The only thing I don’t like about my life is the way I‘m not livingit.
--Robert M. Stein1
…[T]he call may have been more like gentle pushings in the streamin which you drifted unknowingly to a particular spot on the bank.Looking back, you sense that fate had a hand in it..
--James Hillman2
When does life’s golden thread turn to silver? Is it at the sightof that first silver-gray hair? Or when Aunt Bess gives the tinygolden or silver or black hair on her chinny chin chin a tweezertug?
A dream enters in the still of the night. I follow its lead inpursuit of answers:
I hear an unfamiliar female voice telling me to sculpt three mortalwomen in reverse age-related order. I’m to begin with an elderlyfigure or crone, then sculpt a mother, and finally a maiden. Aftereach human figure is completed and fired, she is to be left to reston her own sculptor’s stand.
As the maiden nears completion, I sense an odd quality about her.She appears terribly human, but then…not quite. While a bit morehuman-looking to me than her two companions, I can neither ignorenor erase this otherworld quality that emanates from within her.Upon closer inspection, I notice that the crone and the mother emitthis same eerie, out-of-this-world quality. I wonder if each ofthese human-looking clay figures might also have a silent innerpartner?
“They are The Three Fates,” says a voice.
I wake up with a start—to many questions. Why the Three Fates? Whysculpt these human figures in descending order from eldest toyoungest? Might the otherworldly quality within each human figurebe reflective of a mythic presence that either enhances—or isantagonistic to—their humanity? Conversely, might sculpting thesehuman figures amplify these mythic qualities or destroy theirmythic essence completely?
I go to the studio immediately and begin to sculpt three ordinarylooking women in the order suggested by the dream: crone first,mother next, maiden last. All the while I hold the intention toengage in a kind of seeing into and through each woman as shepresents herself to me in sculpted form.
I was vaguely familiar with the Greek myth of The Three Fates,those goddesses of destiny said to have jurisdiction over thepurpose, quality, and length of one’s life. Klotho, the youthfulmaiden, is the spinner of life’s golden-silver thread. The strong,bountiful mother figure Lachesis is the weaver, the apportioner, ofthat thread and a true match for any mortal woman at the apex ofher life. Atropos, the crusty Crone, severs that mortal thread, andis a guaranteed presence in the wintry hours of our humanity.Spinning, weaving, cutting. As in life, there’s a creation, anembodiment, and finally a letting go.
Could I, would I, discover and deepen my experience of thegoddesses contained as inner figures or forces within my sculptedrenderings of three mortal-looking women? Prompted by the dream,that was the question I hoped to explore.
The idea of sculpting these figures in reverse order of the lifecycle has been catalyzed only in part by my dream. The otherprovocation has come from the musings of my scientist friend Paul.Although he studies human evolution scientifically, on occasion hehas described looking into and through the faces of literal olderwomen with what seems to me a unique and particular lens.
He tells me that when he looks into the flesh and blood face of anolder woman, he often sees a powerful, potent, youthful image ofthat same woman as she might have appeared decadesearlier.
My profession as a psychotherapist leads me to surmise that thisinner, layered, imagistic (rather than ocular) vision might reflectand represent a significant window into Paul’s personal psychology.While his visual acuity is most unusual, I doubt that it’s at alldelusional. Ultimately, I can’t presume to know what drives andcompels him to see and experience these unusual, layered sightingsin this particular way. I can only surmise that his descriptions ofthe inner figures, so present and alive within the face of theelder, are ocular representations that also have some literalmeaning for him.
That said, I can’t resist the temptation to conjecture that when aman of science, such as Paul, looks into the eyes and face of theaging mortal woman and sees what has always been there—i.e., animage of the ripened mother, and/or innocent, youthful maiden—hemay, without consciously realizing it, be privy to the underlyingembodied, mythic personifications of The Three Fates. If he can seethese inner goddesses, might I, too, have the vision to seethem?
So, I veer away from the empirical, rational world and take aflying leap into the realm of myth where I might find support formy assumptions. As is often the case, one question inevitablyprompts others.
What about my dream? This dream, along with Paul’s ability to seeimages within images, mythic or not, has prompted me to look intothe faces of these sculptures and those of flesh-and-blood womenwith a new openness. As a result, something wonderful has happened:archetypal doors have opened.
The Three Fates of my dream are now much more to me than just threedream-like residents clothed within the sculpted form of the humanbeing. Eternal and ever-present, they are cloistered innergoddesses whose force and energy evoke and reinforce my own desireto perceive them as more than literal, younger versions of theirolder human counterparts. I now imagine them as prominent,life-giving, mythic figures who guide, inhabit, and support acontaining archetypal ground.
On a personal note, my recent journey through what I can bestdescribe as the psychological transom of one of life’s laterdecades coincided with the completion of the sculptures of thesethree—or rather six!— women. At the same time, I sustained a joltof personal and medical turbulence. The confluence of acutepersonal disappointment and annoying health concerns thrust me intotraumatic territory, while leaving no doubt that I am now in thehome stretch of my life.
As this project ends, I find that my reflection on the experience,along with Paul’s catalytic, visual view of aging has, in truescholarly fashion, amplified my understanding by generating evenmore questions:
Is life most affirming, most continuous, when viewed inreverse?
Is the silver/golden thread one of life or of death?
Can youth ever really be lost if, as in Paul’s style of perception,the golden, younger woman can still be perceived while lookingthrough the eyes of the silver-haired elder?
Might this silver/golden thread of life be a universal umbilicus—aheavenly/earthly connector—that moves invisibly from person toperson?
If this golden-silver spun thread of life is held within themythical hands of these three images of fate who magically turngold into silver and silver into gold, then how can that fragile,yet tough, thread of life ever be totally severed?
Finally, might this eternal cord of life carry a hidden destinywith which we dare not interfere, lest we find ourselves lefthanging… by a thread?
© JUDITH HARTE, All Rights Reserved.
References
Robert M. Stein, M.D. Jungian Analyst – personalconversation
James Hillman, Ph.D. –Book Mark – Pacifica Graduate Institute
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