The bond between human consciousness and the anima within it has been severed for centuries.

Even what is described in the modern world as feminism, when realised within a patriarchal world, ultimately becomes little more than an extension of the masculine dimension of that world: social equality achieved by exchanging the dominance of the “masculine spirit” for social equality between women and men in the modern world.

In the masculine world of kings, fathers and warriors, recovering feminine spirit and wisdom is a path toward the evolution of consciousness and the salvation of the human spirit.

Recovering the anima—the magician and psychotherapist of the wounded and unfinished soul of our collective unconscious—in the thousand-and-one-night story of human history.

Until now, our individual and collective psyche has remained trapped in the imbalance between its anima and masculine dimensions for one astonishing and rarely spoken reason.

At heart, the animus regards itself as inferior to the anima, just as technē and technology regard themselves as inferior to imagination and creativity.

To compensate for this unfounded sense of inferiority, the animus has for centuries imposed its domination over the earth, women and children upon human history—an imposition that has stood as an obstacle in the path of the evolution of consciousness.

What the world needs is not feminism understood as making the feminine world more masculine, but the cultivation of men who are not afraid of the feminine dimension and the anima within themselves.

Men who are more creative, deeper, more firmly connected to the sources of generation in their inner world, and capable of a greater inner balance.

The world needs not a women’s movement for equality, but an inner revolt by men against their own unfinished selves: men who begin a historical movement to heal the wounded animus within themselves and open the temple of the anima in the masculine world.

So long as the paradigm of human evolution is not centred on understanding the lost values of the anima in the evolution of consciousness, women who seek equality too will find nothing on the horizon of social equality within themselves but that same wounded and damaged animus.

Social equality will emerge, but the paradigm of power will remain unchanged, because women will pay for that bargain with their immense spiritual power and will find within themselves nothing but a wounded masculinity engaged in a relentless struggle, in the ruthless world of men, to become even more masculine.

May International Women’s Day be honoured.

Aydin Areta