The Amazon Form
Amazon illustrates the Sufi aphorism "Act and you shall know." Her leadership skills direct a wide scope of social activity. Within her allegiances, Amazon works to defend endangered social structures. Despite her community orientation, she is able to work or travel or live independently as a solitary. Her private life and her domestic life support her public life. She typically functions as both comrade and competitor. She inspires development and designs winning action strategies which gain recognition from others. She is wary of individual differences dividing the group and randomizing its organization. She wants caretaking functions to break new ground from time to time. As with Mother who gives birth, new and vastly impersonal constellations come about when Amazon acts. The vote is won for women, workers are organized, women's education is supported with new institutions, women's groups are stabilized. Her wild side often includes acts of physical courage and athletic skill.
When she is most self-contained, Amazon appears to be uncaring or unaware of personal needs, unbending or manipulative in her purposeful focus. She shuns any role which is submissive. If necessary she appears compliant but only to advance her plan. She can act dramatically to make others take notice and respond. She relies on others for futuristic visions. She can reject poets as dreamers, yet be drawn to reading poetry, moved by the power of language. She can become so competitive that she is oblivious of bonds that unite or of the psychological needs of others. She can fail to reflect on an activity and mistake self-soothing for reflection. Amazon's self-confidence is wounded when she cannot move beyond her capacity for comradeship to the vulnerability of friendship.
Artemis in her remoteness or Athene in her engaged presence chill the movie viewers of unflappable film Amazons portrayed by Barbara Stanwyck, Sigourney Weaver, and Helen Mirren. When she flaunts sexual power, Amazon becomes a Charlie's Angel or a crime scene investigator. Courageous pacesetters—judges, journalists, executives—ask brilliant questions of power holders. They also set rules: Florence Nightingale, Ann Landers, nuns who found action groups, Judge Judy, domestic tyrants bent on keeping up appearances, Wonder Woman, Indira Gandhi.
