Kali’s black rage, Hera’s cold jealousy, Anat’s fiery adolescent temper, Ishtar’s sexual fury, Sekhmet’s bloodlust…these images simultaneously draw and repel us, encourage us and frighten us. At times, in the deep dark corners of our hearts—the place we hate to admit even to ourselves—we are Kali, Hera, Anat, Ishtar, and Sekhmet.
So very often we deny ourselves this incredible source of self-power and sense of completion. How often have you heard someone say, “Oh, I’m not angry…I’m (blank),” where the blank is filled in by any other excuse-emotion (sad, hurt, shocked, upset, confused, et cetera), anything at all but anger. How many times have you yourself said it? I know I have. How many times have we all been angry and steadfastly refused to admit it? Why? What’s so scary about saying “I’m angry”? By admitting these words, we will not automatically sink into an uncontrollable berserker(1)-fit…we are merely admitting what we honestly feel. And if you fear that others will think you are a “bad person” for being angry, it could be that it’s because they are jealous of your new-found emotional honesty and fear being that emotionally honest with themselves.
Women in our culture traditionally have been taught to repress anger. We are taught to play “nice” and to be “nice ladies.” In becoming “nice ladies,” we try to maintain the peace and stability of our relationships, even at the expense of our own needs. This denial of our own needs eventually causes anger to build over a long period of time; and rather like a time-bomb, we eventually explode. When we do finally explode, we are then labeled as “bitches,” and viewed as “selfish,” “irrational,” and “un-ladylike;” and in an uncontrolled explosion of anger, nothing healing can be accomplished. Why are we socialized to repress our anger? According to Harriet Lerner, in her work The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patters of Intimate Relationships(2), it is because “ If we are guilty, depressed, or self-doubting, we stay in place. We do not take action except against our own selves and we are unlikely to be agents of personal and social change.” Repressing our anger makes us disempowered women supporting the failing status-quo; owning and respecting our anger makes us initiators of healing change.
It seems as if in today’s broad culture, admitting anger is akin to committing a grave taboo—it’s as if we’ve somehow broken everyone’s fragile sense of peace. Could it be that by admitting and dealing with our own anger, that instead of breaking a fragile peace, we could be forging a stronger peace? It’s so simple to say “I’m angry,” two powerful little words, and yet it’s so difficult to cause them to somehow pass the lips into the realm of the spoken word; it seems to burn the tongue as it passes through the mouth. Anger isn’t the enemy, anger doesn’t make you do or say bad things; anger is simply an emotion, simply informative. How you act upon the anger decides whether that anger is healing or non-healing.
A New Look at NegativitySo many rites and rituals in the Pagan, New Age, and Shaman communities are structured around removing negativity. It is as if negative energy is a plague that can infect us all. Negativity is simply a force of nature. You cannot define anything without defining what it is not: a coffee mug is not simply a ceramic mug, it is also the empty space within the mug that will hold the coffee, and it is also not a wine glass, a book, or an elephant. What is positive is not always “good” and what is negative is not always “bad.”
All would fall apart in the universe without both positive and negative energy. On a molecular level, atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons(3). Protons have a positive charge and neutrons have a neutral charge; both are found in the nucleus, the center of the atom. The electrons are a different story. Electrons have a negative charge and orbit the atom. It is generally the electrons—an overabundance of electrons, or a lack of electrons—which cause atoms to join together and form everything in the universe from water to hula skirts. If it weren’t for the attraction caused by the sharing of electrons, we wouldn’t have a universe. Electrons are negatively charged sub-atomic particles…this tells me that negative energy is extremely important. Negative energy is not to be feared, but to be understood anew.
When you ask anyone in the Pagan, New Age, and Shaman communities what comprises negative energy, often “anger” is on the top-10 list. Anger is a negative emotion—that idea is generally not in dispute. However, we need to remember what we learned from our atoms: we need our negative energy, and we need our negative emotions—they are part of what makes us whole, part of what drives our communities, part of what makes us who we are. I look at the universe in a different dichotomy: instead of light and dark or positive and negative, I see healing and non-healing. Indeed, in cleansing rituals, I believe that it is the non-helpful and non-healing energies that should leave: both positive and negative energy can remain to teach and heal.
Anger as a Teacher and HealerInstead of scurrying like frightened mice every time anger rears her Medusa-like head, let’s listen to her, let’s communicate with her. The information that comes to us from understanding the source of our anger can teach us how to grow as individuals, and how to better interact with each other. Anger is the catalyst that causes us to bring healing or non-healing change to our environments.
It’s your choice how to act on that anger. Do you want to hurt the person with whom you are angry; will that heal anything? Do you want to communicate with that person why you’re angry and try to come to a healing resolution? Do you want to use the powerful energy of your anger to destroy? Do you want to use the powerful energy of your anger to create? Do you want to use your anger to destroy in order to create? Do you want to use your anger to create in order to destroy? Will you accept the challenge to channel your anger towards healing, or will you use your anger to non-healing ends?
It’s up to you, but I urge you to look at possibilities as healing or non-healing. Sometimes destruction can heal: any physician knows that sometimes you have to cut it off, cut it out, or cut it away in order for healing to commence, and likewise growth out of control is non-healing (such as cancer). In demolishing a condemned old brick building, the bricks can be used again to make something new and functional such as a fireplace or a garden path. Creating in order to destroy can involve the planning and building of the infamous WMD’s or growing viruses as “biological weapons.” Gandhi himself used his anger at the treatment of his people in India and South Africa to create and generate change(4). Although his revolutionary actions were peaceful, they were generated by his anger—and he used his anger to heal.
Anger lets us know when things are not working for us, anger lets us know when we feel our rights or others’ rights are not being respected, anger lets us know when we are not living up to our own expectations, anger teaches us to draw healthy boundaries so we can take care of ourselves. Anger tells us when we need to change and cause change to happen. Change is difficult, but anger gives us the strength, energy, power, and will to change. To admit anger is to actively accept the challenge to change things for the better—perhaps that’s what we fear when we fear to admit our anger.
Full-Circle to WholenessWe are light and dark, full and empty, what we are and what we are not, positive and negative, creative and destructive. Each force is equal, each force here has the power to heal or not heal. The next time you are angry, will you admit your anger and allow it actively into your life to heal and teach? Or will you deny it, thinking you are not capable of acting in a healing manner upon the information your anger provides? Will you use it, or will you deny your anger and let it use you? Will you choose to acknowledge your whole self? When Kali, Hera, Anat, Ishtar, Sekhmet and others challenge you, will you allow fear to overcome you or will you accept the challenge?
Endnotes1. Berserkers were known traditionally as Norse warriors who would become all-encompassed in an uncontrollable battle-rage. See the Wikipedia article on “berserker” or The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4 th edition, 2000.
2. Harriet Learner, Ph.D. The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York , NY 1997. Dr. Lerner provides an examination of women’s anger and how to use this anger to create healing change within all close relationships: romantic partners, mother/daughter, daughter/mother, birth-family, etc.
3. For more information about atoms, see the article “How Atoms Work” by Craig C. Freudenrick, Ph.D.
4. For more about Ghandi, visit “The Complete Site on Mahatma Ghandi” by the Gandhian Institute, Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal. At this site, there is an online book Mahatma Gandhi: A Pictorial Biography by B. R. Nanda, excerpted from the original book Mahatma Gandhi: His Life In Pictures , 4 th edition 1987, published by Publication Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India , Patiala House, New Delhi , India . See the chapter in A Pictorial Biography entitled “In the ‘Dark Continent’.”
