Illuminating Murky Waters
Enquiring into the Shadow Feminine within and without
In a culture so bereft of connection with the wisdom, power and medicine of the Feminine, it felt only proper that we devote the entire third month of our year-long arc to honouring and exploring this. The Feminine presents a profound and integral foundation of what makes a Resonant Man resonant.
In our two previous sessions we explored the profound wisdom of the Feminine, and our relationship with intuition. However, we could not properly address the Feminine without also addressing its shadow.
Carl Jung once observed that the Christian West seemed to lack a proper archetypal space for the Shadow Feminine. Whereas Hinduism presents us with images of the all-devouring Kali surrounded by decapitated heads, the Christian West was centred around the singular archetype of Mary. As a consequence, Jung argued, women could be prone to a kind of damning self-comparison. When parts of the Feminine within them didn’t match the idealised Mary figure, these parts could be pathologized, suppressed, or outwardly projected. The Shadow Feminine seems to need its own unique address in the West and it’s not clear we have the skill to provide this yet.
The question presents a unique challenge because of the sheer depth of entanglements surrounding it. When we address the Shadow Feminine or the Shadow Masculine we are not speaking of abstractions but touching on deep psychological waters, personal traumas and societal tensions.
A search to understand the Shadow Masculine is a commonplace aspect of contemporary culture. Great work has been undertaken in recent decades to cast light on the Shadow Masculine’s abuses in workplaces, at home and in war. We have a greater common awareness of where and how the Shadow Masculine can show up in overt aggression and dominating tactics, narcissistic tendencies, sexual exploitation or other variants. The kind of space of authentic dialogue, vulnerability and deep listening we hold in the Resonant Man means that — in a meaningful sense — we are continually delving into the Shadow Masculine at each of our weekly circles.
The reality of the Shadow Feminine at face value is far more elusive, and demands a more subtle and complex grammar. To evade the trap of projection, we decided to work from the foundational recognition that classically Shadow Feminine traits (such as manipulation, covert competition, passive-aggression, sexual power games and so on) can be just as easily at work in us as men, as they may be in our female partners, friends or colleagues. We wanted to field a space to explore:
How is the Shadow Feminine at work in us?
How have we encountered the Shadow Feminine in our relationships?
What personal or ancestral patterns are we carrying around the Shadow Feminine that are preventing healthy relationships or even giving rise to patterns of abuse?
It’s profoundly difficult to address something when you cannot describe it and this is the circumstance many of us face when the Shadow Feminine shows up in ourselves, our workplaces or homes. We are bereft of language, and attempting to approach the Shadow Feminine publicly runs against the grain of cultural sensitivities to the extreme.
Yet, what becomes transparently clear, is that delving into this enquiry in an intentional space brings us into profoundly murky waters of deep wounds and patterned stuckness in our relationships. In that alchemical spirit of Jung, we find that the place we least want to look holds the key to our evolution. If we can approach it well, the Shadow Feminine holds a great deal liberating insight for us.
Moreover, as we continue this enquiry we may even begin to distinguish the Shadow Feminine from the integrated Dark Feminine, which by all accounts presents both an attractive and generative force in a holistic partnership.
As we journey through this terrain, we’re glad to call upon the navigational resources of The Resonant Man to help us in this. To neither be avoidant of, nor to demonise, the Shadow Feminine; bringing this psychic force into a space of healing enquiry. Through our work, we will continue to develop the light of clarified awareness and an unbreakable core masculine presence which is capable of meeting the Shadow Feminine — in ourselves, and in others — with deep attunement, precise boundaries and compassionate enquiry.
—Jacob Kishere
Matthew and I are delighted to invite you to an event on January 29th at 7pm UK time where we’ll be holding a session ‘The New Science of Collective Healing’, with guest Danny Cohen. The event is the launch of my project SENSESPACE Studio, held in collaboration with Matthew’s publication Resonant World. Info and registration here:
