On this day, which is remembered as the International day of women, I revisited the series of photos I have of a mother bird feeding a juvenile Barbet. As the bird grew into the juvenile stage, it began taking the food from the beaks of the mother bird. Earlier in the fledgling state, the mother bird fed into the mouth of the fledgling.
A woman is a person; an adult, a single person or a wife, a mother, a home maker and a professional at work place....!
A woman is not only a giving person but a self giving person! She is often involved in multiple caring roles at home and outside the home! She offers herself and her body to conceive a baby, nurse a baby and care for the baby through childhood formation.
This is more than just giving, but self-giving !
A woman lives her vocation! As a married person, while becoming a mother she gifts her heritage to bring another generation into being! She makes all the adjustments through pregnancy to give the baby a home in her body first and later in the physical space of her home !
I have observed it closely in the way Anna welcomed her roles and transitions with readiness and cheerfulness!
Is it not to a mother an infant or toddler returns when he or she needs comfort and consoling! It is from Anna I receive all my support, encouragement and timely guidance for health and wellness! The way she offers that spontaneously, voluntarily and thoughtfully surprises me !
According to Carl Jung, every woman has a deep seated unconscious masculine side which he referred to as animus. According this theory, a man has a feminine side to his life, which Jung advocated as anima.
The woman cultivates the masculine side spontaneously by accepting roles which help her to integrate her animus with her womanhood. I understand from my reading that a man does not integrate the anima as well as the woman who grows up with a wholesome view of gender roles.
I remember reading about seven feminine Archetypes: The Maiden, The mother, The queen, The huntress, The mystic, The sage, and the Lover.
How refreshing and revealing it is to think of woman through the optic of the above archetypes! The archetype is understood as primal image, character and inwardness of a person present in the unconscious' !
It is this foundational aspect of a woman that diffuses or disarms the male dominated gender infiltration that has got blended into different domains in our society!
When Ms Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand relocated to Australian recently, there is a search for the reason. Many of us would remember that she was used to carry her baby to the cabinet meetings and parliament to nurse and care for the baby without interruption. At one stage after she stabilised the country during the corona pandemic, she stepped down from the office of the prime minister and did not even seek reelection to the parliament. Her popularity in the electorate was high that that there was no threat for her continuity!
But she chose motherhood and time away from politics. Is that the only reason, I do not know!
But the fact she did what she did attributes a status to women in our society. She knew enough to be in the 'power' of leadership and had the discernment to set side the position easily at an opportune time of her choice!
Do we see such an ability to let go of 'power' in the male dominated political hierarchy?
Here in the instance of Jacinda, she represents an archetype of the Mystic, the Sage and the Lover. She behaved differently from the rest of the leaders! I sense that she loved her freedom to choose! She chartered her course in life ! The political compulsions or her party's future did not make her surrender her freedom to be herself!
A woman is one who is potentially able to be herself in vocation and mission in life with freedom to shift between her archetypal roles!
What a regard we men ought to have towards women!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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