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The premise of the story is ancient and yet can be described as New Age. It concerns both men and women. It asks us to consider the importance of the shadow in the development of the psyche.
What is the shadow?
It is that part of your unconscious which you most resist examining. It contains all the shame and fear you lock away. It is empowered by the strength of these emotions. Most people spend huge amounts of energy holding the shadow down. We fear it. Freud feared it.
But other scholars of the soul, led by Dr Carl Jung have formed a more helpful view of the shadow. They have found that contacting the shadow and releasing it leads to a tectonic shift in personality. The soul is not shattered by the power of the shadow self. On the contrary, it is reintegrated.
This was a controversial idea when it was first proposed during the 1930’s, but numerous psychologists, following Jung’s teaching, found that people who were placed in a position to connect with their shadow returned from the experience energised and more confident. Some were healed of lifelong physical symptoms. Jung was vindicated and a whole industry developed aimed at facilitating the experience of the shadow. Some techniques were more successful than others.
Healers from many disciplines realised that this process was fundamental to human development. They looked to the ancient world for hints that knowledge of the shadow was known to past civilisations. They found it. The oldest story in written human records is the Sumerian tale of Inanna who descends to the underworld where she is slain by her dark sister Ereshkigal. The past is scattered with tales of humans becoming divine as a result of making the journey into psychological death and returning, transformed. Mystery schools developed to take candidates on this ritual journey. The candidates returned as initiates. The mysteries of Osiris, Psyche, Ishtar, Persephone and Orpheus were all based on the concept that “If you release what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you contain that which is within you, it will destroy you.”
The tale of the transformation of Blodeuwedd comes from the ancients of Wales. It is a western European version of the mysteries of Eleusis. It was recorded in the fourteenth century by religious clerics who wrote it as a tale of a disobedient wife who was punished. Clerical interference during the patriarchal period has often obscured the original intention of the tale. By this means Hera was reduced from Queen of Heaven to a nagging wife.
If we can peel away the commentary and find the seed of the story we will find its message. The transformation stories are all whispering the same secret: “Your shadow is your power.”
This page contains some hyperlinks to sites that discuss the inner meaning of the Blodeuwedd myth. It would be spurious to repeat all this learned discussion and opinion here. If you are intrigued by the implications of her transformation you can further your knowledge by reading them.
Some of the people reading this may have experiences to share which either support or contradict the principles expressed by this story. You are invited to leave messages and converse. Let us consider the subject together.
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