Over the past few months I have been trying to get healthier. I haven't been feeling good, I've felt extremely run down, and nauseous, I've been getting headaches on and off and just feeling generally not well. So I tried to eat healthier and get more exercise and I was starting to feel a lot better, then with the craziness of life and the most recent Thanksgiving, things just got really off track.
So feeling a little self defeated I decided to meditate on it. I don't get a chance to meditate very often (3 year olds take away a lot of quiet time) but when I do it is VERY intense. When I meditate I use it to commune with my inner self, my ancestors, or the Gods.
On this particular occasion I was trying to talk to the Goddess and ask her for strength and the willpower to continue on my quest for health. From somewhere deep inside, a tiny voice I didn't recognize, and wasn't expecting told me You have the Goddess, you need the God. You need the strength and virility of the Hunter.
I was completely blown away by this revelation. I've said this before and I'll probably say it a million times more, I came to paganism because of its balance. Dark and Light, Hard and Soft, Warmth and Cold, Masculine and Feminine. However the male half is something I've always taken for granted. I suppose because I'm a woman I've always looked for the male energy to come from some outer source, some being other than myself. Something I've always know but never really explored is the fact that we all have male and female energy within us, and sometimes regaining balance is as simple as accepting our counterparts.
In A Witch's Book of Dreams by Karri Allrich (which was fabulous) she explores this concept of male and female counterparts and refers to a woman's male counter part as her Animus. She goes on to say
~A woman’s inner masculine soul twin that reveals himself in dreams. He may appear as a strong youth, a guide, a teacher, a lover. He delineates her inherent spiritual muscle; the courage to speak up, share ideas, initiates projects, works in the world, venturing into the realm of ideas and self-expression. As the Daimon Lover, he may show up as a mysterious guide holding a lantern in the dark passage for the dreamer to see her soul path more clearly. Through maturity, growth, and balance a woman will embrace her masculine aspect and become whole. How he appears in her dreams will be a clue as to how developed he is within her.~
What a fascinating concept that is! As I contemplated this I realized it also fits with other areas of my life. I've been having these terrible nightmares that my husband is either leaving me or cheating on me. After I learn of this (in the dreams) I always feel weak and helpless. In these dreams I always identified him as my husband but it was never actually my husband. I could never see his face, it didn't sound like him, and his personality never fit. So perhaps it was simply my Animus reaching out to me showing me how neglected he was. Showing me that I NEED him to help me be strong.
Now this isn't going to be an ideal that sits well with many feminists but it is true we all need our male or female counterpart in order to survive. Even same sex couples need to seek out sperm, or an egg and a womb if they want children. No one can go it alone.
Anyways, I just thought I would share all of these thoughts with you and maybe get you to think about your own Animus, (or Anima for the men). Is he/she nourished, cared for, accepted, and celebrated. If there is some type of imbalance in your life perhaps you can look there.
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