Anima and Animus; The commonality in us!
This topic might still sound strange, unfamiliar, or even unacceptable (especially to men), but I think it is one of the most important issues in our existence.
I come from a society where religion is dominant, meaning the man has the saying! Although, in big Iranian cities, men have learned (thanks Pahlavi regime) that women also have the right to live with their wishes. Nevertheless, man has always the end in his hands! These thoughts also influenced me though I was curious to understand the feminine side.
I remember well, as Al and I were often in the bookstores in southern Tehran, once I got a thick book in my hand titled: All That Men Know About Women. And when I leafed through that, I saw all the pages blanc white!
Maybe from that time, I have decided to try to understand this “opposite?”. Honestly, I had learned a lot from my mother and her female side. She taught me how to cook, sew or any other typical woman’s housework. And I tell you, men: I am thrilled and proud of having this opportunity (freedom๐ ). Through my research, I learned that understanding the woman could only be possible through looking into my own feminine. When my mother died, I kept her lessons in my mind and heart, and I could do all jobs by myself. And I admit my pride in my whole life, having so many ladies as friends (more than gents), both in so-called visual and real life. When I got to know Dr Jung, he confirmed me and my feelings. I expanded my knowledge and have learned much more about this.
Now I present (translated from German by my littleness) a part of Jung’s book: [Die Beziehungen Zwischen Dem Ich Und Dem Unbewussten]; Die Individuation, Anima und Animus. He explains here how effective is for men to consider their Anima sides.
“The parent spirits are the most practical of the possible spirits, hence the universal cult of ancestors, which initially served to appease the ‘revenants’ but later became an essentially moral and educational institution (China!). Parents are the child’s closest and most influential relatives. In adulthood, however, this influence is split off; therefore, the parent imagines are possibly even more repressed from consciousness and, because of their after-effects, perhaps even suppressing effect, are easily given a negative sign. In this way, the Parent-Imagines remain alien in a psychic ‘outside’. But what now replaces the parents as a direct environmental influence for the grown man is the woman. She accompanies the man; she belongs insofar as she lives with him and is more or less of the same age; she is not superior, either by age, authority, or physical strength. It is, however, an influential factor that, like the parents, produces an imago of a relatively autonomous nature, but not an imago which, like that of the parents, is to be split off but rather to be kept associated with consciousness. With her psychology so dissimilar to man’s, the woman is (and always has been) a source of information about things man has no eyes for. She can inspire him; Her power of foreboding, often superior to that of men, can give him a helpful warning. And her feeling, which is oriented toward the personal, can show him ways in which his feeling with little emotional connection would not be discoverable. What Tacitus says about the Germanic women is quite accurate in this respect.”
{According to Tacitus, Germanic women do not participate in feasts or plays, unlike Roman women. However, it is unlikely they were excluded from this since it was part of the women’s job to serve the men at the table. More here.}
“Here undoubtedly lies one of the primary sources of the feminine quality of the soul. But it doesn’t seem to be the only source, for no man is so entirely male that he has nothing female in him. Instead, the fact is that very masculine men in particular (albeit well protected and hidden) have a very soft emotional life (often wrongly referred to as “feminine”). It is considered a virtue for a man to repress feminine traits as much as possible, just as it has been deemed unpalatable to a woman, at least up to now, to be a man’s wife. The repression of female traits and tendencies naturally leads to an accumulation of these claims in the unconscious. The imago of the woman (the soul) also naturally becomes the receptaculum of these claims, which is why the man in his choice of love is often subject to the temptation to win that woman who best corresponds to the special nature of his own unconscious femininity, also, a woman who can absorb the projection of his soul as easily as possible. Although such a choice is often viewed and felt to be ideal, it may just as well be his own worst weakness that the man is visibly marrying in this way. (This might explain some very odd marriages!)
It now seems to me that besides the woman’s influence, there is also the man’s own femininity, which explains the fact of the femininity of the soul complex. It shouldn’t be a question of a mere linguistic “accident”, for example, in the way that the sun is feminine in German but masculine in other languages, but we have the evidence of art from all times – and moreover, the famous question: “habet mulier anime”? (does a woman have a soul?). Probably most men, who have any psychological insight at all, know what Rider Haggard means when he speaks of ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’ or which chord strikes them when they read Benoit‘s description of Antinea. They also tend to easily know what kind of woman best embodies this secret, but often only a clearly suspected fact.”
I think here it is enough for now, but there is more about that later for sure. Be well and safe, everybody. ๐๐๐นโ๐ฅฐ๐ฆ
lampmagician 
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