mamazuma

Oh, cool, the clip didn't work though, I'm not sure why. I'm in a degung gamelan performance group at the moment around Pittsburgh, the professor in charge of it is on sebaticle and he grabbed up me and a few other people to start it up. It's a lot of fun, really beautiful music, I'm lucky to have fallen in with these people.

And by the way, the problem you are expressing in your journal is unfortunately common and frustrating. It reminded me of an article I read and typed up for a friend of mine once, and since I still have it in an old archive folder I am going to copy and paste it here. I think it expresses and explains the essence of the imbalance and the perception of your role being less praised than your husband. Honestly, you should make him read it, it might make consider things that he hasn't before.

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Idealized Fantasy and Self Esteem

The wish to attain perfection - the striving after an ideal image while excluding from our perceptions the realities that surround us and inhabit our own consciousness - is known by psychologists to be a primary contributor to feelings of low self esteem. In believing that we cannot perceive truth through our own senses, we devalue our own existence by negating or ignoring gifts that are not highly valued in a technological and performance-oriented culture. Our first article delves into the mythology that epitomizes this behavioral bias and provides an unraveling of the psychological knot into which we, as a society and as individuals, are too often tied.

If the ideals of a culture are often at odds with individual desires and creative impulses, this anomaly is especially so in a culture which is dominated by heroic thinking. The "perfectionist" images that fuel feelings of inadequacy are usually linked to idealized fantasies and, through a cycle of fantasy and self-rejection, people become addicted to an ideal impossible to achieve.

The idea of perfection in Western culture goes back to Plato's theories of Original Forms, in which he proposes that there is a world of eternal ideas that we can only know through reason and logic, not through the senses. Plato, whose thinking Western culture has adopted, places the highest value on the idea of beauty which he sees as synonymous with the idea of the good. Both of these concepts are equated with the sun, which he sees as masculine, setting the stage for the hierarchy that is still the driving force of Western Society.

Perfectionist is connected to an imbalance between solar and lunar states of mind and occurs whenever solar values are inflated over lunar values. In solar society, achievement and success are valued far more than a rich inner life, and performance expectations are so ingrained into the very fiber of life that sometimes it seems like performing provides the very meaning of life itself.

We pay great honors, for instance, to those who have made a fortune in business, or been successful in various professions, yet we have little regard for the more lunar gifts of the waiter or waitress who can make anyone who sits at their counter feel at ease. This same value system is also revealed by our failure to support the arts.

While solar oriented people are more likely to strive to meet culture expectations and thus ignore lunar wisdom, lunar orientated people have often been so beaten down in a solar society that they find themselves operating below capacity. It is thus their challenge to recover their solar fire from deep inside and to have the courage of their passions. Faced with the constant bombardment of a solar culture, which sets so many idealized standards, lunar oriented people often make the statement, "I do not know who I am."

The solar/lunar dilemma is quite eloquently demonstrated by exploring the characteristic of narcissm. In examining people with narcissistic problems, one will find quite often that they have developed an inflated sense of Self, derived from being admired at an early age for some prized physical trait or special talent. In such cases, though it may appear that a child is loved, he or she may not really feel loved. This discrepancy arises because admiration is attached to a particular characteristic of the child rather than to the child's being as a whole.

This dilemma illustrates the degree of suffering that occurs even for those who meet our culture's idealized standards of beauty. Tracing the history of this image of perfection to its roots in Western culture, we arrive at the Greek myth of Narcissus. The central drama in the myth concerns a young man, a hunter who continually rejects the countless suitors who seek relationships with him. One day, as he is bending down for a drink of water from a pond, he falls in love with the image of himself he sees reflected. This fixation becomes a consuming passion that in due time destroys him. He dies obsessed with what is essentially an idealized fantasy of himself. Eventually, at the spot where he dies, a flower appears which accordingly is name the Narcissus.

The myth of Narcissus accurately portrays the need that narcissists have to play to an admiring audience in its depiction of the nymph who falls passionately in love with the hero. Appropriately, the character is named Echo. In the story Echo is cursed with staying silent until someone else speaks to her. In order to be acceptable to a narcissist, instead of expressing her (or his) own ideas and desires, a lover must mimic what the narcissist wants to hear.

The fact that Narcissus is characterized as a hunter in the myth captures the aspect of control needed to maintain an ideal image that is essentially illusory. Moreover, the hunter is predatory, concerned with controlling others rather than developing authentic relatedness; in contrast, the mysteries of love require vulnerability. In the contemporary world, the hunter aspect of the narcissist often translated into a driving desire to achieve goals, the narcissist is often closed off to intimacy. Whether narcissists are trying to excel in politics, industry or the arts, they often see their partners' need for loving attention as an irritable disturbance. They look for "hunting partners" who not only admire them but who will make few claims of their own, for those claims are perceived as 'smothering', a limitation of freedom, and selfish demands.

As the myth reveals, after a narcissist initially is attracted to the echoing admiration of others, he or she will ultimately reject that embrace and instead fall in love again with a self-reflection. After a while, even the admiration of others fails to meet the narcissist's deeper needs. The rejection of the echoing embrace of others points us to an interesting psychological development. Before true relatedness can occur, a narcissist must learn to distinguish between self-idolatry and self-awareness. And here it is interesting to see that the very same episode in the myth that signifies self-idolatry also offers a path to the authentic Self. Indeed, the true self can only be experienced and hence loved when one can see one's true reflection.

The ability that Socrates spoke of to "know they Self" is made possible through reflective consciousness. The term reflective consciousness describes that ability human beings have to think about and perceive their own thoughts, feelings and behavior. As reflections enter consciousness, self-knowledge becomes part of identity. In other words, identity becomes aligned with the authentic Self.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, which gives us the oldest existing version of the story of Narcissus, the decisive point of transition between Self-idolatry and reflective consciousness comes when Narcissus realizes he has fallen in love with himself. "Alas! I am myself the boy I see. I know it: my own reflection does not deceive me." Ovid's poetry articulates the narcissist's dilemma "...I am on fire with love for my own self...What shall I do? Woo or be wooed. But then what shall I seek by my wooing?" In the story it is death that brings about redemption. "How I wish I could separate myself from my body!" Narcissus wishes before he dies. Of course one need not actually die to recover from narcissism; rather it is the death of Self-idolatry that must occur before a transformation to reflective consciousness can occur. And it is this reflective consciousness that is essential to the expression of the authentic Self.

What needs to be sacrificed in order to cultivate reflective consciousness is an outmoded system of beliefs. Usually it is only at the times when people are feeling helpless to resolve internal conflicts or difficulties in relationships that they are willing consider another way of seeing things. At these junctures what must die are one's attachments to what one believes is an immutable reality, what Marie-Louise von Franz calls "narcissistic ruminations of the ego." If one is able to make a willing sacrifice" of old beliefs, a death of ego consciousness can occur.

At the time of the development of the myth of Narcissus, Western culture, particularly in Greece and Rome, was dominated by heroic consciousness. This period is famous for the emergence of heroes and, with them, individual consciousness. Reflective consciousness though it clearly existed at this time was neither a valued goal no even a concept. Heroic consciousness is often confused with individual consciousness. But they are not the same.

Heroic consciousness is oriented to the accomplishment of a chosen goal, when that goal is to become a millionaire or establish an empire, whereas individual consciousness is aligned to the ability to express the authentic Self. Often in heroic consciousness the goal becomes an obsession until it is obtained. The Greek work narke which means 'torpor' is the root for narcotic, and in this sense, narcissism is actually an addiction to heroic thinking. Reflection, on the other hand, is the nemesis of any heroic obsession. Indeed, when reflective consciousness develops, heroic obsession must die. This death is depicted in the myth of Narcissus, although here, as with psychological change, this death is followed by transformation: Narcissus becomes a flower.

Interestingly, as this myth clearly shows, when a culture inflates an archetype as ancient Greek culture did with the solar masculine, the lunar does not disappear: it continues to exist, but in a more covert manner. Despite an overwhelming prejudice against the lunar masculine displayed by our culture, we cannot really exist without it. This element is crucial not only for any kind of inner work, but in order to experience the authentic Self.

With a close reading the myth reveals a twin meaning hidden in the story. In the most versions of the myth, including the one written by Ovid, it is Narcissus's reflection of a male suitor that finally causes his demise. When this figure is scorned, he lifts up his hands to the goddess Nemesis and prays that Narcissus be cursed with rejection himself. "So may he himself love, and not gain the thing he loves!" [Salant 74] Hearing this prayer the goddess Nemesis curses Narcissus so that he will feel the same suffering that his suitors have felt - never to attain what he desires.

It is especially interesting that it is a male figure who activates the curse. The male figure is in fact Narcissus's twin and represents the denied aspect of Narcissus, an aspect capable of desiring and relating to others. Here, buried in the myth of Narcissus if one is looking, are masculine twins, one solar and the other lunar. In heroic mythology, though the solar hero defeats the lunar hero by killing him, the twin aspect remains in heroic myths, albeit in another form. The myth of Narcissus shows that if Narcissus could look with reflective consciousness rather than heroic consciousness, he would have seen a lost aspect of his own soul in the pool. It is the watery part of himself that he is longing for. The philosopher Gaston Bachelard says of the meaning of water images that they bring "...us a great soul repose...[which]...naturally awaken[s] our cosmic imagination through the beauty of a reflected world." In this myth, as in others, when one looks at the male figure that is rejected (killed or banished) as the twin, one usually discovers that this twin has a lunar quality. Thus, by reading mythology with a "twin vision", one can restore the older roots of the twin soul that Western culture has destroyed. Narcissus' reflection has two meanings: One depicts a singular heroic consciousness, which as I have said, fosters self built idealized fantasies. But paradoxically the same myth also signifies the hero's longing not only for reflective consciousness, but also for the missing half of his soul.

The figure of Nemesis appears in the earliest development of Greek mythology, which was closer to the goddess tradition that the third phase, which was steeped in patriarchy. In the goddess phase, the divinities were mingled into a mysterious melting pot where many attributes were shared. For example, both male and female deities were describes as 'mighty' and 'all-nourishing' whereas by the time of the third patriarch phase, the attributes of gods and goddesses were separated by gender, with the males being 'mighty' and the females being 'all-nourishing'. In Hasids Theogony, which includes imagery from the earlier matriarchal phase, one discovers Nemesis who is born as the daughter of night and is therefore a lunar goddess. She was considered one of the most powerful of the divinities and the Greeks showed her great respect. Her function was to see that everyone stayed in the place allotted by destiny. She punished pride in all its forms and did not permit any enterprise to go forwards that would change the natural order and balance. It was Narcissus' pride and arrogant attitude toward others - his rejection of relatedness -that Nemesis punished.

Although Nemesis has no active role in the myth after cursing Narcissus, her presence carries great symbolic meaning for anyone familiar with Greek mythology. Nemesis belongs to the mythological time of the Titans, when intuition and feelings dominate, as opposed to ideals. Nemesis transcends the realm of logic and objectivity, bringing forth fruit from the inner world of emotions, all that is felt and organic, all that is private, creative and imaginative. This aspect of consciousness often enables us to leap out of the constraints of received ideas and become more authentic.

-Howard Teich, Ph.D.

I'm currently enjoying being a stay at home mom. When you are a mom and you work, you're still usually expected to do most of the "stuf" it just doesn't get done as well and you feel guilty!! I don't know whats going to happen with my life right now. I am just trying to get in a "good place to welcome baby Sada. I still have a whole bunch of stuff to write to you about birthing from within, etc. but I haven't been on the computer much lately. I will do it soon.

Congrats on starting pottery again. Maybe you will be less burned out and have a renewed sense of spirit as the weather changes and fall moves in. Letting go of old stuff and thinking about all the new stuff to come.