Project #5: Print + Poem + Essay (Dismembered No More)
recapture your lost limbs
the hands that hold you
the feet that carry you
you will be dismembered no more
This print and short poem were created as an assignment for my class on technology & psyche. The task was to flip through our book, Psychology and Alchemy by C.G Jung, land on an image or phrase, reflect on this image for an hour, and create something in response, also within an hour. The goal wasn’t to make something great, but simply to allow ourselves to sit with an artwork or text, have a dialogue with it, ask what it wanted to convey to the collective during this time (April 201), and make from that place. I found this container to be liberating and activating. I especially loved only having an hour to create something. The project was also impactful in that it allowed me to draw from material that has made itself into my inner world, and integrate it deeper into my psyche through image-making and creation.
When I flipped through the book I landed on an illustration of a woman, who was naked and surrounded by what seemed like a vibrating aura. Under the figure, was the phrase Anima Mercury.
As I reflected on this image and the phrase (in relation to the collective), I thought about our repressed anima and inner feminine, and in turn our overall disconnection from being. I thought of many things, but my mind continued to go back to the phrase ‘drop into being’. I tried to not anticipate what I’d create, and instead focused on the linear artwork and how it made me feel. I also thought of our culture’s oppression of not only women, but feminine (in archetypal terms) values, such as creativity, collaboration, inclusion, and being. And I thought about how the feminine and masculine (anima and animus, respectively) rely on each other to flourish.
For me to truly tap into my anima’s sense of intuition, keen sensing, and creativity, I also need to remain connected to my animus’s ability to take action, to apply discernment and create boundaries. It isn’t about embracing one over the other, because when one is out of balance, the other one falls short too. For example, I don’t make things simply by wishing them into being. I need to carve out time, show up to my practice, create boundaries so that this space and time can be protected (anima/masculine characteristics in the Jungian sense), and I must continue to do this again and again.
As I carved a figure of a woman onto a rubber block, I quickly noticed that I wasn’t carving any hands or feet, or even a head. I thought of Anodea Judith’s Eastern Body, Western Mind and the passage in which she mentions how her clients draw their bodies on a sheet of paper. She points out how some clients will barely take up any space on the paper, how others will need extra paper, and how some will forget a limb. I seemed to fall into the latter category.
This led me to think of the mythic tale of “The Red Shoes”, as told by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run with the Wolves, and I thought of dismemberment. In the story of “The Red Shoes”, there’s a girl who essentially loses her handmade red shoes as she is taken in by an old rich lady and her gold gilded carriage. The little girl is being made to assimilate to her new life with the old woman, who immediately disregards her spirited creative self, and tries to mold her into a nice little girl. One day the little girl spots a pair of bright red shoes that she desperately wants. She gets them, and the lady notices and takes it from her. But the lady eventually falls ill, and the little girl manages to get a hold of the red shoes. Turns out that the shoes make her dance and dance, until she can’t stop, even though she's exhausted and isn’t having fun anymore. Her feet ultimately end up being cut off by the town’s executioner.
I want to note that this is only a very short summary of an incredibly profound tale, and I very much urge for anyone interested to read Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ brilliant and insightful storytelling, which includes a breakdown of the archetypal images and metaphors present in the story through a mythic and Jungian psychological lens.
As I carved and I forgot limbs and thought of “The Red Shoes”, I reflected on pieces of the story. Of feet symbolizing a basic sense of mobility and freedom, and red symbolizing both aliveness and loss of life (Estés 1995). How dismemberment in this tale is a metaphor for the loss of creativity and joy, and the danger women face every day in their life, to remain connected to the lives of their own making. The handmade shoes our protagonist starts with were created by her own ingenuity, and spoke of her inherent creativity and resourcefulness. In this tale the old woman doesn’t represent the crone archetype of wise old woman that lends insight and support, but rather the elder bent on tradition, the one that has assimilated to the collective’s status quo to her own detriment and loss of freedom.
As the old woman of the story assimilates the little girl into a world where she must stand straight, and not skip or fall out of line, she robs her of her inner joy and spark. And what happens when we disconnect from the thing that makes us feel alive? We start to attach to anything that makes us feel anything. As Estes (1995) puts it, “Like all captured creatures, we fall into a sadness that leads to an obsessive yearning, often characterized in my practice as “the restlessness with no name” (p.227). She later adds that it’s important to be discerning of what it is that we’re taking on when it seems easy or trouble-free, “especially if, in exchange, we are asked to surrender our personal creative joy to a cremating fire rather than an enklinding one of our own making” (Estes 1995, p. 227).
There’s so much in this chapter of Women Who Run with Wolves that I will again direct anyone reading this to the original material for a much richer analysis and deep dive of the embedded meanings and messages of this story. But for the sake of contextualizing my project, I’ve wanted to include some points that I’ve been lingering on since re-reading this story.
Today my piece led me to think of my own disconnect to my creative life, and how I myself have lost my way a few times, and been swept up by the gold guilden carriage, and taken on the wrong pair of red shoes, forgetting the handmade ones that although scrappy, were ultimately of my own doing. I thought of how my own creativity has been endangered too easily as I let myself lose focus, and instead given too much of myself to things, spaces, and substances that were robbing me of this vital spark.
I thought of what it’d mean to reclaim my creative spark and passion, to regain my limbs, my hands and feet, and their ability to carry me to new places and new chapters. To connect to a life that is in line with my values and the world I want to be part of.
This turned out to be only the first step of a much larger alchemical experiment in class. From this initial exercise, we came together to allow our creations to give way to new forms and iterations. As the process unfolds and grows and spirals, I wanted to make sense of this initial part, and all that has already risen for me. I’ve also been sitting on the story of “The Red Shoes”, and I appreciate the opportunity to pluck some of it out.
In terms of reflecting on how this connects to 52 Projects, considering anima/animus and dismemberment affirm this experiment as a way for me to reclaim being, creating, collaborating, and following up on my commitment to show up. Even if I need time and progress to be spiral rather than linear. Regardless of how it happens or what tools I lean on, this process is much bigger, and essentially seeks to recapture my lost limbs.