Resurrection

Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who believed that all people have both masculine and feminine energies, regardless of their gender assigned at birth. He called these energies the anima (feminine) and animus (masculine).

Jung believed that the goal of individuation, or psychological wholeness, is to integrate the anima and animus. This means becoming aware of and accepting both the masculine and feminine aspects of our personality. 

Every person has a unique balance of masculine and feminine energy. When we are able to integrate those energies, we become more whole and balanced people.  We cultivate all our strengths and resources, and live our lives in a meaningful and fulfilling way. 

I once worked in a corporate law firm serving coffees to high profile clients in boardrooms. I had heard on a podcast that smiling at yourself in the mirror for five minutes tricks your brain into feeling happy. After changing into my uniform, I would grin at myself in the mirror underneath the fluorescent lights. I had hoped that setting aside a few minutes out of my day to pretend I was happy would somehow alleviate the excruciating mundanity of being alive. 

In Homer’s Odyssey, the hungry men are offered lotus flowers by a group of people on an island. They eat them and are delighted by the taste of them. The flowers are so intoxicating that the men abandon all desire to go home. Instead they want to stay and eat the flowers forever. Without Odysseus’ intervention, they would have done so.That is until perhaps one day one of the men would accidentally leave too much time between flowers and wake up to find himself wrinkled and obese. “How did I get here?” He would gurgle through dribble.

Culturally, we are dominated by masculine energy. We live within a system that implores us to work, hustle and consume. We are lured in by the lotus flowers at every turn. We are consistently distracted by overbearing masculine energy, and are consequently separated from our authentic selves.

We go through the motions, guilting ourselves for not finishing our to-do list, flogging ourselves for not doing enough and saying too much, ruining the present moment with thoughts of what we should be doing instead.

I lost my job at the law firm to Covid. Through Covid’s intervention, we were collectively thrown into a time of uncertainty, mystery and chaos. These are all aspects of the feminine. From this, we had no choice but to slow down and evaluate what it’s all for. We saw it in the Great Resignation. Many of us realised we were chasing something that was not aligned with the life we ultimately want to live. It’s no coincidence that mindfulness and conversations around mental health have increased dramatically in our culture over the past few years.

By bringing feminine energy into our individual lives, we will see a collective change at a time that is in desperate need of healing.

Neither feminine or masculine energy is more or less important than the other. Both are just as integral to our existence. Without your expansive and active masculine energy, you would never get anything done. Without the feminine, you would never be able to stop. 

Losing my job in lockdown gave me the space to explore my creativity. I began the former @spacepersephone account when I desperately needed fantasy to keep me afloat. I sold artworks and wrote a (unpublished) book. I learned that I was capable of much more than I had previously allowed myself.

Two years later, the Planet Persephone platform has been resurrected. She has much more depth, more to say and more possibilities on the horizon than her predecessor. She is no longer floating, no longer lost. She’s solid, grounded, many things at once all working together.

If you’d like to join me along the way, I’ll be exploring how the unification between masculine and feminine is not a difficult task to be accomplished, but instead simply remembering an ancient knowing.

If you like women, witches, myths, fairy tales, crying, being inspired or learning stuff, you will enjoy yourself. Stick around to see what you think. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive weekly pieces written by me to your inbox on Substack, or just come back next Tuesday.

Welcome to Planet Persephone.