She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

by Robert A. Johnson

Myths, therefore, portray a collective image; they tell us about things that are true for all people.

Aphrodite is a goddess born of the sea: she is primeval, oceanic in her feminine power.

In psychological terms, she reigns in the unconscious, symbolized by the waters of the sea.

It is Psyche’s task, from her human vantage point, to do just that—to relate and soften the great oceanic, archetypal feminine. This is our myth.

Every woman has an Aphrodite in her.

Whenever one falls in love, sees the god or goddess-like qualities in another, it is Aphrodite mirroring our immortality and divine-like qualities.

Aphrodite energy is a valuable quality. She is in the service of personal development and wields her terrible power to make those around her grow.

Often, when new growth occurs, the most dreadful things seem to happen, but then we see that they were exactly what was required.

We are not sufficiently aware of the dual aspect of marriage and try to see it only as white and joyous; the dying to an old part of life should be honored or the emotions will surface later in a less appropriate form.

The forward evolution toward marriage is accompanied by a regressive tug of longing for the autonomy and the freedom of things as they were before.

All husbands are death to their wives in that they destroy them as maidens and force them into an evolution toward mature womanhood.

Nearly every man wants this of his wife. If she will not ask for consciousness and do things his way there is perfect peace in the house.

Just as you can stay on the mountain of Death and see men as purveyors of disaster, so you can also be caught in the stage of the two sisters and destroy anything that a man tries to create.

Dr. Jung said that the demand for growth in consciousness often comes from the shadow. So the sisters, those less than lovely and imperfect parts of Psyche, serve her well.

A woman gently shedding light on a situation produces miracles; a woman with a knife in her hands would kill. Transform or kill? This is a critical choice, especially for a modern woman.

Much of a man’s mute yearning for a woman is his need for her light to show him—as well as her—his true nature and godhood. Every woman holds this terrible-wonderful power in her hands.

Terrible things happen to men who are deprived of the presence of women—inner or outer—for usually it is the presence of woman that reminds each man of the best that is in him.

Most men get their deepest conviction of self-worth from a woman, wife, mother, or if they are highly conscious, from their own anima. The woman sees and shows the man his value by lighting the lamp.

To love someone is a human experience bonding one in a human way to another being. It is seeing that person truly, and appreciating him or her for the ordinariness, failures, and magnificence of human personality.

When one falls in love he has touched a superhuman level of experience and is instantly wafted away into a god-like realm where human values are superseded.

To lose one’s old way of adaptation is very bad news even if it is replaced by something far better.

Dr. Jung has said that the anima and animus function most effectively for us as mediators between the conscious and unconscious parts of the personality.

Almost always in human experience the urge toward suicide signals an edge of a new level of consciousness. If you can kill the right thing—the old way of adaptation—and not injure yourself, a new energy-filled era will begin.

the superhuman quality can not be lived out on a human level.

The task for a woman is to translate the pain and suffering of a tragic love affair into the mundane steps of personal development.

A fit of weeping is a Pan experience. Although it is humiliating (and that word means to be near the humus or earth), dissolving into tears can take you quickly to something greater than yourself.

Always follow the path that will keep relationship with the anima or animus, for it is with this you have to live most intimately.

Psyche finally goes to Aphrodite’s altar, for it is almost always the case that whatever has wounded you will also be instrumental in your healing.

Aphrodite shows Psyche a huge pile of seeds of many different kinds mixed together and tells her she must sort these seeds before nightfall or the penalty will be death.

An army of ants comes to her rescue. They sort the seeds with great industry and accomplish the task by nightfall.

What a beautiful bit of symbolism; a pile of seeds to sort! In so many of the practical matters of life, in the running of a household, for example, or its parallel in a professional life, the challenge is to make form and order prevail.

Woman in her sorting capacity must choose one seed and bring it to fruition.

The ant-nature is not of the intellect; it does not give us rules to follow; it is a primitive, instinctive, and quiet quality, legitimately available to women.

One may view a marriage as two people standing back to back, each protecting the other in a particular way. It is the feminine task to protect not only herself but her man and her family from the dangers of the inner world; moods, inflations, excesses, vulnerabilities, and what used to be called possessions.

If you wish to give your children the best possible heritage, give them a clean unconscious, not your own unlived life, which is hidden in your unconscious until you are ready to face it directly.

The second of Psyche’s tasks, arrogantly and insultingly set out by Aphrodite, is to go to a certain field across a river and gather some of the golden fleece of the rams pastured there. She is to be back by nightfall, on pain of death.

Masculinity often looks ram-like to a woman when it comes time for her to assimilate a little of that quality into her interior life.

Too many modern people think that power is to be had only by wrenching out a handful of fleece from the back of a ram and going off in triumph in the noonday sun. Since power is such a double-edged sword, it is a good rule to take only as much as one needs—and that as quietly as possible.

The Psyche myth tells us that a woman can obtain the necessary masculine energy for her purposes without a power play.

she must fill a crystal goblet with water from the Styx, a river that tumbles from a high mountain, disappears into the earth, and comes back to the high mountain again.

Our myth tells us that a little of a quality, experienced in high consciousness, is sufficient.

Almost every person is overwhelmed by the too-muchness of modern life, even on a day to day basis. That is the time for the eagle view and one-goblet-at-a-time mentality.

The fourth task is Aphrodite’s last test for Psyche. She is instructed to go to the underworld and ask Persephone—goddess of the underworld, the most hidden, the eternal maiden, queen of mysteries—for a cask of her beauty ointment, which Psyche is then to deliver to Aphrodite.

Only love can save you from the hardness and remoteness of a partial spirituality.

Before Enlightenment attitudes prevailed, myth and story were considered a dignified and worthy subject for adult study and appreciation.

Dr. Jung once said that medieval man lived by either-or, but that modern people have to live either-and-or.

It is the prime task of a truly modern mind to endure both the spiritual and the practical as the framework for her life.