ABSTRACT
One day in the autumn, while wandering along a Devon beach pondering upon the vast and important topic of sex and gender, which touches everyone and can stir such deep emotions, various pebbles caught my eye. I picked them up. Each one had a hole through it. They reminded me of sculptures of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. I recalled standing below some of their sculptures set on a hillside and experiencing powerful sensations which connected me to nearly overwhelming archetypal images of the primordial great mother-in both her destructive and creative aspects. I thought how difficult it can be to conceptualise these archetypal images in order to write about them, except through metaphor and myth. The beach, I mused, might be compared to society and the pebbles to individuals-each one shaped by the same elemental forces but each one different. My awareness shifted into considering the power of opposites, the tension of holding them, and especially of Jung’s description of the alchemy of the transference.
