The Horse Goddess and The Da Vinci Code
I’ve just been re-reading part of Linda Kohanov’s book The Tao of Equus. It struck me that she seems to equate all of the good qualities of the horse with the feminine, and seems to view the masculine traits as less than desirable.
What's up with that, I wonder?
I found this quote on her website:
The thing that is really fascinating about working with horses is that they exemplify the strength of feminine values. A lot of people don't realize this because horses are such powerful animals. Their whole existence, however, is tempered by values that we would consider to be feminine.
For example, horses value relationship over territory, which is how most women relate to the world. They also emphasize feeling and intuition over reason — though they do have a good capacity for reason in novel situations.
Horses also emphasize process over goal. The end never justifies the means for a horse. Like natural Taoists, horses know the masculine but keep to the feminine.
Horses are not in conflict with themselves; they never feel one thing and do another. There's a lot we humans can learn from that.
My first reaction is to wonder if the author has ever worked in an office entirely staffed by women? I have. Several times over a 25+ year career. And I don’t remember those offices as being feminine paradises without disputes over territory, without goals, or sans conflict. Oh contraire …
Then I think about the reality of my herd of horses. There’s a lot of err ... “rich” ... interactions going on among four mares and one gelding (poor hen-pecked draft horse, although he is as much an instigator as anyone else.) And our Andalusian mare, a descendant of the great Spanish warhorses, no doubt, is filled to the brim with the kind of boldness and bravery that I would be tempted to label as masculine. Because often with her, and probably because here in New Mexico we are still thinking of the conquistador, I get these images of armor and swords, etc.
In thinking about the relationship between women and horses, and humans and horses in general, I wonder if The Tao of Equus does indeed have something there in the ideas put forth (and I think it does), but also if there is something missing from the overall philosophy (which I think there is)? It seems to me that given the fact that we live in what has been a largely male-dominated world throughout history, there is a propensity in some circles to overcompensate for the lost feminine by replacing the overwhelming male idea of god and the divine completely with the feminine.
You know? Male = bad and female = good?
Isn’t that simplistic? Isn’t that just going overboard in the other direction? Aren’t some folks replacing one imbalance with yet another imbalance with that kind of thinking?
I remember reading The Mists of Avalon as a teenage girl and being mesmerized (especially after growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church that viewed women as the root of all evil and therefore second-class citizens, kind of on par with the Muslim prophet Mohammed's idea that hell is full of females) at the idea of some golden age of the goddess, when women ran things, and when the world was a more peaceful place. Well, did that actually ever really exist in history, I ask myself? I’m not a history expert, but I don’t think so. I think it’s a story. Albeit, a pretty one. One that stirs the imagination and makes me long for something … else.
Something, well, missing.
I read The Da Vinci Code with some interest when it first came out and went to see the film as well, because I’m a Tom Hanks fan, and I enjoy a good adventure story that promises to let me in on secrets, especially those with religious or spiritual overtones.
I must admit, I was left with a bit of a “so what?” attitude when I found out that at the center of the mystery of the story was a bloodline, and ultimately this flesh and blood human being, this woman, supposedly a long lost relative of the historical Jesus, who was at the center of the book. I found myself thinking, “Well, what is the next step in the story? Is she going to start healing people and making the world a better place? Is she going to take over the U.N. and institute global peace? Is she going to take everyone up to heaven? What is she going to do as a female member of this bloodline?” (It’s the same kind of disappointment I’d have if you told me that the Holy Grail is just some old cup, instead of a symbol of wholeness.)
And I think the answer is pretty much … nothing. From my point of view, the woman in The Da Vinci Code story is just a human being, regardless of who her relatives are, and is limited by the same constraints we pretty much all are.
I think that the fact that this supposed blood-descendant of Jesus is a she, is what’s key to the interest in The Da Vinci Code, in a world where fundamentalism is rearing its ugly head around us on the TV almost every day in our post 911 world and a lot of us are wondering how religion can inspire such madness and how it might be different if only ...
And I think we may be using the idea of the divine feminine (which has indeed been lost to the ravages of orthodoxy, and even Jung himself predicted that the goddess Sophia would rise again in human consciousness) as the container, the holder, for all of the things--things that we may not even be able to put into words--we feel are missing in our inner lives as human beings.
I think that’s why ideas about the horse goddess Epona in The Tao of Equus or the Merovingian bloodline and a female descendant of Jesus as described in The Da Vinci Code capture our imaginations.
We place our hope for whatever we feel is lost there--within some idea of the feminine.
Even though we know rationally that an office full of women, without even one man to balance out that hothouse of female emotions (where does that old phrase come from, anyway?), is no paradise, no matter what they claim. I’m even thinking back to some of the predominately female barns I’ve ridden at over the course of my life. Any of you know firsthand what I’m driving at here? A world run by women wouldn't be any more bliss than a world run by men. In the final analysis--we're all human, with human frailties and weaknesses.
For whatever it’s worth, and I’m just thinking out loud, I think the answer is more complex than that.
Horses are very special to some of us—both women and men. In our relationships with these beautiful animals, we can indeed catch a glimpse of something else. There are a lot of books being written about that right now, and I don't think it's an accident. And I don’t think what horses help us to see is something that exists outside of ourselves, it’s much bigger than that. Being with/working with the horses can help us to delve deeper inside, if we are open to that kind of experience, to tap the deep underground river that runs through all of life and inside each and every one of us. The successful healing stories from various therapeutic riding programs around the world are a testimony to that.
Yes, we are compelled by these stories of the sacred feminine. I know I am. Just come over and look at my bookshelves. I see it in the current books about women and horses, including The Tao of Equus. I certainly saw it in the public’s response to The Da Vinci Code. However, I think this relationship between human and horse transcends the whole idea of the feminine and the masculine. I do not think that the characteristics in horses that we appreciate and that can help us learn about ourselves can be labeled as solely feminine. What's missing can't be fixed by replacing one with the other. It’s something … else.
Although I do not pretend to know what exactly that is.
Whew. Glad I finally got that one out of my system …
If you think this is an interesting idea and would like to explore further, you might want to check out these intriguing, thought-provoking podcasts on Illuminating the DaVinci Code: Beyond the Hype, the Hysteria, and the Heckling, Something is Seeking the Light . Gnostic priest and scholar Troy Pearce provides a compelling “exploration of the power of a sacred story in our culture and an experiment in deepening a public conversation.”
