of the life-threatening illness. Or they (finally) stopped self-destructive additions to cigarettes, alcohol, or work. Usually, they (finally) acted on their own best behalf because they knew that their life depended upon it. In this, their ill-ness served as a wake-up call that enabled them to face what they had resisted.
Enacting the Psyche Myth: Illness and Soul Growth
In the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche5 (Love and Soul), Psyche's story is about the growth of the soul that began with her decision to face the truth and led to her being on her own, challenged to complete four tasks that were initially beyond her ability to perform. Psyche is the Greek word for soul as well as the Greek word for butterfly. Implicit in the name Psyche/soul/butterfly is transformation and danger. The caterpillar enters a chrysalis phase before it can emerge as a butterfly and in the process might not survive.
The Lamp and the Knife
In the myth, Psyche's unseen bridegroom would come to her in the dark of the night and be gone by morning. Metaphorically, she was in an unconscious relationship. Fearing that he could be a monster, Psyche followed her sisters’ advice, hid a lamp and a knife, and waited until he had fallen asleep. She needed the lamp to see him and the knife to cut off his head if indeed he were a monster.
These two symbols, the lamp and the knife, are both necessary for a psyche—for a soul—to act decisively when we know the truth. The lamp is a symbol of illumination, of consciousness, the means of seeing a situation clearly. The knife, like the sword, is a symbol of decisive action, of the capacity to cut through confusion, to sever bonds when necessary. The lamp without the knife is not adequate: it is insight into the situation without the capacity to act upon this perception. Usually if we cannot act upon what we know, clarity dims—it's too uncomfortable to be aware; adaptation, rationalization, and denial work against staying conscious.
That her life could depend upon severing bonds with several people who depleted her was an intuition heeded by one woman who, on getting a diagnosis of cancer, met with each one to tell them of her diagnosis and with tact and nonnegotiable clarity say that she would no longer be available for phone conversations or time together. For another woman, once she learned her diagnosis, it became possible to distance herself from her narcissistic mother and to weather the guilt and accusations that accompanied it. That her life depended upon divorcing her husband was made clear to a third woman, who for the first and only time in her life heard an emphatic voice in her head say, “You must get a divorce.” This, when she was in her doctor's office to hear the results of a biopsy that confirmed that she had cancer.
Insight followed by decisive action—the lamp and the sword— are needed for people to change or end difficult, damaging, or destructive relationships. Before the diagnosis, many of these women had the lamp but not the sword; they knew that they were in relationships that took a toll on them, but did not feel entitled to act upon this knowledge. Women are often held captive by the emotional needs or intimidating demands of others, coupled with an inability to say “No!” These demanding people are draining, they take from us; there is a cost in emotional and physical resources, in time and energy. Resentment grows when we know this but do not speak up and act to change or end these relationships. Continuing to be in them has a depressing effect on our mood and well-being, which in turn can depress our immune system and reduce our resistance to disease.
Inner Wisdom
There are crucial times when health or death are held in delicate balance and could be tipped in either direction. It is at these times that heeding what the soul knows or the body needs may make all the difference. There is an inner wisdom that knows such matters, which comes through to us as strong intuitions, as gnosis or felt knowledge, as an interior certainty beyond logic, or even as an audible voice; it is what we know in our bones.
Myths and symbols are in the language of the soul. A myth helps us to take a situation to heart and know what we must do: if it is to see the truth and act upon it, then the image of Psyche with her lamp and knife provides a mythic perspective. A symbolic object can then be a talisman that helps us do what we need to do. For example, I have a beautifully crafted sword with a silver hilt and a clear crystal shaft that is only about two inches long.
I can hold it in the palm of my hand and mentally review what it symbolizes and then take it with me into a situation where I need to call upon those very qualities. When I gave a similar sword to my friend to carry with her, it came with my support for what she needed to do. When a symbol is presented with words that convey the intention of the gift, the moment and the object are imbued with ritual significance. Like passing a literal torch, these are rituals that empower us by infusing an act with a deeper meaning. To think and act this way is magical, metaphoric thinking that can call forth the qualities we need from within ourselves and may also tap into sources of help that lie beyond us, as prayer does.
Psyche's Tasks
Many patients are like Psyche, a mythic figure whose psychology resembles many women who survive cancer. Psyche was an abandoned woman when she began the journey that called upon her to complete four tasks, each of which was beyond anything she had done before. Many women with cancer are emotionally abandoned or even left by husbands and lovers; on top of coping with cancer, they then also find themselves having to cope with the aftermath of ended marriages and relationships.
Often, abandonment occurred before the cancer, with depression and lack of reason to live depressing an immune system. When cancer arises, a patient who may have sometimes wished she were dead, now becomes confronted with the reality that she could be dead. For many, this mobilizes an inner warrior, and taps into a wish to live. The cancer then serves as a wake-up call to the importance of life, and in the process of coping with the cancer, the patient discovers strengths she never knew she had.
Psyche's journey was not in response to “a call to adventure,” which Joseph Campbell noted began the Hero's Journey. Nor did she resemble the archetypal hero, who is usually stronger and more advantaged than an ordinary mortal. Each new task seemed impossible at first. The difficulty initially overwhelmed Psyche, and then something (ants, a green reed, an eagle, a talking tower—symbols for the kind of inner strength or knowledge she needed) would come to her aid or give her advice that would enable her to find a way to complete the task and go on, stronger than before.
“Sorting the seeds” was Psyche's first task. She was shown a huge mound of seeds of many kinds, all heaped together, and told that she must sort out this muddled and disordered mass. This metaphoric labor is faced over and over again when a diagnosis or treatment or both are unclear and there are consequences to doing or not doing procedures, or risks or side effects to the treatment, or limited energy or resources, and no guarantees. When cancer is first diagnosed, especially if it is breast cancer or prostate cancer, sorting out treatment choices is a daunting task. Logic and statistical odds or intuition, medical and/or alternative therapies, trust in whom or in what—how to decide in the midst of contradictory and competing information? When it is your life or the life of someone who trusts you with the decision, sorting the seeds is a major task. There are crucial decisions to be made and a return to health or survival can depend upon sorting out what is important. Like Psyche, the first reaction may be to feel overwhelmed. In the myth, lowly ants do the sorting. Trusting in the ants is like trusting intuition: after we assemble a “huge mound” of information and possibilities, and we “sleep on it” or “pray on it” and awake with a solution or an answer, or we find that things seem to sort them-selves out, what to do becomes clear.
Psyche's second task was to “gather a strand of fleece from the golden rams of the sun.” This is a symbol of masculine assertive power, which patients and their advocates
