Androgyny: The Opposites Within
June Singer's Androgyny: The Opposites Within, is a Jungian classic. Singer was an acclaimed analyst, trained in Zurich and sat on the board of the Assoc. of Transpersonal Psychology— other books are Boundaries of the Soul and The Unholy Bible. She is a favourite analyst who I actively critique.
After that embarrassing display of the unconscious masculine in last night's debate, from an individual leading the country who did not denounce supremacist violence, I decided to call notice to this archetypal baby king of the psyche once again. How do we de-centralize this image that looks like a schoolyard bully, a 'proud boy' swinging his hips with his nose to the air (a wounded, posturing masculine)?
In the Ch. Dynamic Union in Tao, Singer writes about the circumambulation of the theory of opposites. Touching on how it is imperative that we first separate (Separatio) and differentiate out our own wounded opposites so as to first consider where they might be wounded by the constructs of society and family. To not do so, is bypass, rejection of one's soul. The intention is to set the pathway for unifying them toward wholeness in the psyche. One can not simply decide to live in non-duality without first healing the wound of dualism that our earthly play has set out.
Singer continues, "Yet, as we complete our circumambulation of time and space, we come back to where we began: however a society defines the Feminine Principle and the Masculine Principle, always there is a difference."
Healing and coming to terms with these differences within us all, as we all have both principles at work in the psyche, is not easy; usually one is favored over the other for survival. She writes, "It seems to me that where our Judeo-Christian view went wrong was not in its differentiation between masculine and feminine natures; this differentiation has been made in every society. The error was in becoming fixated in the male-dominance fantasy, the ruling idea of a patriarchy based on belief that an omnipotent male deity was prototype for created man." We see this now further hijacked by young men obsessed with Gnosticism/Aion and the literalizing of Jung's critical, hermeneutical work with this symbol— a rotten hero’s fantasy.
She continues, "If woman came along as an afterthought to help man, or rather if she could be convinced that was how it was, then the power principle could be safely maintained in the hands of the male establishment, and women would be obliged to function harmoniously with the men, not in balance, but supporting and complying with their use of power. The male-dominance fantasy, which has such a questionable basis in history and myth, is a fantasy, just that; only not everyone in our society has realized it yet. When the natural interdependence of the opposites is undergirded in society, it is also undergirded with the opposites within us all. When the idea of interdependence is thrown into the shadows and not spoken to has a vital piece of natural being, of Tao, then there is great suffering. To heal this 'out of Tao' illusion, the individual must re-turn, turn back, to the uncarved block to feel these energies for their own."
Excerpts from the book Androgyny: The Opposites Within by June Singer.
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Androgyny: The Opposites Within by June Singer
