JUNE 1, 2005
Pondering Lilith: A Raging Woman
By Theresa Dintino
I want, I need, to talk about the madwoman; about Bertha Mason -- the dark woman running, wild and raging, through the attic of the home of the man Jane Eyre loves.
I want to talk about Rochester's first wife, abandoned, banished, unaccepted -- the same as Adam's first wife, Lilith. I want to talk about Eve and Jane Eyre and what we all know to be true: that woman in the attic, that Snake in the tree, is only the shadow sister, a split off part -- the furious female.
More than any other book I had ever read, Jane Eyre, captivated and moved something deep and ancient within me. The character of Bertha Mason lingered, haunting. Charlotte Bronte has been accused by many, including Virginia Woolf, of letting her anger show through in her writing. The accusation in and of itself implies that letting one's anger show through in their art is somehow an inappropriate thing to do (for a woman, anyway). If art is an expression of the truth, on the deepest level, I cannot understand why we are not surrounded by the art of furious women. Charlotte Bronte has been called a raging woman. How I love her for that.
Ours is a society which absolutely rejects angry women. Even when expressed, our anger is ignored, trivialized, rejected. It is rarely acknowledged as something that must be dealt with -- as a feeling expressing a need for action.
We, as women, in spite of all our accomplishments, have failed to deal with our anger. I am convinced, more and more all the time, however, that the anger is the key that will open the door out of our present state of perpetual angst. For, beneath that anger-on the other side of it -- is a woman's power. The only way to the power is a path passing directly through the rage. That is the path women have refused to take.
What does it mean to be mad? Is the madwoman insane? Crazy with rage? To rage is to be mad. Rage, Alice Miller says, although an appropriate reaction to cruelty, is very often misinterpreted as the sign of innate mental imbalance. The madwoman is not crazy. She is angry. She has been locked up for century upon century. She is abandoned, unaccepted, rejected, unacknowledged, unloved. She feels unlovable. Of course, she is angry.
What does it mean to be angry? Anger is an emotion -- a feeling. When experienced appropriately, it is a fleeting surge within us, a signal or warning the body sends to the psyche saying: something is not right here.
For women, anger is no longer a mood or a fleeting feeling. It has become a disembodied spirit, floating around separate from our physical and emotional selves. It has taken on a life of its own, become the horrified other. Anger is now our shadow sister-locked away in the attic -- something about which we live in fear others may uncover, something of which we are truly ashamed.
Most women do not see themselves as angry. In fact, if you were to suggest they might be angry they would probably vehemently deny it. Angry is not something women wish to be. It is unpleasant, unattractive and disturbing to every one in the room. Anger, because it is conveniently mistaken for insanity, can attract the wrong kind of attention. Somewhere in the back of all our minds is the haunting knowledge, the memory that the expression of our anger can lead us to the same fate as that of Bertha Mason.
The character of Bertha Mason haunts us, not because she is a horrifying monster, but because we recognize ourselves in her. Bertha leaves us with the eerie knowledge: She is me. I am her. She is the part of myself I must repress-hide away-to ensure my safety, lest I become her.
The misinterpretation of anger expressed as insanity has been used against women in the most vile of ways. No wonder women feel compelled to deny their anger. Though most women are unwilling to call themselves angry, they will, quite readily, refer to themselves as being depressed. It would seem that women prefer depression over the experience of anger. When we consider the amount of anti -- depressant drugs currently being prescribed and consumed, it appears that women are not alone in that preference.
And yet, it is quite commonly known that beneath the surface of depression lies rage-an anger repressed to such an extent that it has become truly frightening. If a person really wants to recover, heal themselves become undepressed -- they must experience their rage. Depression is a state brought on by years and years of repression resulting in an almost numbing effect on the psyche. Anger, though not the only cause of depression or the sole emotion to be repressed, is most often the first encountered-right there on top-when the depressed person dips below the surface of their depression and begins to get into the muck of the dis-ease.
It seems that depression is no longer viewed as a process that the psyche must go through and emerge out of in order to achieve wholeness, but rather as something to be managed. It is now considered to be a chronic condition for which the patient is placed on a drug program for maintenance. Since the anti-depressant drugs keep one teetering above the depression they need not deal with the rage. It seems the depression itself has become the tool for keeping ourselves from acknowledging our anger.
In the philosophy of the four temperaments, a system used to diagnose the personality types through the Middle Ages and earlier, the planet Saturn rules the liquids of the spleen, the black bile. The person influenced by this planet is often described as bitter, irritable -- of melancholic disposition. They are also, however, attributed with possessing genius, frequently expressed in a creative outlet. Lilith is often associated with Saturn.
Siegmund Hurwitz describes what he calls a creative melancholy, which many people of Saturnine Nature experience before the onset of a creative endeavor. In the Saturnine depressions his clients often see a dark, winged woman who is interpreted to be Lilith.
Several of the individuals Hurwitz uses as examples of people with Saturnine nature reach the remarkable understanding within themselves that these depressions are intricately connected with their creative process. They perceive the melancholy as being the other side of their genius. They instinctively know that without the bouts of depression they would not be able to create -- that the depression and the creativity spring from the selfsame well.
Depression is a going down, a lowering, an invitation to go yet deeper within. A time to face our demons. The demons we call those things that frighten us, but that we know are unconsciously motivating us.
It is Mary Daly who calls a woman's demon her genius; who reminds us of the original meaning of the word: an attendant, ministering or indwelling power or spirit; Daimonion: Genius.
The inner demon is also the muse. In this way Lilith is truly demonic. Lilith is creative genius, born only in darkness. She must be recognized, accepted, brought back into the light. She is the powerful woman inside of us whom we continue to send away, reject, and abandon. It is she who is generating all the rage.
Because we perceive it as a black hole within us, a place from which, once entered we shall never again emerge, we resist, refuse the journey. As women, we have not yet understood that there is indeed an end, something on the other side of that dark tunnel of rage-a life with power.
Power is the life force that wants to flow through us, make things happen, cause movement. It starts in the belly, moves up through the spine; it is energy in motion.
Once women danced. They danced in circles. They danced alone and together. They joined hands and spun. They held their arms, antennae, above their heads, breast forward, buttocks back and moved. Their movement created energy. This energy grew within them creating more energy, until it began to move through them, around them, between them.
All over the ancient world, women danced. Scattered through the art and remains of unearthed civilizations of the past are sculptures, paintings, images of women dancing.
Kundalini is the term Hindus use to describe the energy which lies coiled, dormant, at the base of the spine until, through movement, one awakens it. It is also referred to as the serpent of fire.
Depictions of snakes are preponderant in these ancient cultures as well. Ancient women knew the serpent within them. They understood that movement-dance-could awaken that serpent, help it climb the pillar of their spinal column and lead them to transcendence, enlightenment and spiritual bliss. They called Her the Goddess.
Modern women, afraid of our power, afraid of the consequences the invocation of our power may provoke, sensing danger even in the simple act of swinging our hips, decline Her invitation, ignore the desire we feel deep within us to move.
Astrologically, the planet Saturn is the planet of limitations, restrictions, discipline, order. Saturn represents authority, the rules we live by. It is also thought of as the wise teacher, the bearer of lessons, most specifically lessons that are repeated over and over until we finally, exhaustedly learn them.
It seems to me that dealing with our anger is the collective Saturnine lesson for women now. It is we who must design more creative, less destructive ways of channeling our fury. This is our work. It is our work because it is our anger. It is we who are experiencing it.
Where do we begin? We begin by ceasing to refer to ourselves as depressed. We begin by admitting finally to what is really going on inside of us. We must feel it, in every cell of our being, and then we must release it.
Yes, the darkness will engulf us, the rage will, temporarily swallow us. So begins the process of digestion. Only through digestion is one able to assimilate, integrate and eventually through release set herself free.
Section II of a five part essay called Pondering Lilith. For part I, please go to this page.
Theresa C. Dintino is the author of Stories They Told Me, a novel of Shamanism and Goddess spirituality set in Bronze Age Crete and, Ode To Minoa, the spiritual odyssey of Snake Priestess in Minoan Crete. She has recently completed a new novel, The Strega and the Dreamer, the tale of an Italian Strega who immigrates to the United States at the turn of the last century and encounters the birth of the western medical establishment. Visit her at http://www.ritualgoddess.com