SERVANTS OF THE SACRED DREAM

Liked the book, disliked the title and subtitle which struck me as woolly and pseudo-mystical. Not sure what the Deep Feminine is, either. But discounting some verbosity, over-writing and repetitiveness, Linda Hartley's book succeeds in blending the story of her personal psycho-spiritual crisis and healing with a wide-ranging transpersonal overview of the planetary crisis and its potential healing by the emerging feminine principle and values. What links the two is that the author suffered appalling professional abuse from a male psychotherapist whose wrong interpretations and callous neglect drove her into a serious breakdown, and this individual experience inspired her to look at the many kinds of collective victimisation suffered by women over the 5000 years or so of dominant patriarchy. Her description of the Earth's parlous state and its causes is clear but adds nothing new to existing knowledge. Her call to respect Gaia, to stop subjugating Nature and to cultivate individual responsibility instead of relying on 'experts', especially in medicine and religion, cannot be faulted, except on the grounds of over-familiarity Where she comes into her own is in presenting the great ancient feminine myths which, from the psychological point of view, are surprisingly relevant to women today. Here we meet the splendidly insubordinate Lilith, arch-feminist politely written out of Genesis (but creeping back in the shape of the serpent which tempted Eve and thus had her revenge in the end). However, Lilith's exile into desert and darkness also symbolizes the denied and dishonoured state of women of the patriarchy. Not that Eve fared much better, either... The other myths are about the downward journey of mythical heroines, journeys of descent into the dark chaotic realm of the denied feminine. As Hartley puts it, "The pain and rage of the repressed feminine, the Dark Goddess is deep, and it must be heard; she challenges the patriarchy that fears her...and will try to put her down or patronise her into silence." The myths, however, cannot be silenced. True, Persephone's downward journey is involuntary: she is abducted and raped by Hades who makes her into his queen of the underworld. But Psyche, mortal, abandoned by Eros and pregnant, undertakes the perilous trip to Hades of her own volition. And Inanna, Sumerian goddess of love and life, does likewise, to meet her dark sister Ereshkigal, the Lady of the Great Place Below, where she is killed, resuscitated and allowed to return to her realm of the Great Above. All this speaks about the need of today's women to confront and accept their Shadow, re-learn the cyclical art of just being instead of pursuing the linear frenzy of constant activity, shed old patterns and habitual behaviours like Inanna must shed her jewels and clothes before entering the underworld, and become initiated into a more whole, more rounded state of being that includes the inner masculine and the blossoming feminine, consciousness and feeling, control and passion alike. This book should do a good job by bringing the myths of the Heroines' Journeys to a wider readership more used to the stories of exclusively male heroes. I only wish the author had checked her mythical references more carefully. Icarus, for instance, did not die of sunburn, the Gorgon and the Medusa were one and the same creature, not two separate monsters, Prometheus had his liver eaten by an eagle, not by a griffon (sic) which is a heraldic quadruped with the head of a bird, and, worst of all, Beatrice was not Dante's lover and did not guide him through the Inferno. This sort of sloppiness is simply asking the nearest patriarch to put down the central argument of the book, or patronise it into silence.