Women despised, exploited, raped, beaten, how many cases are coming out today on the horror reserved for sisters, daughters, mothers! It is beneficial for the victims to be heard, for their testimonies to serve those who follow and protect them from the same outrages. Our society, which is supposed to be progressive, egalitarian, regardless of sex or skin color, cracks under the beautiful veneer of human rights.
Simone de Beauvoir underlined the tendency of a man to submit a woman because she brings him back to his animal destiny: “What man first cherishes and hates in woman is the fixed image of his animal destiny, it is the life necessary for his existence, but which condemns him to finitude and death. » If there is any truth in these words of the philosopher, they do not take into account the place of the feminine which is to be discovered as an issue of our time, not in a reaction to male power, but in the expression of an essence.
The part hidden deep inside
Another philosopher, Emmanuel Lévinas, sees the feminine as “a privileged access to transcendence which opens the being to a beyond itself”. The particularity and power of women would therefore lie in this ability to allow the link with the Invisible. This immense and luminous role does not belong to the high priestesses, nor to the goddesses, nor to the pythia, nor even only to women.
The feminine as a spiritual path is also addressed to men who can awaken in them this feminine part that they possess. If we push the reflection, according to the Hebrew etymology: woman, isha, it is the hollow, the hole. Symbolically, it is about being empty, about getting rid of the overflow of ego that clutters our soul so that another voice can speak. We could also say that we must become the cup that welcomes being.
Emmanuel Lévinas calls this inner disposition hospitality. This receptive function may seem passive, in reality, this welcoming matrix is creative. Sartre himself said that the hole, characteristic of women, is “a call to be”. This feminine part is hidden in us. To access it requires real inner work.
The bitter struggle within
The courtly love of the Middle Ages is an illustration of this quest. He does end of love a religion of love. The knight, to be worthy of the favors of the Lady, engages in asceticism. He must pass tests to show his bravery but also the mastery of his instincts.
In the romance of the rose, famous allegorical poem of the 13the century, the narrator recounts a dream. As he walks along a small path full of fennel and mint, one spring morning, he sees a marvelous rose in a walled garden. An illumination shows the young man sticking his head through the narrow gate of the garden to contemplate his beautiful flower. But he can’t pick it. Near him, a character named Bel Accueil shows up to guide him on the long road to love.
From now on, he becomes the Lover and discovers the thorns of the way to conquer the right to possess the flower. He encounters allegories that he must fight: Backbiting, Fear, Jealousy, Despair. They symbolize the inner battle he is waging. So, little by little, after many difficulties, his desire to possess the rose is transformed. The Lover discovers the intoxication of loving. Love opens to him the knowledge of his deep heart. He loves the Rose. He likes to love. And by forgetting himself, he becomes himself.
Paul Amblard. Art historian, specializing in the art of the Middle Ages and Christian symbolism, she is the author ofAn inner pilgrimage (Albin Michel) and the Apocalypse of Saint John, illustrated by the tapestry of Angers (Editions Diane de Selliers). She just published a novel, the Children of Notre Dame (Salvator).
Paule Amblard: “The feminine, privileged access to transcendence”