Love is a force of destiny whose power reaches from heaven to hell. Carl Gustav Jung
Has your integration of the Shadow run its full course ?
Your personality must now set out to meet its “inner partner”, which will reveal itself through encounters with the opposite sex.
This “inner partner” is an idealized, fascinating, autonomous, unconscious inner image that we look for in the other sex (see the meaning of the 8th House).
These two pillars represent the reflections of the collective unconscious and the themes of masculinity and femininity, and we could even consider them to be the universal Man and Woman (in capital letters).
The anima and animus functions are the root of any reflection, symbol, or creative dream that allows the unconscious to communicate with the conscious ego.
Much like the Taoist symbols of Yin and Yang, they are present in each of us, contradicting our own gender :
- in addition to his animus, each man has an inner woman (his anima)
- in addition to her anima, each woman has an inner man (her animus)
The fundamental psychological nature of these archetypes
Before going into the details of the definitions of these two archetypes, as well as the differences between them and their astrological significators, which you will find on their respective pages, it’s important to describe the fundamental essence that they share.
At first glance, we could consider them to be simply “polar opposites”, but the anima and the animus are in fact more complementary than opposite : they are not diametrically opposite negatives of each other, not by a long shot !
We need to look beyond that simple, deceptive male/female polarity and see what descriptive terms we can assign to them :
- The Anima is “the Eros” (love), desire, sensitivity, substance, meaning, beauty, emotions, validation, the power of attraction, gravitation, intuition, dreams, the unconscious, the complete or absolute conscious, the collective, the many, etc.
- The Animus is “the logos” (the spiritual mindset), reason, structure, the power of logic, ideas, communication, the spoken word, rationality, inertia, completeness, brute force, the consciousness of the ego, the individual, the essential unit, etc.
One must be humble when dealing with the anima and animus, because these archetypes, which we could compare to gods, hold within them mighty, intrinsic powers. They truly are the bases of the psychological structure of the human psyche, even though they are unconscious.
On the contrary, the more they remain unconscious and ignored, the stronger their influence on our personality is !
Just like for the Shadow, and possibly even more so, we cannot take these archetypes lightly : their roots transcend the foundations of creation itself.
The anima and the animus have a dark side that is often put together with or mistaken for the Shadow. They may both be extremely destructive for their complementary opposite and cannibalize each other : for example, the principles of the animus may shatter “feelings” and sensitivity, while the principles of the anima may stifle “individuality” and fight against logic and pragmatism.
The anima and the animus also control the development of our dreams. They preside over “occult methodologies” that aim to reorient opposing energies inside of us (such as Tantra, Yoga, etc.) and any technique that aims to “convert” the ego to a more inclusive, complete, and spiritual outlook on our universal reality.
Archetypes and libido
And now for a little digression on the subject of libido and psychoanalysis, to draw a parallel between these concepts and the Jungian archetypes. Doctor Sigmund Freud, in his “Essays on psychoanalysis”, defined it in the following way :
Tendencies and Complexes are fed by instinct, which is the basis for emotions, feelings, and passions. This vital, dynamic energy of our being has been named libido.
We pejoratively reduce this term purely to simple, sexual notions, but at its core it includes elements of feelings that are much more varied !
Libido refers to the (immeasurable) energy of the tendencies that we summarize with the word “love” (Editor’s Note : the function of the Anima), which do have the end goal of a sexual union, but the term libido does not exclude all of the types of love that are not explicitly sexual : parental and filial love, friendship, self-love, love for others in general, and love of God, as well as all forms of attachment to objects, a wide variety of entities, or abstract ideas and philosophies.
All of these types of love are derived from the same fundamental tendencies and have characteristic traits that are similar in nature (Editor’s Note : the function of the Animus) : selflessness, sacrifice, transcendence, the search for intimacy, exchange, and transmission, etc.
Libido is the unique source of all of our instincts, which explain the various aspects of the human psyche.
It’s the mental energy that a person has, first to shape their body, and then, in parallel to this development, to synthesize their personality (Editor’s Note : see Individuation).
Libido is the spring from which the vibrancy of our psyche is derived, and it also assimilates ideas from the collective unconscious and from the various archetypes. These ideas are thought to be inherited psychological mechanisms that are equivalent to the innate way in which a chick leaves an egg or a bird builds its nest.
In psychoanalysis, this energy, libido, is the cause of neurosis if a person has difficulty adapting to social or environmental conditions that are contrary to what they desire on a deeper level. Libido becomes destructive if it’s frustrated, and gives birth to psychological Complexes that are infused like a “poison” into the mind (even though they also have their uses in psychology). Psychoanalysis thus aims to look more deeply into the unconscious, ultimately in order to make the repressed parts of a person rise to the surface.
The union of complementary entities
The Anima and the Animus together express the duality of the psyche in every person’s personality, so every man and every woman have some of each.
We thus embody some part of the archetype of our own sex, which is revealed through encounters with representatives of various archetypes of the opposite sex. This interpersonal battle is rich in Projections.
Individuation is the result of the integration of one’s “inner partner”, or one’s complementary duplicate.
One needs to allow the union of these two pillars, male and female, to occur; one must express their different features in a positive way. That does not mean that we should tends towards being androgynous, but rather respect and love our opposite for what it is, put the best parts of ourselves to use, and demonstrate creativity using this inner union as a foundation.
No one can determine the feminine or masculine nature of a person in absolute terms : the simple fact that a person was born as a man or a woman, anatomically speaking, does not actually make them a man or a woman psychologically.
Identity crises, psychological immaturity, due to a poor integration of the Shadow or due to the influence of the Astrological Elements, and Depression are some of the possible obstacles to fully expressing the different archetypes.
Many people make a dramatic, involuntary move towards the opposite archetype out of necessity :
- a woman who experiences her animus too intensely becomes masculine and loses her femininity
- a man who experiences his anima too intensely becomes extremely sensitive and loses his masculine roots
Theoretically there is nothing wrong with this, but at the same time living one’s life fully does not require “losing of one’s original gender”; on the contrary, we must create balance by moving towards our complementary opposite and simply recognizing that a part of it’s inside of us. See my article: How should we rank our lunar aspect compared to our solar aspect.
This balance, this “internal marriage”, as described by the mystics, is something that we experience through others, through our romantic relationships, and through the Projections that occur as a result. The anima and the animus are always at the root of a couple’s “inexplicable vicissitudes”.
It’s our “invisible partners”, the anima and animus, that control our relationships. Opening our eyes to their existence and their impact on our personality gives us de facto opportunities to make real choices instead of simply being guided by “destiny”.
We need to understand how we “color” these collective archetypes based on our own personality : in other words, what causes us to be attracted to “young, childlike women” or “strong, castrating mothers” ? Or why do we always get attached to an “impulsive, violent man” when we are being courted by “good fathers of good families” ?
Illusion and disillusionment in relationships
When the illusion of a relationship disappears, we realize that we were in fact in communication with our Anima or our Animus. Our unconscious had caused us to be drawn to a certain kind of relationship; we found someone who looked like the “inner partner” that we had created for ourselves and then allowed them to gain traction in our psyche and in our life. This explains the repeated patterns of Projection that some people go through in their romantic relationship(s).
When we fall in love, it’s actually all about the projection of our inner partner, whom we believe we have found, and whom we “fall for”. If our real partner goes along with it all (see the concept of Synastry), we are fooled, and in a way it’s as though we are falling in love with ourselves (or more precisely with our unconscious archetype).
Once this projection has faded (which inevitably happens sooner or later : no one can withstand being compared with the projection of an idealized inner archetype indefinitely) and we find ourselves faced with the real man or woman, disillusionment arises.
But to more accurately describe what happens at the time of such a disillusionment, we must say that it’s actually the original projection that changes, evolves, and transforms. Often, the partner themselves has not changed : they stay the same, at least fundamentally (the potential of their Birth chart remains unchanged, and only their transits and progressions advance).
It’s during this step (which may occur after just one week or as long as several years of being in a relationship; see Transits and Progressions) that our relationship evolves, that we accept the other person for who they are, or not, and that we try to explain to them what we have projected onto them now that we are fully aware of it and try to make it last… if we can !
Our animus and our anima thus evolve throughout our lives, and so the ways in which we project them evolve as well. Our romantic partners must then logically evolve as a result for as long as the relationship lasts.
So then what is “love at first sight” worth ? Is it simply an illusion of the mind ? In fact, we need human relationships, along with these projections, to see our true selves. Romantic relationships are part of this revelation : the two archetypal gods, which are both opposite and complementary (Shiva and Shakti), are expressed externally to lead ultimately to the perpetuation of life, and so this illusion is essential. The anima and the animus lead us to draw images from the enormous reservoir of the collective unconscious that express life itself and bring us individual growth and an understanding of the absolute.
Sexuality is just the expression of these two gods. It may be purely physical or mental, or rather emotional, completely perverted, loving, with recreational or procreative aims, or it may even be sacred and symbolic like in Tantra (See the 8th House), but it’s quite clear that sexuality behaves differently depending on whether its anima or animus is dominant, even though we know that everyone manifests both of them at the same time !
Getting to know your archetypes using astrology
Using Transits, Progression, and Synastry, it’s interesting to observe how much of a discrepancy there may be between the Projection of one partner onto the other and the true, lived reality of this partner.
A woman may project a “heroic, Martian animus” onto her partner, even when the fundamental elements of this partner reflect more of a “Neptunian father/mystic”. While a progression may activate Mars for the woman, Water may be activated for her partner.
Progressions are very useful for learning about the nature of the stage a couple is at, or, to be more exact, where exactly the anima and animus are at for each person.
Do not jump to the conclusion that in the above example the relationship is “bad” or “pointless” because of this “apparent lack of synchronization” between the two partners : it’s not that simple ! Often we are able to get what we need when a synchronistic event occurs.
Life is made up of experiences, and we should seize them, accept them, and experience them for what they are, beyond their purely “qualitative” (subjective) aspects. It’s through the intermediary of these experiences that we progress on the path of Individuation and spiritual realization.
When we take this approach to life, the words “happiness, argument, betrayal, and hardship” take on different meanings in our relationships and in our psyche. Our experiences in our relationships will in any case sooner or later reveal some sort of meaning that we need to integrate.