The Star women story. Women’s place in our culture.
In the Star woman story, we find the young uninitiated young man living alone on top of a garage at somebody else’s house. This implies not his own family who are never mentioned in the story. Indeed, the only people mentioned in the beginning of the story are the young man and the landlord, in this case, a lady. Remembering that whoever is mentioned at the beginning of a story describes the psychodynamic that the story will deal with.
The beginning of the story describes the alienation of the young man from the community and family and the domain where he finds himself. He has bound himself to the status quo choosing to live alone. The story also identifies with the dreams and aspirations of the young man for love and connection across the contrasexual divide, in order to complete himself. To find a personal acceptance apparently not fulfilled by the status quo.
His dreams and aspirations draw the star woman his Soul, to him across the divide of time and space and while the relationship begins well, it’s as though he has stumbled into the Grail Castle, Like Parsifal, he didn’t ask the right questions. He wasn’t ready for the quest. He got a “Not now” The opportunity offered so early on in life is to open a window into our mission and passions for this life.
In the Iron John story, we spend three days at the golden pond. The young man is unable to grow into the potential the relationship offers and the questions it raises at that time. Our young man eventually, loses the relationship due to his own inability to transform himself within that relationship. Perhaps that last sentence describes the state of modern marriage and our high divorce rate. it is too soon it’s a “Not Now or Not Yet”. He does not recognise who he dealing with and her importance to him and his well-being.
What is this Mission, this destiny we are talking about?
Gifts, destiny, mission. The old idea is that every child that is born into this world brings gifts into the world. Solutions to today’s problems, gifts of individual genius, and specialties in all endeavours of life. Therefore we welcome the birth of a child with such celebration; even a subconscious level we understand this. The old idea was that we all carried medicine for each other.
Victor Frankl expressed it thus: Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is specific opportunity to implement it.
The ending of the Star Woman story is most poignant. The Feminine our Soul leaves the untenable relationship, invokes the power of the triple blood mysteries of the Great Mother expressed through the Feminine, and causes a giant tree to grow whose top touches somewhere where humans cannot go. Her axis Mundi. Echoes of Jack and the beanstalk story and the Parsifal story. Also, the first image of the axis Mundi, the axis of the world stretching from deep roots in the earth reaching to somewhere transcendent. Something happens and we are thrown out into life to find our purpose and our mission in this world.
The young man now fully awake to the moment realises he is about to lose the most precious thing in his life, and like all humans tries to bargain. We have some options here, to go the sour grapes route and denial, or pursue what is lost. There are other options we employ of course. In the story, we refuse to hear the last advice of our Soul and attempt to follow it on its journey without the necessary preparation for that journey. In the story, we fall to our death unable to traverse to the next levels of consciousness. In a story, there is no physical death only the end of an unsuccessful initiation process.
The unresolved shadows, in these relationships like Grendel in the Beo-Wolf story, come and destroy the Ego’s illusion of perfection, the destruction of the Meade hall. There are other choices we may make here and a combination of many other choices. Withdrawal, disassociation, bitterness, and addiction among them. Or just plain honouring the Feminine.
Women in the bottle. In our culture, we relegate women to the bottle. The bottle of the star woman all the time, we capture her for pornography, use her body to sell all sorts of hardware, cars, clothes, and cosmetics. Generally, we treat her badly with prejudice of all kinds around body functions, positions in society, religions, etc. The list is endless.
The irony of women’s place in our culture. At the same time, it is given to women to conceive, to carry a child to term, and be a mother. A strange contradiction in a male-dominated society that needs women for its very renewal.