My Aunt Nan ran the local newspaper, having taken it over at the death of her husband. It was a small town paper, so being editor was a powerful spot to be in. The job was also demanding and time consuming, often with late nights and early mornings to meet the deadline for the once-a-week paper run. Aunt Nan also had a modest but very comfortable home that I loved to visit…and my Mom often sent me there when things were too tense at home. One of the fascinations at Aunt Nanʼs was a FULL ROOM packed with books … all the walls, floor to ceiling, solid books! Aunt Nan would let six or seven year-old me borrow any book I wanted.
Truth be told though, Aunt Nanʼs book selections were usually beyond me. Also, sad to say, in this small town kids were not allowed to have library cards until they were in high school. So when I turned eight, Aunt Nan simply walked me to the library and told the Head Librarian I should be given a library card. The librarian had me promise to always return the books on time…then gave me the card. I used that card to inhale anything that was even close to being age-appropriate, including about four full shelves of fairy tales (A Russian Grandmotherʼs Fairy Tales, A Chinese Grandmotherʼs Fairy Tales, An Irish Grandmotherʼs … you get the picture.)
Many years ago, one of Nan’s second-distant-umptyump-times-removed relatives was widowed and ran out of funds. Her name was Ownie, and despite her financial situation she had resources: family, friends, housekeeping ability, health, and a loving presence. Aunt Nan — then recently widowed and busy assuming the role of newspaper editor — joined the other local resourceful, can-do women who put their heads together to consider Ownieʼs situation. Based upon her strengths and Aunt Nanʼs needs, the women suggested an arrangement. From then on, Aunt Nanʼs beautiful old home was maintained by Ownie as a live-in housekeeper. Ownie washed the dishes, baked cookies, mixed the yellow food coloring into the white oleo … and generally kept the home fires burning.
When I think back on my fairy-tale reading youth, Aunt Nan and Ownie, I recognize that all the fairy tales were archetypal–telling the same stories book after book, merely changing details like the names, the weather, the type of plants–but always containing wisdom about womenʼs roles and how women made their way in the world. In their purest sense, these archetypes embody truths about women that transcend their varying interpretations by different generations, civilizations, and even religions. They may appear as pagan divinities, animals, Biblical figures, Shakespearean heroines, but at their core they represent a quintessential feminine energy.
The Goddess Athena
From an archetypal perspective, I recognize my story was partly shaped by the characteristics of several Greek goddesses. Aunt Nan was Athena, the goddess of wisdom and craft, the logical, self-assured woman who is ruled by her head rather than her heart. Ownie was Hestia, goddess of the hearth, the patient and steady woman who finds comfort in solitude and exudes a sense of intactness and wholeness.
My Mom was Demeter, the maternal archetype (of course), representing a womanʼs drive to provide physical and spiritual sustenance for her children. At that point I was Persephone, a maiden, expressing a womanʼs tendency toward compliancy, passivity, a need to please and be wanted, and often “protected” from experience that carries so much as a hint of risk.
Then, too, I recognize that an event or a different stage of life can summon different archetypal responses. Athena was called forth from Hestia out of the necessity occasioned by divorce, for example. Hestia herself was reinforced by the resources she mustered by her widowhood. Persephone matured into Demeter by childbearing and then later developed into her own Athena. I recognize too that a chosen course of action can bring forth the necessary strength a particular archetype represents; itʼs a “faking it ʻtil you make it” truth.
Finally I recognize that all our clients have an innate resilience as they draw their strengths from these feminine archetypes. We can support each one of these archetypes, call them forth, honor them … and thus fully empower both our clients and ourselves.
