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Archetypes
The Queen
In former times, the worldly Queen was also a
priest, warrior and mother – sometimes even the
ultimate archetype, the Self or goddess. It was rare,
but did happen. One example, born in the 15th
century BC, Hatshepsut, daughter of
Tuthmose I and Aahmes, both of royal
lineage, gained the throne upon the death of her
father. To have a female Pharaoh was
unprecedented. Although there were no wars during
her reign, she proved her sovereignty being a
master politician, and an elegant stateswoman with
enough charisma to keep control of an entire
country for twenty years. In all, Hatshepsut
accomplished what no woman had before her. She
ruled the most powerful, advanced civilization in the
world, successfully, for twenty years. Another
example, the mother and the father of a family
would model them. In those not so rare cases where
women become leaders of nations, the archetypical
Queen may take visible form, wise or foolish, caring
or cruel. Just as the King is not born as a King, but
must start life as a divine child, so does the
Queen. A powerful embodiment of this archetype is
the Pharaoh, like in Egypt were those roles merged.
Another example is Nefertiti, who oversaw the first
semi-monetheistic attempt. Here the Queen Nefertiti
and the Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten became a
mediator to an all-powerful God abstraction, the
source of complete cosmic power – the sun (see here)
and below. As is true of her male counterpart, the
Queen was the symbol for the leader of a nation as
divine couple. However, all the essential attributes
of the archetype of the Queen are present in any
real woman wherever she plays a leading (if only
herself) role, regardless of the scope her real
responsibilities—be she queen of an empire, a
nation, a clan, or her own family.
The Mother – Creator
cybele
In one of the oldest cults imported into Rome, the
Great Mother Cybele’s major attributes was, that
she protected people at war and, as such, was often
shown wearing a crown of city walls symbolizing the
defense she offered adherents. Also, as an earth-
mother deity in origin, she bestowed fertility and
governed creatures of the wild—ancient portraits
show her riding in a chariot pulled by lions—and in
both aspects she appealed to the Roman public
whose lifestyle was still, for the most part, agrarian.
Besides that, her powers included the ability to cure
disease and predict the future, making Cybele an
all-purpose deity if ever there was. I have
written here about the clash of male and female
Archetypes in classical Rome. She was an ancient
fertility goddess whose worship is thought to have
spread from Anatolia to Greece in the Archaic period
(c. 800-500 BC) and mysterious rites were
performed in the name of Cybele — as they were for
the other earth mother type goddesses, like
Demeter and Isis. It is worth to note the ambiguity,
which makes it possible to align many female
mother archetypes with the lover and the warrior
but not the queen.
The Wise Women – Spirituality
The Lover
A powerful female mythological archetypical lover
complex runs deep in Eastern and Western
Civilizations. In the cradle of civilization, it started
with Astarte and Ishtar. Some scholars hold Astarte
was a prototype of the Virgin Mary. Their theory is
based on the ancient Syrian and Egyptian rituals of
celebrating Astarte’s rebirth of the solar god on
December 25th. Other counterparts are Isis of
Egypt, Kali of India, and Aphrodite and Demeter of
Greece and Venus of Rom. In China you have the
archetype of the Green Snake and White Snake and
the holistic archetype of Tao, which to me is the
perfect example of the Self, integrating female and
male love..
salome-with-the-head-of-st-john-the-baptist
Salome dances as a femme fatale for her stepfather,
Herod Antipas, defying Herodias. The beheading of
the Baptist is Salome’s own idea, for which she will
pay with her own ghastly death. Nevertheless, John,
the Evangelist, comes to prepare the way of Messiah
with a new gospel of love, succeeds in coaxing the
Judean princess to a personal epiphany, for the soul
of Salome is not the same fetid sink as her
mother’s. “Speak again,” Salome exhorts him, “Thy
voice is as music to mine ear…. Speak again…and
tell me what I must do.” But just when a prophet’s
wisdom might have done some good, John is out of
ideas, saying: “I will not look at thee. Thou art
accursed, Salome….”
Conclusion
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