Satya - this was so beautifully written, and so needed! This quote, "Nothing thrives under hierarchy and power. Everything thrives under connection: empathy, love, the erotic, embodiment, the sensory, and the sensual. Jung showed us a way to get back there, where we actually belong." Thank you for this, I will bring this with me in my advocacy work :)
Love this. And ironically, my partner and I decided to have a movie night and whittled our selections down two choices: Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” or John Boorman’s “Zardoz”… Both science fiction but a rather comical split. Despite being a huge Tarkovsky fan I picked Zardoz which I hadn’t seen in over 20 years and only remember it being comically weird with Sean Connery running around in knee high leather boots and a mankini, but Boorman’s Excalibur was infused enough with Jung, Von Franz, and Campbell that I thought it likely that I didn’t understand any of it in my twenties.
In the end it was indeed much more compelling, symbolic, and psychedelic than I had picked up on. It’s almost the opposite of this essay. A future society of immortals live in protective bubbles known as the vortex. As immortals they’ve lost the need for Eros and are caught in lifeless endless bureaucracies. Heroics are dead, everything is decided by a skewed democracy.
Sean Connery comes from the fallen outworld outside of utopia and is an Exterminator (Men who follow a patriarchal god who deifies the Gun and killing) but Connery isn’t just a brute he is educated and brings what has been lost to this faux utopia. His masculinity is so threatening to the order of the feminine dominated utopia that one of the leaders wants him killed immediately. Others refuse, wanting to hear more from this male “beast”.
In the end in order to eradicate this masculine element that has disturbed their apathetic peace and immortality, one of the female leaders played by Charlotte Rampling goes on a crusade of chaos setting everything on fire, killing and destroying with plans to murder Connery becoming him as he was in his former life as an exterminator. Through their union and acceptance of each other’s opposites the false utopia is burned, the immortals killed, and a new society is born.
Politically speaking I agree, much of the world is stuck in repressing the feminine but on an individual level, there is a deep lacking of masculine energies. I have been in countless situations where I feel the negative patriarchal projections on me by women and queer folk. Perhaps this imbalance is the root of Western ills. If our image of masculinity is nothing more than brutality and violence is it so shocking that it would manifest as exactly that in circles of power?
Will definitely be order the Woodman book. Thank you 🙏 for this lovely essay.
I registered, excited to share the men’s talk. I’m one of those “cis guys”, also have felt the disdain from males and females for not seeking wealth, fame and fortune. Interesting how you discuss the Salome part in the Red Book, I remember reading it vividly. Jung was so perceptive!
Satya - this was so beautifully written, and so needed! This quote, "Nothing thrives under hierarchy and power. Everything thrives under connection: empathy, love, the erotic, embodiment, the sensory, and the sensual. Jung showed us a way to get back there, where we actually belong." Thank you for this, I will bring this with me in my advocacy work :)
Satya….that was really powerful and beautiful.. the writer in you shines forth, as well as your fire for the truth! ….
Just want to thank you before I read it more in depth. I am working on a talk about the feminine.
Thank you for sharing these reflections. This was really helpful to me.
Love this. And ironically, my partner and I decided to have a movie night and whittled our selections down two choices: Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” or John Boorman’s “Zardoz”… Both science fiction but a rather comical split. Despite being a huge Tarkovsky fan I picked Zardoz which I hadn’t seen in over 20 years and only remember it being comically weird with Sean Connery running around in knee high leather boots and a mankini, but Boorman’s Excalibur was infused enough with Jung, Von Franz, and Campbell that I thought it likely that I didn’t understand any of it in my twenties.
In the end it was indeed much more compelling, symbolic, and psychedelic than I had picked up on. It’s almost the opposite of this essay. A future society of immortals live in protective bubbles known as the vortex. As immortals they’ve lost the need for Eros and are caught in lifeless endless bureaucracies. Heroics are dead, everything is decided by a skewed democracy.
Sean Connery comes from the fallen outworld outside of utopia and is an Exterminator (Men who follow a patriarchal god who deifies the Gun and killing) but Connery isn’t just a brute he is educated and brings what has been lost to this faux utopia. His masculinity is so threatening to the order of the feminine dominated utopia that one of the leaders wants him killed immediately. Others refuse, wanting to hear more from this male “beast”.
In the end in order to eradicate this masculine element that has disturbed their apathetic peace and immortality, one of the female leaders played by Charlotte Rampling goes on a crusade of chaos setting everything on fire, killing and destroying with plans to murder Connery becoming him as he was in his former life as an exterminator. Through their union and acceptance of each other’s opposites the false utopia is burned, the immortals killed, and a new society is born.
Politically speaking I agree, much of the world is stuck in repressing the feminine but on an individual level, there is a deep lacking of masculine energies. I have been in countless situations where I feel the negative patriarchal projections on me by women and queer folk. Perhaps this imbalance is the root of Western ills. If our image of masculinity is nothing more than brutality and violence is it so shocking that it would manifest as exactly that in circles of power?
Will definitely be order the Woodman book. Thank you 🙏 for this lovely essay.
Agreed! I hope you’ll join the upcoming men’s discussion group. We need a new image of all of both, without question.
I registered, excited to share the men’s talk. I’m one of those “cis guys”, also have felt the disdain from males and females for not seeking wealth, fame and fortune. Interesting how you discuss the Salome part in the Red Book, I remember reading it vividly. Jung was so perceptive!
Would definitely be interested in that. Thanks