EROS, CENTRAL FEMININE ARCHETYPE
In Chapter 7, Part 2 of our book "Unraveling Collective Confusion" we have a section on Eros. In the psychological sense, Eros refers to the principles of connecting, bonding and relating. Love in all it different guises is also a function of Eros. We use the term EROS to describe the collective relationship of evolving feminine values to world history, religion, culture, and society. Our interpretation of Eros as a collective feminine principle is not intended to be sexist or gender based, but rather a symbolic expression of the natural instinctive activity behind this archetype.
As a central archetype Eros can be described as an umbrella term under which all the other feminine archetypes--the Great Mother, the Crone, the Puella, etc fall.
Like Logos, Eros is split between beneficial and detrimental aspects of the archetypes. The following general schema indicates the center of balance and extreme imbalances inherent in the various feminine archetypes:
Puella
↑↑↑↑↑↑
Crone/Wise Old Woman
↓↓↓↓↓↓
Primitive Eros/Devouring or Terrible Mother
Below we will explore several of these archetypes as they branch out from the core of Eros. Note that the Wise Old Woman or Crone occupies the center between the polarized extremes of the Terrible Mother and the Puella. Because of the importance of the Puella, she has her own Web page.
EROS AND THE GREAT MOTHER
| The worship
of the the Great Mother persisted for over 20,000 years. It was
characterized by the pre-eminence of the feminine as the creative force and
matrix of the universe. This historical period has been identified as
starting in the upper Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and continued through the
Neolithic or New Stone Age--7000 B.C. to 6500 B.C. The primary incarnation
of the first woman goddess as the Great Mother took the form of the
so-called Venus figurines found in what was Old Europe. Specifically, this
area is southeastern Europe including Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Rumania,
Greece, Italy and the southern part of the Ukraine. According to Dr. Marija
Gimbutas, the age of the Great Mother ended somewhere after 2500 B.C.E. with
the arrival of the patriarchal culture of the Indo-Europeans. Where it
wasn't completely destroyed, the old goddess culture was absorbed into the
Indo-European.
Directly below--LEFT--is a picture of the Venus of Willendorf, justifiably the most famous of the group of female prehistoric figures which have come down to us. Dated about c. 20,000 BC, the small limestone carved figure emphasizes the fertility, protecting and nourishing aspect of the Great Mother. The CENTER picture gives you some idea of the size of the figurine. In terms of archetypal development, Logos preceded out of instinctual womb of Eros. We refer to this instinctual and undifferentiated aspect of the feminine as Primitive Eros. The rock painting RIGHT shows the 'All-Mother' of the Australian Gunwinngu aborigines giving birth to the race. She was the first woman. She originally emerged from the Dream Time primeval seas as a rainbow serpent, Ngalijod. According to the myth, the rainbow serpent gave them water by urinating and showed the first ancestors how to dig for food. |
||
 |
 |
 |
EROS: MYTHIC ORIGINS
| In his epic
poem "The Theogony" the Greek poet Hesiod described the creation of the
primordial Gods. The first was Chaos, the god of undifferentiated
consciousness. Out of Chaos the "...the wide-bosomed" goddess of the earth,
Gaia was born. Eros was born out of the cosmogonic center of
Gaia. Hesiod says of Eros that it is "...fairest of the deathless gods, who
unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind."
Here we come into psychological realm of Eros and begin to see it as a symbol for feeling and emotion. As an attendant to Aphrodite's birth, Eros has become inevitably associated human love and sexuality. In terms of gender, Eros is usually depicted as a young boy with wings (the Roman Cupid for example), yet in principle he is uroboric and nascent, still absorbed in the mother and not individuated. Below LEFT is an interesting and humorous 1977 painting on Eros by Salvador Dali "Imperial Monument of the Child-Woman." |
|
 |
|
EROS: THE CRONE OR WISE OLD WOMAN
| The archetype
of the crone represents Eros in its most balanced phase of the feminine.
Unlike the Puella, she is grounded in her body and mind. Unlike the Terrible
Mother, she does not wish to unconsciously control, manipulate or
destroy
others. Her relationship to her animus is a bridge to her higher
Self. She is spontaneous and has integrated the instincts into the
psyche as a whole.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)--LEFT--represents this archetype. Like a female Da Vinci she wrote numerous treatises about natural history, the medicinal uses of herbs, plants, and animals. She wrote musical plays on religious themes including "The Play of Virtues" (Ordo Virtutum). Her illustrated mandalas are famous. She also wrote about human sexuality, orgasm, etc. The rare picture--CENTER--of Jungian Analyst and fairy tale master Marie Louise von Franz. In her bottomless depth of understanding into the human psyche she was and still is one of the wisest of Crones. |
|
 |
 |
EROS: THE CONTEMPORARY CRONE/WISE OLD WOMAN
| We can think of many women living today who could qualify for this designation. Jane Goodall embodies the distinctiveness of the archetype well. While working in Africa as secretary and field researcher of Dr. Louis Leakey, she decided to follow his suggestion and study chimpanzee behavior up close. Starting in 1960 her one-on-one observations and studies at Gombe National Park in Tanzania provided some important discoveries about Primate behavior. One of the most significant was that chimps like humans can make tools. She has won many awards including the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize. A tireless advocate for the humane treatment of animals she embodies the wisdom, courage, experience and compassion of the Crone. | |
 |
|
EROS: MYTH AND THE TERRIBLE MOTHER
| The negative
pole of the great mother is called The Terrible Mother. In our book we
refer to her as Primitive Eros: the world of the primordial instincts. This
is the world of the unconscious and sub-human being before ego
differentiation. The liberation of ego-consciousness is symbolized in the
myth of the hero and heroine's struggle to break free from the maternal
unconscious. Traditional mythic iconographic images of her universally focus on the oral aspect--long, sharp teeth for example. She is often connected to the chthonic realm of spiders, snakes and reptiles. She inhabits the nightmare realm of unregenerated instinctual drives. She embodies fear, terror and death in all it's many aspects. She is the female version of the grim reaper from which no mortal can escape. Every country from India to Melanesia has a representation of the Terrible Mother. The images presented here depict the Terrible Mother in some of her many masks: The first row: LEFT: Kali, India's contribution to the Terrible Mother. CENTER--Rangda, a form of the Terrible Mother worshiped in Bali. RIGHT Carved Stone Picture-- Perseus killing the Gorgon from the Greek myth.
The Second row: LEFT--Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau, 1864. CENTER--Medusa by Arnold Böcklin, 1878. RIGHT--Chimère or Chimera 1983 by modern French artist Annette Messager.
|
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
EROS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE TERRIBLE MOTHER
| The eternally
reoccurring mythic image of the Devouring Mother is alive and well thanks to
Hollywood.
The reptilian monsters in the early 1980's Alien movie series certainly depicted the terrifying 'oral' aspect of this archetype. The second Alien movie had as its theme the battle for survival between the primitive, unconscious feminine (alien) and the evolving conscious feminine (Sigourney Weaver)--SECOND PICTURE. The Jurassic Park movies depicted the dark, instinctual world of out-of-control T-Rexes--PICTURES THREE AND FOUR. Note the teeth. |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
EROS: COLLECTIVE EVOLUTION
| The
collective individuation of women throughout the world is reflected in a
ongoing Eros movement toward greater political, social, cultural and
psychological integration. Universal Suffrage, the right to vote was a long,
hard fight for American women---picture left. The Women's Movement of the
1960's & 1970's was a continuation of this struggle for equality.
The term "glass ceiling" symbolizes the invisible boundary that women face in their upward movement toward career advancement. In dreams glass is often a symbol for the suppression of feeling and of Eros. This is not surprising given the fact that today's corporate model is a combination of a Puer mentality and Negative Logos structure. There's a desperate need today for a balance between the masculine and feminine in the workplace. Yet a new model is slowly developing as more women around the world are taking the initiative to transform business and give it a human face. |
||
 |
 |
 |