Читать книгу Artemis - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 19

The end of the footrace is not the end of the personal story for women who resemble Atalanta. It is, more likely, the beginning of the second half of their lives. This is also not the end of Atalanta's mythic story. There are versions of the myth that do not end with the race, but go on to tell how Atalanta and Hippomenes are punished and transformed into a pair of lions and yoked together to pull a divine chariot. The story deepens when these events are seen as metaphors and interpreted as symbolic.

While Atalanta is a mortal in the image of Artemis, her life is influenced and changed by more than one goddess. Through Hippomenes, Atalanta feels the spell of Aphrodite's golden apples. This is the case with contemporary women as well. All of the goddesses are potential archetypal patterns in every woman and, while Artemis may be dominant in the first third of a woman's life and can remain a strong influence, often one or more other archetypes may emerge in the second and third phases of life.

Atalanta's story has the power of a big dream with many layers of meaning. At first, it is intriguing to take in the whole story with the images that come to mind as you read it. Even at first glance, a particular image or detail may catch your imagination. Enduring myths are similar to important dreams that people remember because there is “something” to them. They touch the psyche of the dreamer, reader, or listener, even without interpretation. Atalanta is a mortal and is like a real woman who appears in a dream or in life, bringing the archetype of Artemis or a quality of Artemis to life. When this happens, a woman who is like Atalanta can become a combination of goddess and mortal to others.

The story of Atalanta becomes very personal to girls and women who find similarities between her qualities and their own—between her story and theirs. It can also give some insight into often difficult and painful experiences for men and women who love or have loved them. Being in a relationship with a woman like Atalanta whose dominant archetype is Artemis can be more difficult or challenging to others than being her. A prime example: Nobel Laureate poet William Butler Yeats, whose yearning love for beautiful, fiery, feminist Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne was immortalized in his verse across five decades. She married someone else, and much later, he did also.

Delving into a myth is very much like working with a dream. To understand the meaning or interpretation, a Jungian analyst works with the person whose dream it is, amplifying elements in it, which is what I will be doing with the myth of Atalanta in this book. Myths have the power of collective dreams and fascinate us because the themes in them are ours to inhabit or to observe.