Gazing in a Reflective Shield

The Archetypal Death Mother

“The Death Mother’s energy went right into you. You were the recipient of her anger.”

My therapist said this to me in a recent session as we were talking about my dream where two women managers broke out into a violent argument in the middle of a busy work shift. The setting is a typical stress dream for me, I am working as a waitress in the restaurant where I was employed through out college. I am usually overwhelmed with tasks, lacking support from team members, forgetting about customers, etc.

In this dream I am taking an order from a table when the two managers began screaming at one another. One demands to know where a certain woman is, she is filled with anger and contempt. The other responds in a derogatory way, using foul curse words. I am horrified by the intensity of the fighting and how inappropriate it is. I attempt to pull the managers off the floor and into the office where the general manager can address the issue, but she is ambivalent and seems apathetic.

Symbolically there are warring forces of the feminine within my psyche. One is filled with hatred and anger, one defensive and ready to fight, another indifferent and unconcerned. This is another dream in a long series that is circling my relationship to the Mother archetype, my personal relationship to aspects of the feminine and childhood familial figures.

I mentioned in a previous post that I suffered from recurring nightmares of being chased by a vampiric figure as a child. It symbolizes some of the dynamics I experienced in early life; an overwhelming family home, the feeling of something trying to steal the life force from me, unbearable and confusing experiences that have led to a lifetime’s work of self-healing and psychotherapy.

But the focus of my therapeutic work has never been on the mother, it wasn’t obvious as my own personal mother was not a source of direct or obvious pain in my life. However, two years ago, I began having dreams that were pointing to these themes. You can hear the evolution in a few of our podcast episodes:

• Alyssa’s Dream Series - I am exploring the recurring imagery of wolves and bears. The bear shows up as a threatening figure on a path up a mountain. In another dream I find a dead bear, skin it, and wear its fur as a coat.

• Complexes & Neurosis - Arran and I conduct the word association test on each other live. I reply to “angry” with “mother” and later reflect how I thought it was strange. Consciously I would associate that with my father, who had anger issues.

• Active Imagination - I share an active imagination I did on the bear dream images and connect for the first time that it relates to aspects of the feminine and the archetype of the mother.

As I’ve explored these unconscious images and dreams I have come to realize that early relational trauma, the absence of protective figures, and chaos in my family led to the rising of a destructive inner force. It is notably feminine in my psyche and connected to female members of my family, although one should keep in mind that these aspects are not tied exclusively to gender or biology and can be constellated through any individual.

What is the Archetypal Death Mother?

The archetypal Death Mother is an experience of intense wounding and traumatizing energy that comes from a source that we instinctually expect should protect and nurture us (such as parents, siblings, cultural and societal institutions, etc). (Credit to Daniela Sieff for this definition.)

“The Death Mother wields a cold, fierce, violent and corrosive power. She is rampant in our society right now. When Death Mother’s gaze is directed at us, it penetrates both psyche and body, turning us into stone. It kills hope. It cuts us dead. We collapse. Our life energy drains from us and we sink into chthonic darkness. In this state, we find ourselves yearning for the oblivion of death. Eventually this yearning for death permeates our cells, causing our body to turn against itself. We may become physically ill.

This energy is most destructive when it comes from somebody that we love and trust. It's the archetypal Death MOTHER, which means we are with somebody who is supposed to love us and all of a sudden -bang! It's what happened in the original trauma; we trusted our beloved mother and suddenly we were hit with the realization that we were not acceptable. We realized that our mother wished that we, or some part of us, was dead.” - Marion Woodman in conversation with Daniela Sieff, 2009

Death Mother is brought forth when a child is subjected to overwhelming experiences without proper attendance from a caretaker. When they realize they were unwanted. When neglect, regret and emotional distance underlie the parent-child relationship. When a sibling is allowed to abuse another.

When this happens, despair and hopelessness become a driving force in the child’s psyche. Many subjected to the Death Mother’s wrath internalize it so that a type of unconscious pattern remains that attempts to strangle emergent creative and life-affirming potentials in the individual long after their circumstances have changed.

I had never heard this term before, as I explored the aspect in myself I often called it “Dark Mother”. I have sensed her presence in my spirit as a cruel and powerful sorceress, keeping a wounded child locked up behind tower walls. But unlike typical bivalent figures like Kali and Baba Yaga, who bring death and destruction in service of change and transformation, the Death Mother “prevents new life coming through. She turns life into stone. She encases us in the mantle of lifelessness.” (- Woodman & Sieff)

My therapist worked and studied with Marion and helped me make this distinction. Not only did I experience the Death Mother from the absence of my personal mother and the abuse in my household, but I had an opening in my unformed child psyche for a transpersonal energy to step in as protector and persecutor.

Mythologically, the Death Mother is Medea who murders her children as she seeks vengeance against Jason for abandoning her.

And in Medusa.

“Medusa energy is synonymous with that of Death Mother, and the gorgon was turned into Medusa because she dared to express her love. As you suggest, one of the tragic consequences of repeated encounters with Death Mother is that we are cut off from love.” (Woodman & Sieff)

Working with the Death Mother

A few weeks ago I posted some quotes on the Death Mother from Daniela Sieff on my Instagram and was surprised by the response. There is something about this archetype that is provocative, that makes us feel uncomfortable and indicates that we are in a culturally shadowy realm.

Gazel, who I have had the pleasure of getting to know through her participation in Golden Shadow workshops, asked the most striking question.

What might one do to figure out if they have an unconscious death wish?

For some individuals, the impulse might be explicit; living life on the razor’s edge, engaging in unhealthy activities. Marion speaks to addictions: “At the deepest level, every addict falls into the insidious clutches of Death Mother. Addictions are ultimately symptoms of an unconscious and concretized death wish.” (-Woodman & Sieff)

But for others it is much more implicit and tied to feelings of hopelessness, abandonment, and despair. This is the subtle space where the Death Mother is working. When we lose the support of our caretakers, when we have been in constant threat, there is an embodied fear for our survival. This breeds mistrust, uncertainty, and hesitation in an individual that likely presents in a non-secure attachment style and patterns of relationship troubles. Furthermore, there may be a characterization of embodied shame, a deep visceral feeling of being fundamentally flawed and inadequate which stems from the early rejection.

In my own experience, the Death Mother is constellated by threat and driven by self-negation. She is carrying rage from the past and can be seen in the images of the angry dream figures who are shaking with deathly fury, ready to tear someone apart. I recognize her in relationship struggles, when I am overwhelmed by a self-destructive part that yearns to cease existing or cut off all connection to others due to a perceived tension. Or when I’m in a state of hyper vigilance that is followed by a shutting down/dissociation or a spiral of self-loathing.

Somatic issues with no discernible cause (somatization) was also an indicator for me. Unconscious material that was not being recognized and worked with began to manifest in my body as sleep issues and panic attacks. Relief came as I turned more consciously to this work.

As with any form of difficult shadow work, we must practice caution and containment. Approaching the Death Mother straight on runs the risk of turning us into stone, petrifying us in terror.

Daniela: In the myth of Medusa, Perseus-whose task it is to kill Medusa-is warned not to look her in the eye; instead he guides his sword by looking at her reflection in his shield. Similarly, you've said that we can't look Death Mother in the eye. Why?

Marion: It is too dangerous! If we look Death Mother in the eye, we may be overcome by our trauma. We could be turned to stone. We may end up with cancer. So we work with her in reflection. We journal. We work with dreams. We do bodywork. We look at what is happening in our lives. We use a reflective shield because otherwise we are at grave risk.

(Woodman & Sieff)

What is the mirroring function that allows you to gaze upon the force safely? For me, dreams have been a gentle container to see the images of powerful dynamics in my psyche. Personified in various forms, I am noticing their nuance and can draw it out slowly from the depths. I have also been working to cultivate the opposing pole of the Death Mother, if she is present, there are also seeds of her in a positive incarnation. One that reaffirms my right to existence, connects me to the flow of life energy and brings me into balance with the Great Mother in all of her forms.