Priapus, the Hippy, & the Sleeping Warrior~
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The title for this post comes from a few images that are swirling around in my psyche. The image of the hippy and the sleeping warrior is from a recent dream where I met two masculine, or animus aspects of my inner world: A young Celtic warrior, with fiery red hair, and a big strong stature; and a late middle-aged hippy wearing nothing but a loin cloth and smoking a reefer. The two men were in separate but conjoining rooms. I walked between the two. The young man was dead to the world, fast asleep and all evidence suggested that he’d been hitting the bottle. I felt vaguely concerned that if he woke up, he might not be in the best of spirits, and my safety could be in jeopardy.
In the next room, the old hippy was oblivious to everything, laughing like a mad man, and off his head on cannabis. I had no doubt he possessed pearls of wisdom, and the glint in his eye suggested he’d pierced the veil and had seen the funny/ridiculous side of life. I thought of these two animus figures as opposites rather like Democritus and Heraclitus, the laughing philosopher, and the weeping philosopher.
There was also an element of social class involved in the fate of the two men; the sleeping warrior reminded me of an angry young (working class) man, while the older man seemed to have enjoyed the privileges of a bohemian middle-class lifestyle. He could also have been a holy man, classless and casteless.
The warrior was a representation of the Puer Aeternus, the adult man whose emotional development has remained adolescent, causing him to “check-out” from the reality of the word, in this case through addiction to alcohol. The hippy, while clearly delighted and possibly enlightened, was nonetheless unavailable to the world of masculine energy.
In the chart of the recent new moon solar partial eclipse, my attention was drawn to another archetype that also speaks to ineffectual masculinity, or emasculation- Priapus, a Greco- Roman rustic and fertility god with a huge phallus which, due to a curse placed on him by the goddess Hera, could not sustain erection at the moment of sexual intercourse.
Perennially frustrated by his impotence, Priapus is sometimes depicted with a sickle in his right hand used to threaten thieves and other reprobates with castration. The medical condition “priapism”, where the phallus remains erect long after sexual stimulation has ended, is named after the god.
In the new moon solar eclipse chart, Priapus was in a 2° conjunction with Chiron, in the last few degrees of Aries, which ruled by Mars is connected to sexuality, libido, potency, primal energy, and masculinity. Mars itself was the apex point of a Yod (finger of fate), at 29° Libra, with the Saturn Neptune conjunction, and Uranus. The transcendence of the outer planets, along with Father Saturn (the Senex), attempting to connect with a passive Mars in Libra, asking him to raise his game and step into mature and enlightened masculinity. As well as passivity, a shadow aspect of Mars in Libra can be passive aggressiveness.
In a slightly different configuration, Mars also formed a Yod with Venus, this time with Venus at the apex. Venus (which relates to venereal disease) was at 2 ° Virgo, urging us to clean up our act in terms of sexual health. The point of the new moon solar eclipse was 29° Virgo; all things Virgo were being strongly highlighted. We are completing a Virgo cycle and have hopefully mastered some of her ways.
All this considered, let’s now go back to Priapus with his huge pulsating member that is never satisfied. Located next to Chiron, this speaks to the sexual wounding of men in our culture. I am not here, going to inundate you with boring statistics about pornography usage, instead (since I started this post in a personal vein by introducing a couple of my animus aspects), I will relate a personal story: A few years back I was chatting with a man who I’d recently begun to date when the conversation turned to pornography. I asked the man in question if he used pornography and he said he did. Trying not to judge him, I nevertheless felt concerned for my own well-being and I related this to him. Unfortunately, this only made him defensive, and he told me that what he does with his sexual energy is his business. But you see, that is where I disagreed. If I am in or considering being in a sexual relationship with a man, I feel it is very much my business to know how his sexual energy operates and what he is bringing into the sexual sphere of our relationship.
As a woman who sees with shamanic eyes, I am all too aware of the demonic layers underpinning the pornography industry. This, alongside less obvious psychic streams, including a general degradation of sex and misogynist attitudes writ large and thinly veiled within mainstream culture, have created a hell of an astral mess. This mess seeps through into the mental, emotional, and physical bodies. It may not be a popular opinion, and certainly it is not verified by science, but my belief is that strange and virulent viruses such as HPV, are a manifestation of the desacralizing, violence, and disrespect of human sexuality- particularly against the feminine. It is interesting to note that while men carry the HPV virus, there is no way to detect it in men as there is in women, and that overall, the virus is far more destructive to women than men.
You may be wondering what the point of the post is: To recap, with Mars so active and highlighted in the new moon eclipse chart, I feel that what is under the cosmic microscope right now is a review of where we’re at in terms of male sexuality. It is important not from a position of morality, but a necessary evaluation of how this potent masculine energy is being channelled and used in our current culture. Mars, sexuality, masculinity, warriorship… These are hugely potent energies that when expressed positively and in right relationship to the feminine, including the natural world, is a force to be reckoned with. And is what is needed right now.
There are many ways that masculine energy can be co-opted and stolen- addiction, pornography and the siphoning of male sexual energy, are just a couple of examples. The sleeping warrior, the one who has been wounded and with no positive relationship to the feminine (for many reasons), kills the pain through addiction and unconsciousness. The checked out hippy high on herb, is hardly a candidate for the physical or astral battlefields. And the Priapus man with his permanent erection who always needs more sexual stimulation even while it hurts himself and others, is permanently drained of his precious libido.
But I was thinking… What if the sleeping warrior woke up, the hippy shared his wisdom, and the pornographically addicted Priapus man got to the root of his compulsions and healed his sexual wounds. Then what?
For the record, the intra psychic figures that I mention exist on the inner planes of my psyche- I am not a smoker, and I’m not an alcoholic. In fact, with the recent Virgo eclipse and crossing the threshold of autumn equinox, I am making a conscious effort to clean up my act and move a step closer to owning my energy, strengthening my body, and focusing my mind. I have a practice that I refer to as “animus training” which involves things like running, setting goals, engaging with the world in a proactive way. Women as much as men need to free themselves from what is known in Jungian psychology as the “devouring mother”, the pull of the unconscious that keeps us stuck in our psychological complexes and therefore ineffectual in the world.
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This Post Has One Comment
I relate to this so much. Thanks for sharing.