathy/sympathy/compassion – for ourselves and others. I believe that the violence we are seeing more of in our young people is a warning that the two halves of our brains may literally be loosing the capacity to speak to one another. Either that OR what we are in the middle of, evolutionarily speaking, is a process where something new is emerging but not yet fully realized.
As a simple example, I point to how most of us no longer write with instruments in our dominant hands, but write thru both hands either on keyboards or by texting (usually done with both hands on a small device). This is a brand-new development for our collective, only a decade or so old, a mere nano-second evolutionarily speaking…and it may eventually provide us a way to help reconnect or bridge our language-based left brains with our imaginative-based right-brains, but we are not there yet. FAR from it. Our young people generally have grown up in a world completely cut off from nature-based stimulation and have brains that have developed in a world totally devoted to and encompassed by technology and the use of violence may be a cry from the right-brains to not abandon that side of our being-ness. This makes total sense to me though I am having a difficult time articulating the breadth and depth that I am currently understanding this new awareness. This teaching is so powerful for me at the moment that it is even coming in thru my dreams, which lets me know that this is something really important that demands I pay attention.
What I get most out of the Herakles-Nessus myth is the warning about the false aggrandizement of the Hero archetype when it is so hyper-polarized onto one side of a spectrum, in this case, the Male-Hero-as-god concept. To me, the smaller details of this myth (was Deianira willing or not, was sex involved or not, etc) are not as important as the larger theme of this myth. For me, Nessus represents the pivot point where Herakles’ karma comes back around to meet him and he reaps what he has sown. This is for me, the message of the teaching story. The male-hero-as-god character thought he could achieve success by killing off the representatives of the half-natural world (the centaurs), the representatives of our right-brain selves. As he attempted to escape the killing fields, he then chose to abandon his most beloved wife to one of the remaining remnants of right-brained/half-wild world. Why does he do this? It is quite simple, he does this because he has moved so far into his own methodology that he has become disconnected from his ability to recognize cause and effect. He is so filled with his own sense of powerfull-ness that he cannot imagine that downfall is possible, thus he is unable to IMAGINE any bad outcome may result in his actions. He is unable to identify the true nature of of Nessus because he (mistakenly) thought he had successfully killed off all that nasty-chaos-driven part of the world, his world… and now all that was left must surely be the world as the Hero-god was now making for himself. He is quite literally unable to see the consequences of his choices because he either killed or abandoned those parts of himself that are required to give him the feedback that would warn him about or protect him from his own mortality.
Herakles is us now in so many ways. And the Nessus myth warns us that our own death will absolutely come to us by our own denial and hubris if we stick to the story where we think that if we killed Nature and abandon the Feminine we will succeed.
Dieter Koch says:
I wonder: What exactly was the fare that Nessus expected and what exactly was the fare that Hercules was willing to pay? Was there some ambivalence in the deal? Was Hercules not aware of the unbridled nature of Centaurs? Did he, the Centaur killer, perhaps even provoke the disaster?
Elizabeth – I see how you’re reading this. Yes, there is a lack of clarity of what the fee was for, per se. I will run this past Dieter and Melanie. Thanks for pointing this out. efc
From Friday’s PW
<< Here is where the story gets blurry, so for clarity I will quote the original translation, by J. G. Frazer: "So Hercules crossed the river by himself, but on being asked to pay the fare he entrusted Deianira to Nessus to carry over. But he, in ferrying her across, attempted to violate her." >>
What I want to know is, why are so many young men so full of violent rage in the first place? Why are so many young women so full of violent rage? While the males might take their rage out on others and females may take it out on themselves (through cutting and other self-harm) it makes me wonder why these kids are so angry. Maybe if we can address that, we can figure out how to help them.
I am amazed over and over again how the cycle of the astrological connections come into play in life. I am of the thought process; prove to me that it works, let me see it with my own eyes, and then I’ll believe it. Nessus is definitely proving it’s prominence in my current situations right now. Playing a part that I really don’t want to play but apparently it is time. I would not have seen it so clearly, if not for the detailed explanations in your articles.
Main belt asteroid 157 Dejanira. Don’t let the spelling throw you, same mythical figure.
Orbital period: 4.14 years.
Discovered December 1, 1875, Las Cruces NM.
Discovery position: direct at 7+ Gemini.
Current position: retrograde at 6+ Sagittarius.
Ascending node: 2+ degree Gemini.
Perhihelion: 16+ Taurus.
And thanks to Eric and his all-star collaborators for one of the best subscriber editions ever.
I am really fascinated by Nessus as well–the myth and the astrology. I think this retrograde has much healing potential for all of us, especially if we can slow down a bit and really listen to what’s happening on a much deeper level than we normally do. Mercury’s trine to Nessus feels like an opening up of spaces within us that we’ve been keeping at bay somehow or avoiding– feeling out what it is we need to put a stop to in our personal lives.
Good call, Shelley. I believe there is an astseroid Deianira — Robert von Heeren — co-author of Pholus (with Deiter Koch, who helped out PW today) mapped this out in the Nessus discovery chart. It may be spelled a little differently. I have an email into him and I will try him again.
There is an asteroid called Heracles that is within a few degrees of the Sun through the Mercury retrograde cycle. It is also in a partile opposition to the Great Attractor and sextile Uranus tomorrow when Mercury retros. Hopefully we will be conscious of reality and the polarizing effect Eric wrote about yesterday in his Daily Astrology.
So we know the astrological position of both Nessus and Heracles, but I can’t find an asteroid for Deianira. Symbolically, that leaves a part of the Karpman drama triangle missing.
Heracles didn’t need to use Deianeria as toll payment though; he could have just killed him and crossed over. The toll was for carrying Deianira as I understand it — if she wanted to cross, he would have to carry her and not ride on the ferry boat or on his back.
“It’s like we keep running from our shadows, and they keep getting bigger and bigger until the shadow consumes the person.”
Yup.
I’m totally taken with the amount of projection in the myth, and the way it illuminates the complexities of perpetrator-becoming-rescuer-becoming-victim, reinforcing the cycle. Becoming so transfixed on one aspect – jealousy or rage or vindictiveness or gain – that we ignore the rest of the story.
I have participated in SO many really incredible conversations this week – both online and off – that have given me hope that there’s something revolutionary crackling around the ethers right now surrounding these themes. Totally appropriate for the era we’re in, with all that Uranus-Aries energy. Maybe Mercury Rx in Cancer might help us feel it out, register the wounds in our bodies and emotions so that the mapping can then occur during the Gemini phase of the cycle? That’d be cool.
I think the myth of Nessus is fascinating, and the link between that the current victim/attacker cycle we’re in is incredibly powerful. What was Deianira– truly a hapless victim, or was she actually getting revenge on Heracles for using her as toll payment? With all the mass shootings going on lately, it seems like one thing we don’t talk about is that feeling of desperation or vulnerability. And when that gets bottled up, it turns into wanting to seek out power by getting revenge, that sense of “well, I’ll show them.”
I had seen something recently on TV where parents of teens who may be a little out of control came forward, begging for help. What they all said was that they were afraid of the social stigma of admitting their children were violent or full of rage. It’s like we keep running from our shadows, and they keep getting bigger and bigger until the shadow consumes the person.