Late April through mid - May is
the season of Taurus, the time when the Feminine Spirit of Life comes into full
blossom. The promise of harvest colors
the blossoms. The primal spark of Aries’ heavenly Fire is incarnated in the
beauty and blossoming and sensuality of Taurus’ Earth, just as the Earth takes
the returning Sun’s energy and turns it into Life! What is ready for life now comes to life.
Taurus is the most earthy astrological sign, and it wants to build, to
manifest according to Cosmic Law, for the Earth is our foundation. Taurus is concerned with values as well, so Taurus
inspires us to manifest what we really value. When we don’t know our values, we
can’t really know what our heart’s true desire is.
Taurus, being a fixed earth sign,
can become very materialistic when our values are those of the patriarchy, and
not of the Spirit. Without a deep
connection to our inner life, money, power and possessions consume our
attention while our souls languish. Then
it is often through love that we come to reclaim ourselves. Venus/Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, Sex,
Beauty and Wisdom, is the archetypal energy that underlies Taurus. That means that Taurus thrives on love,
beauty, sacred sexuality and wholeness.
In
Venus’ Taurean home, we find out what we really value: love, beauty,
creativity, kindness, family, cooperation and truth. 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'
- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. (John Keats). We
will soon take a look at a story about a man who is given the opportunity to
discover what women—and feminine spirit—want
and who takes this Taurus lesson to heart.
The
Marriage of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell
In Celtic myth and legend, the
King, who represents the masculine ideals and values of the country, must marry
the feminine embodiment of his Land, Lady Sovereignty. This union brings life and fertility to the
land and to the people. Often Lady
Sovereignty tests the man who would be King, by appearing as a hideous old Hag
whom the man must accept and love despite her ugliness. For a society this means accepting the laws
and cycles of Mother Earth, the land itself, for we are part of the Earth’s
ecosystem whether we admit it or not. For an individual, this means accepting
feminine consciousness as equal to and helpful for collective rational
masculine consciousness. This means accepting
the information those unacceptable feelings and intuitions and instincts give
us and acting on them, even if they go against the rules of our society. If we are brave
enough, this can mean giving Sovereignty to the Earth and her laws; it can mean
giving sovereignty to the promptings of the soul, which holds the spark of
divinity and creativity within each of us; and it can mean giving sovereignty
to our feminine, imaginal consciousness, which ‘reads’ the world. And last but not least, it can mean finally
giving back sovereignty to women.
There is a medieval Arthurian tale about the need
to bring back the power of feminine sovereignty to collective consciousness. When
a culture or an individual has repressed feminine Spirit for too long, life
itself insists on a rebalancing of energies.
This tale shows us what must be done.
It is called The Marriage of Sir
Gawain and Dame Ragnell.
Once King Arthur was
out hunting and soon outpaced his friends.
He brought down a stag and as he was dressing his kill, a giant knight accosted
him and gave him a riddle to solve. The
riddle was this: what do women want? Arthur
had a year to find out the answer or his life was forfeit to this giant knight.
Arthur’s nephew
Gawain offered to help him search for the answer. And so they both headed off into the world,
seeking answers to this riddle. Although
they filled two books with answers, Arthur knew instinctively that they didn’t
have the right one yet. So he rode into
the forest to meditate.
There he saw the most
loathsome Hag riding toward him, who greeted him with this advice: ‘If you want
to keep your head on your shoulders, I can tell you the answer to your
riddle. But the price is my marriage to
Gawain.’ And even though she was such an
ugly hag, Gawain agreed to marry her to save Arthur’s life.
Well, after giving
the giant all the other answers he had gathered, Arthur was forced to give him
the answer that the Hag, Dame Ragnell, gave him. What
women desire most of men is to have the Sovereignty! And so Arthur escaped death.
But then Gawain had
to marry the Hag! That night in bed, Dame Ragnell entreated him to at least
kiss her, despite her ugliness. Gawain
gathered his courage and said he’d do more than kiss her, he would love her. And when he turned to her, Dame Ragnell was
the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
But Ragnell’s beauty
would not hold. She could be beautiful
for only half the day. So did Gawain
want her beautiful by day and ugly in bed, or ugly by day and beautiful for him
alone? And Gawain, because he did love
her, told her that it was her decision to make. Which of course was the only right answer! And so the curse was broken, and Ragnell could
be beautiful both day and night because Gawain had given her the Sovereignty.
Our Aries movie theme was the
Male Hero and we will continue discussing emerging masculine archetypal themes
in our Taurus movie, What Women Want. In Oz,
the Great and Powerful, our hero Oscar the Wizard had to face the three
aspects of his ‘anima’ – his inner feminine soul – and make a conscious choice
for the Good. In facing down his witchy,
greedy, self-absorbed shadow anima (Evanora), and his enraged, betrayed ‘trying
to get along with everyone’ anima (Theodora), he learned to accept and love his
inner goodness, his inner magic, his soul, his wise anima Glinda.
In Nancy Meyer’s funny and
poignant movie,What Women Want, our
hero Nick is immediately described by his ex-wife as a ‘man’s man’, a ‘charmer’
and a ‘momma’s boy’, along with other choice comments. Where Oscar was a father’s son, whose
uncaring ambition came from a negative relationship with his father, Nick’s
character was shaped by his Las Vegas
showgirl mother. He was the pet of
the showgirls, and the unconscious apprentice of ‘gangster’ male role models (like
many men raised on the Soprano’s and other glamorized mafia role models.) In short, he was the modern American male,
whose mother adored the Rat Pack like we did the Beatles. Nick still lived his life to a Frank Sinatra
soundtrack. The first thing we find out
about him is that he is a charming playboy, who seduces women just for the fun
of it. He knows he can. And so he does. He’s been trained to take power.
Nick is climbing the corporate
ladder as a hot-shot advertising executive, cunning at crafting ads to entice
the male ego. But times have changed—and
now most of the advertising money is being spent on women, and unfortunately,
Nick doesn’t have a clue about what women want—beyond wanting him. To win a share of the women’s market, Nick’s
boss, Dan, passes him over for a promotion and hires Darcy McGuire, the top
woman in her field, to be Creative Director.
The whole atmosphere of this ad
agency shouts MALE. The women are there
to be of service or try to just fit in.
So when Darcy starts off her first meeting with a collegial style,
asking everyone to come up with ideas for a selection of women’s products, she
is offering them an alternative feminine model, where people share information
and cooperate (‘5 heads are better than 1.’).
She is bringing a very feminine style of working together to a very
masculine agency. And like Dame
Ragnell, she is perceived as ugly. For you see, rumor has it Darcy is a real man-eater, and Nick’s heard ‘Darcy McGuire is a
birch on wheels.’
But Darcy has great legs and Nick
decides to take her on. Like Gawain,
Nick is a Son of the Mother, a great lover of women, who thinks he is being
charming when he is acting like a spoiled child. The blessing is that he’s soon going to learn
what he’s really like and he’s going to change.
Nick might not know how to care
about anyone except himself, but he is creative and playful, probably learned
at his mother’s knee. Nick goes home
determined to figure out how to sell
these products. He puts on Sinatra and dances but he gets stuck in a male view
of women, because that’s what Sinatra was all about. Nick’s feminine feeling side is shaped by
Hollywood and Vegas and those tastes cater to men. He even realizes he has to change the music. So he roots through his daughter’s suitcase
(she’s visiting while her mom is on her honeymoon) and puts on Alanis
Morisette’s “I’m a Bitch”.
The
interesting thing about Nick is that he knows
how to use his feminine imagination
in service to his masculine needs. But
he doesn’t know how to listen to his real feminine feeling side. His feminine consciousness is also a Father’s
Daughter—at the service of patriarchy. Like Arthur and Gawain and all true Sons of
the Mother, Nick is blessed with an opportunity at redemption. He has
to deal with three women at once: his neglected daughter Alex, who refuses to
call him dad, his new boss Darcy and Lola, a waitress he’s been trying to
seduce for months. Nick is going to have an awakening that forces
him to come up against his own ugly side as he implements his manipulative plan
to bring Darcy down, to seduce Lola and to continue to ignore his daughter’s
need for a real father.
So, here’s Nick, drinking and singing with Alanis, painting his nails,
using face cream, waxing his legs (“Women are crazy. Why would they do this more than once!?”),
blow drying his hair. Fate comes in and
takes over – he slips on bath beads, falls into a full tub of water, his hair
dryer goes flying and he is electrocuted. (A great symbol of a Uranus
awakening!)
When Nick wakes up, he can hear
women’s thoughts. At first he thinks he’s crazy, then it drives him crazy. He
hears what women think of him (sexy!) and his usual routine (he’s such a pig!). He tries to reverse whatever gave him this
power, but he can’t. He even goes to a
therapist, and when he proves to her that he’s not crazy but that he can hear
her thoughts, she tells him that he has a great gift. She says that ‘the world can be yours,
because if you know what women want, you can rule the world’. ‘You’re the luckiest man in the world!’ So much for the integrity of psychiatry!
So of course, at first Nick uses
this new power to trip up and control things with Darcy and Lola. He uses this gift for his own purposes, which
is what patriarchy does with all our feelings and insights. It uses them for its own purposes, not for the
real purpose of understanding and compassion.
This is why Arthur is confronted by the giant knight. His society has neglected the feminine
aspects of life and so the powers of life fight back. Only if Arthur recognizes and honors the
power of Feminine Spirit will he escape death and destruction. And just like Arthur and Gawain, who accepted
the challenge for Arthur, Nick has to face the selfishness of his life by
confronting his Dame Ragnell and allow her the sovereignty, before he can see
her beauty.
Like Oscar and his China Doll,
Nick immediately has sympathy for a broken and sad young woman in the office
whose thoughts circle around suicide. As
with many men, their protective side comes online when a woman is hurt. At first he just notices her thoughts, but it
helps him to notice the other women in the office. And as he begins to hear the women’s
thoughts, their fears, their worries and their hopes, Nick becomes their
cheerleader and supporter, adding his male understanding to their relationship
problems. He becomes a positive masculine
support. Nick finds out that he actually
enjoys hanging with the women, a good behavior he learned from his time with
his mom and her showgirl friends.
As Nick begins to pay attention
to what the women in his life really think about him, he tries to change his
ways, because he really likes them. When
he hears Alex’s friends’ thoughts badmouthing him as a father, he charmingly offers
them what they want. When he tells Alex
he’ll take her shopping for a prom dress, he hears how she wants to take
advantage of him, and he offers to buy her the extras without her asking. When
he finally seduces Lola, her less than enthusiastic thoughts about his
love-making challenge his sense of manhood, and he outdoes himself in the
love-making department. When he ‘listens
in’ on Darcy’s thoughts about an ad campaign, he steals her ideas and improves
on them. He uses his knowledge and
improves on it, which is what masculine consciousness is good at. But Nick is still lying to everyone about his
ability, and he goes back and forth between selfishness and understanding with
all the women in his life.
As Nick begins to understand how
women feel, he does discover what women want.
Women want men who will love them for who they are, not for who men want
them to be. Women don’t want to be seen
as ugly because we’re smart, and accomplished and beautiful and whole. He hears Darcy’s insecurities and begins to
understand how hard it is for women to just be ourselves, because women often
pay the price, like Darcy whose husband was jealous of her, “for just being me.”
Although he steals the idea from
Darcy, he comes up with a great ad campaign for Nike with her. He tells her,
‘women worry all the time about everything.’
He imagines the road as a place where a woman can be herself, where
nobody judges her, where there are no games to play. At that moment of true intimacy with Darcy,
neither of them can tell who thought of the right answer for the ad. It was a shared answer. Nick is learning to love.
Nick falls in love with Darcy,
with his daughter Alex and ultimately with himself. As soon as Nick takes self-ownership of his
feelings, he loses his ability to hear women’s thoughts. And because he has grown up and become a
whole man, he still goes to rescue the young office girl Erin, thinking she’s
going to commit suicide. When he finds
her, he offers her the job she always wanted.
When he finds his daughter at the prom crying in the bathroom, he offers
his love and takes her home. And when he
confesses his nefarious plans to Darcy he accepts her firing him, because he
has learned to give the women in his life sovereignty. And he finds out that when women have the
sovereignty, love reigns. In the end, he
is rescued by his Beloved and wins back his daughter’s love.
He has found the most beautiful within himself and in Darcy and Alex. And like Sir Gawain, once the spell is broken,
he discovers the great Joy that comes from love.
From the Bard's Grove,
Cathy
