The Beauty Wound
by Lian Brook-Tyler
The Beauty Wound
Let us count the ways it bleeds…
Envy… The Queen sent Snow White to her death so she might continue to be the fairest in the land.
Objectification… Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr. Called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” she was also a brilliant inventor whose wartime technology laid the foundation for Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth - yet she was recognised for her genius only decades later, and even now is still known for her beauty, not brains.
Violation… The beautiful maiden Medusa was violated by Poseidon, then punished by Athena, who transformed her into a gorgon whose very gaze turns men to stone.
Conformity… The Stepford Wives were perfectly groomed, conforming, and compliant, their appearance based on standards created by others.
Exclusion… Arthurian legend tells of how Ragnelle’s haggard appearance makes her an undesirable outcast, whilst her true beauty is hidden behind a magical curse.
Perhaps you, like me, have experienced many of these archetypal shadows but it’s hard for us even to admit because doing so can be heard as saying “I’m so beautiful.” - which can pour more salt into our collective Beauty Wound.
The truth is, as women, we often experience beauty as a double-edged sword…
It is long-understood that beauty brings benefits, including financial advantages, career advancement, legal leniency, and social credit… 'Pretty privilege’ is real… and yet, it has other, uglier, faces too.
Whether we are aware of experiencing wounding like the opening stories personally or not, it is in our blood and bones regardless - received through myths and folktales passed from mouth to ear for generations, from our mother line to our mirror, and when we witness a woman reduced to sex object, simpleton, or “pick-me” because of her beauty (these days the media is saturated with stories like this).
Perhaps without even fully recognising that we are, we might…
- Dim our beauty because we’re told or have been painfully shown that it will attract the wrong kind of attention to do otherwise.
- Enviously compete and compare ourselves with other women, having experienced that another woman’s beauty might take from us - pulling her down, leaving her out, and wishing or even wreaking harm upon her (or maybe we’ve experienced being the object of envy).
- Dismiss any focus on physical beauty as egoic, shallow, vain, or “not spiritual”, allowing our radiance to swirl down the plug hole along with the soap and water with which we scrub our skin raw.
- Be objectified, or even transgressed upon, by those who want to own or despoil the beauty they’re drawn to in us.
- Never feel beautiful enough because our kind of beauty - be it down to skin colour, hair type, aging, body shape, disabilities, or the whole kaleidoscope of facets that create our unique beauty - isn’t the kind of beauty that we see is valued in our culture.
If you’re ready to make conscious the ways you are seeing yourself and life through the Beauty Wound - because as James Hillman said “The wound and the eye are one and the same.” - then this April, a circle of women will descend into the depths of the Beauty Wound together.
You will uncover the Mythic Beauty Types you are each here to embody... perhaps the Enchantress, Artist, or Lover... the healing needed to do so, and your own uniquely radiant expression of it.
Together we will alchemise the transformative Beauty Potion that each of you will drink.
Twelve weeks later, when we close the circle, you walk away having potentiated your unique expression of the union of inner and outer beauty… The Mythic Beauty that has inspired poets and painters for eons.
Do you believe that’s possible?
If so, come join me and bring all your longing, fear, envy, shame, judgment, and grief around beauty - it will all be welcome. All of you will be welcome.
Bring too, your deep seeing, magic, and power - they will be needed to create our Beauty Potion.
Our quest begins soon.
All my love and blessings.
♥️
Art: Luis Royo
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