Integrating the feminine archetypes.

What if you didn't have to leave anything behind, but just became more of yourself?

I love talking about the archetypes of the feminine - the maiden, mother, mediumistic woman and the matriarch. It’s something I find particularly interesting and relevant to today’s culture, but also something that is so widely misunderstood or to many, not known about at all.

To start from the beginning, you may have heard these archetypes referred to as the maiden, mother and crone. You can see that I deviate a little from those terms these days, but in essence my interpretation of the purpose of an archetype is to offer a connection point - a touchstone if you will. It’s a tool to help one with translating an experience.

There are a few other definitions you’ll find in the dictionary, including “​the most typical or perfect example of a particular kind of person or thing” and even the Jungian definition of “a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.”

I find that working with archetypes allows us to relate to each other and our experiences more easily, and also work with spirit/deities through these understandings too. I’m using the term feminine archetypes because even though it most often is referred to in reference to cis women, I believe that anyone who considers themselves a woman or non-binary may relate to these archetypes too (controversial, but this is my belief). There are also, of course, masculine archetypes. I tend to refer to them as the stag, father and sage, but these feminine and masculine archetypes can be seen reflected across many different systems of belief and many different cultures throughout the ages. A really common reflection of a triple archetype is the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.

Another note I’d like to make on the feminine and masculine is that the world is a dualistic place. There is light and dark, heat and cold, and of course masculine and feminine everywhere you look. The universe/spirit/nature cultivates balance, and so we as humans experience both feminine and masculine within the one body and lifetime. In fact, you might embody both feminine and masculine in one day. When you need to make quick decisions, defend your family or mow the lawn you may embody your masculine. When you moisturise your body with oils, lay down and stretch or make a warm meal you might be embodying your feminine. This is why I don’t believe it is as simple as being born with male or female parts, but alas, I digress

So now that you might be catching on to what these archetypes are all about, I want to bring in a concept that was inspired by another writer

Kat River

in one of her recent posts called The Village is Not Your Mothers Group where she wrote “I can often see the maiden integrated within their mothering” when talking about seasoned mothers. This struck a cord with me and helped to crystallise a thought body I had floating around in my subconscious -

you don’t just leave an archetype behind when you move into a new phase of life.

I have recently entered my motherhood era, and it’s been a really positive experience for me. I have a lot of things that I did and continue to do, and a lot of mindset shifts I made before becoming a mother that I think contribute to this and I’m happy to share more on this another time if it’s something that you find interesting (let me know in the comments), but I did realise one fundamental reason that I don’t feel like I’m losing myself to motherhood.

I never viewed this change as a loss, I only saw it as an expansion.

I didn’t accept the narrative that society is sending to new mothers that to become a parent is to leave behind your old self and let her die away completely. Your old self may experience a death, but it’s only a death of who they were in that moment in time. Really, your maiden is just joining your mother in this beautiful dance through to the next level of the human experience. You get to call on your maiden whenever you need her, it is a truly beautiful thing. You don’t have to give yourself entirely to motherhood because you aren’t only a mother. You are allowed to have hobbies and friends and fun. You’re allowed to dress for joy and not always for practicality, and you can absolutely spend time luxuriating in an expensive chocolate and a glass of something sparkly.

These are just examples, but the point I am trying to make is that your maiden is allowed to live on as a part of your mother. Having a child doesn’t have to mean that you have to lose a part of yourself, you just get to gain more of yourself.

In the words of Babula Clement, an incredible astrologer -
the more time I spend on Earth, the more of myself I find.

She was speaking to the idea that the more life you live, the more parts of yourself you draw back from the ether. There are many things that can fracture us in this lifetime, that split the soul off when we experience something traumatic. Sometimes this can be hangover from a past life too. The more time we spend with ourselves, truly getting to know ourselves and diving deeper into the work around caring for our bodies, minds and souls, the more parts of ourselves we can pull back in - the more whole and grounded we feel.

And to speak of the future selves, we wouldn’t have the wisdom of the matriarch if we forgot all of the experiences of our maiden. Our maiden, mother and mediumistic woman will inform the depth of our matriarch, and also allow us to connect and bond with the generations below us. I’m choosing to go forward seeing these handing-of-the-torch pivotal moments as times of integration where we pass on the responsibilities and experiences of the here and now to our current archetype, while still allowing our past archetypes to stay with us, coming out to play when the moment is right or they are needed. We are multifaceted, even multidimensional beings and we can treat ourselves as such.

One more concept I want to touch on is the idea that you don’t actually have to tick a certain list of boxes to embody a particular archetype.

I would hate for a woman to feel excluded just because she hasn’t been able or wasn’t meant to achieve a specific goal or fulfil an expectation.

A big example of this is motherhood. The mothering archetype is not specific, in my opinion, to birthing physical children of your own. It could refer to adoption or fostering, it could be the birthing of a business or project that does good in the world and nurtures others. It could be stepping into the right of passage that is becoming an aunt, or a guardian of some kind. Maybe you have fur children and that’s your path.

The village needs all kinds of women having a multitude of
varying experiences to thrive.

The time of the mediumistic woman is not always exclusive to someone needing to find themselves and delve deeper into their spiritual practise between having kids and becoming a grandmother. Maybe in this time you focus on travel, or learn a new skill that you’ve always wanted to learn. Also, in the same way someone may not have the chance to become a grandmother or grandparent. Perhaps you adopt a dog or start a garden, maybe you join a community group where you have the chance to mentor people younger than yourself. There are so many ways to embody an archetype and you aren’t doing something wrong just because you haven’t checked an experience off a list.

I hope that the idea of integrating your feminine archetypes resonates somewhere within you. It’s time that we stop buying into the idea that we have to lose something to get something else. It’s important that we shed layers of ourselves over time, and regenerate like a phoenix through its flame - these initiations are part of the soul’s journey. I just don’t believe that we can’t still hold onto the different energies of these archetypes and allow ourselves to be more, instead of less.

If you want to hear more on this topic, you can join in on the live discussion with myself and Ellene the New Age Naturopath (details will be shared in the chat). Let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comments below or via the chat, I’d love to talk more about it.

- Hannah