Mommie Dearest, Part 1
The Mother Archetype
One of the most worshipped, most described in myth and religion, and one of the most ambivalent archetypes of our world is the Great Mother. Mother goddess images and religious cults are found in the earliest records of civilization, so it is not surprising that these images, and the ideas associated with the goddess, appear so frequently in our art and literature, and even more so, in our unconscious dreams and visions.
As the female embodiment of life, fertility, and first and primary outside consciousness for children, particularly in infancy and youth, the Mother is comforting, supporting, life-giving and nourishing, but also incredibly powerful and potentially deadly. With the stories and myths (which are ongoing in all of our lives) of the Great Mother, we gain our first glimpses of the conscious world, and our relationships with both our birth mothers, as well as our encounters with mother images throughout youth and adolescence, and how they have a profound influence on our lives.
The Great Mother is a very complex and multi-faceted concept, and while this post might focus a little too much on her negative and ambivalent nature, there are plenty of reasons (as we will learn in upcoming posts on the Mother complex and wound), to respect, if not always to love, our mothers.