The Negative Mother Archetype

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The Negative Mother archetype is represented in our culture often as the archetypes of the Hag, the Witch, the Evil Sorceress, the Seductress, the Black Madonna, the Prostitute and the Raging Bitch! 

An archetype is defined as a form of consciousness that is understood as a more collective aspect of awareness. Often these darker feminine archetypal forms include an awareness of the intuitive side of the feminine as well – that was feared and often attacked in the past –for example, witches were burned for their deeper wisdom.  Or Christian religions tried to blame Eve for the first Sin in seducing Adam, and sexuality was denigrated as a negative desire – and the Prostitute was born.  Or Islamic religions hid women’s faces and bodies, because men could not be blamed for their sexual desire to want women, so women have to hide their sensual feminine nature.  The Hag is seen as old, harshly critical and cranky, split off from the power of her deeper wisdom, no longer being valued.

The Black Madonna, represents the mystery of the darkness or the Void, where we all come from. To be afraid of this to be afraid of our very essence of our self, of who we are.  When we choose to not explore this side of ourselves, we chose to only see half of ourselves.

The Black Madonna was also Isis in Egypt, Tara in China, Kali in India and Our Lady of Guadalope in Mexico.

She represents the darkness that calls us to go deep within ourselves and examine our negative nature.  We are taught to be afraid of the dark – when in actual reality, there is no light without the contrast of the dark to see it!  The Yin/Yang symbol in Chinese philosophy, understands that we need to have a balance within our body and mind of both dark and light, with a little of both in each.  When we take the time to truly examine who we are, the negative attributes that we might prefer to hide from as well as the positive qualities that our Ego self only wants to see, then we can hold a greater depth of wisdom and awareness of ourselves, a wholeness, that we no longer need to project our un-owned negative self onto others or the outside world.

The earth is surrounded by space – which is all dark!  The Cosmos is also a form of the Dark or Negative Mother.  And the Earth itself is dark, where the soil births the roots of new growth.  The darkness, in the womb, is where we all come from – and some of us go back to – into graves in the earth. The round, oval shape of the womb, the round shape of the earth, represents the feminine principle.  We are all inter-connected, in constant relationship and it is in our darkness where the roots of our being can be found.  It is in this deeper darkness where we can find the essence of our soul self, of who we truly are and also where our deepest, intuitive wisdom can be found.

The Next Post will continue with Part 3 of 4

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