Know Your Integral Anima-Animus Profile?
In most monotheistic belief systems -- including organized religions -- believers see themselves as reflections of their deity. That's one reason their particular form of 'God' is very often described as being an anthropomorphized male or female. Many mystics, those who experience direct union with our timeless Source, have seen beyond the two poles to something more transcendant. They look beyond the either/or poles of gender and see a 'transparent oneness' or 'timeless coitus of equally important but complementary opposites' that transcends male and female. Some have envisaged this ultimate union as the psychospiritual 'divine androgyny'. In this post I provide a self-profiling process for experiencing the intrapersonal erotic union of feminine and masculine intelligences and for continuing cocreative conceiving and birthing of creative ideas, concepts and forms.
By way of background, last year I posted a blog titled "Of Lady Liberty and Marriage to Animus" in response to one written by Stephen Dinan on "Lady Liberty." His blog brought to memory my mutually loving encounter some decades ago with my anima (as you may know, Carl Jung's term representing the feminine intelligence) and my full acceptance of her as equally important to my animus. The continuing result has been optimally enhanced erotic health and full functioning as well as increased creativity and innovation in my professional and avocational life.
In my blog I said, "I have often thought of the two as being like poles within an androgynous electric battery. Accept only one pole and we stay in darkness. Accept both poles and energy springs forth to illuminate with a special light and energize our minds and bodies for realizing whatever intentions we have."
To me, the two poles -- anima and animus -- are equal in importance, yet complementary opposites which I have experienced in all four of my brainwaves (See my SIA Share titled My Inner Conscious Transformational Experiences & Their Brainwave Patterns -- An Integral Perspective (2006)). Perhaps you do, too.
While I view the relationship of my internal anima and animus as psycho-electric, as mentioned above I have found a very simple model of the electric dry cell battery useful in representing the relationship of the two and their equal but complementary opposite functions, especially to people who have difficulty conceptualizing, not to mention actualizing, this androgynous model in their lives. For example, some heterosexual males have voiced fear that if they accept and love their anima they may become too feminine at the expense of their cherished machismo. The converse may also be true in women fearing loss of their femininity when they consider the prospect of accepting their animus pole.
This simple little psycho-electro representation of the equal importance of both poles within us has helped some people dispel such fears. Even though my analogy with an electric battery is inorganic my experience in using it with my Community Group shows the two-pole representation can help reduce doubts and trepidations among heterosexuals about losing whatever sexual preference they have. It can show how both poles, though lying latent within one, can work together in centeredness and interdependent dynamic psycho-electro-organic balance for more mutual respect and empathetic understanding of the other bio-gender in female-male social relationships, as well as for eliciting greater individual creativity, innovation and general sense of completion and wellbeing.
Having once been a musician it is natural for me to view an integration of anima and animus as resulting in a musical continuum of options represented by an electrically powered piano keyboard. Based on the principle of seven sound vibrations, the music keyboard of at least 88 sounds audible to humans, this model represents awareness of the currently available range of conscious options for healthful, wise, creative, and skillful cocreative self-managing for more or less skillful or unskillful, harmonious or discordant living, aging, dying and thereafter.
It is interesting and perhaps useful to extrapolate the concept of the 88 audible sound vibrations available in octaves on a full piano keyboard to the 90 or more octaves of parasensory vibrations physicists say exist in the known cosmos (that information came from a visit to the Smithsonian during the IONS conference in Alexandria, VA in 2005).
Invariably, someone asks if the principle of centered, balanced, dynamic interdependence of anima and animus applies to homosexuals and bisexuals. In my opinion, it does. The principal anima-animus intelligent energies are the same as for heteros, only the 'packaging' and expression may vary some.
A meditative affirmational which may assist you in orienting yourself to my model follows:
'I am an ageless constituent of OmniMind’s (OM’s) timeless window-glass-clear awareness, which is the common denominator of all-pervading anima and animus and dark and light. I am neither of those identities. Consequently, I transcend, own and am cooperatively free to choose — within the contraints of my biological gender DNA — from among the full range of feminine-masculine roles I wish to manifest through my beliefs, values, attitudes, motives, methods, or behavior depending on the unique nature of each situation at hand. I balance and integrate my erotic masculine-feminine intelligent energies using them within optimally healthful full functioning parameters.'
So, I pass the attached model along to you for whatever use you are able to make of it. I have also attached an instrument titled My Anima-Animus Profile which you may use, if desired, as a transformational tool as well.
Yours with empathy and trust in integral natural science and our timeless omnipresent mysterious Source of all healthful expressions of anima and animus.
Bob Johnston
P.S. Should you encounter difficulty accessing my attachments try using the "SAVE" button. If that doesn't do it write to me at omnimind@admin.umass.edu.
REFERENCES
Johnston, Robert Wayne (2006). "Of Lady Liberty and Marriage to Animus" http://www.shiftinaction.com/node/3004
______________ (2006). My Inner Conscious Transformational Experiences & Their Brainwave Patterns -- An Integral Perspective http://www.shiftinaction.com/node/3520
_____________ (2006). Cocreative Self-Management Development System: My Ten-Step Affirmational Process at http://www.shiftinaction.com/node/2075
