The Complete Human Being: From Genesis to the Myth of the Androgynes

From myth to psyche: the union of Lilith and Eve

Many versions, one common search

We did not come to fight between women and men,

nor between Lilith and Eve.

We come to remember that, before any division,

we were one.

Today life invites us to reweave the thread of unity,

where light and shadow,

the feminine and the masculine,

They recognize each other as parts of the same heart.

As the Moon enters Scorpio, we leave behind narratives of separation. The Sun, still in the final degrees of Libra, continues to do its assigned work: understanding that the masculine must also die to its old ways of relating, in order to descend into the depths, into the Scorpio world where everything is transformed.

There, on that journey of death and rebirth, the Sun and the Moon advance together, like consciousness and soul, toward the depths where Lilith and Eve embrace once again. There are no sides. Only one call: to return to the Primordial Unity.

Throughout history, there have been many versions of how humankind came to be. Some say that man came first, then woman; others say that both were created together; and still others say that we were originally a single, complete being, which was later divided.

In this reflection I want to take two ancient sources that, although they were born in different times, speak of something very similar: the Hebrew text of Genesis and the Platonic myth of the androgynes .

There are other versions that interpret these stories from the perspective of guilt, hierarchy, or separation, but that's not where I base my argument. I'm interested in returning to the symbol of primordial unity , that state in which the feminine and masculine coexisted as a single, balanced force.

The first account: the Hebrew text of Genesis (6th–5th centuries BC)

In Genesis, one of the oldest books of the Hebrew text, it is said:

“God created man in his own image; male and female he created them.”

This verse, written around the 6th century BC, has been interpreted in many ways. In its simplest version, it speaks of a creative act in which the human being is born with both polarities included: giving and receiving, strength and tenderness, action and receptivity.

Centuries later, some Hebrew teachers interpreted this passage to mean that the first human being was an androgynous being , a whole that contained both energies within itself, and was then divided so that each part could recognize itself in the other.

This symbolic reading says that the division was not a punishment, but a way for life to teach us to recognize ourselves through others .

The second story: the Platonic myth of the androgynes (4th century BC)

About two centuries later, Plato recounted a very similar story in The Symposium . There, Aristophanes recounts that in the beginning, human beings were complete spheres : they had two faces, four arms, four legs, and a single heart.

They were so powerful and self-sufficient that the gods, fearing their strength, split them in two. Since then, each half searches for its other half, longing to be reunited with that which gave it a sense of wholeness. Plato wrote this around 380 BC, and with his story he wanted to show that love is the impulse of the soul that seeks to reunite with what is lost , not only in a partner, but in unity with all that exists.

To love, according to this myth, is to remember our original nature : that of a whole being who fragmented himself in order to learn, and who in every human encounter tries to return to himself.

The third moment: rabbinic interpretation (4th–6th centuries AD)

Centuries later, Jewish sages developed commentaries on Genesis called midrashim. One of them teaches that Adam was created as a dual being, male and female joined back to back, and that God then separated them. This text takes up the intuition of original unity and presents it as a spiritual reality: the human being, originally, was neither a man nor a woman, but a living synthesis of both .

Thus, both the Greek philosophical tradition and the Hebrew tradition agree on the same symbolic truth: we come from unity and live the learning of separation.

The unity that dwells within us

These ancient tales, so distant in time, touch on each other in their essentials. They remind us that masculine and feminine were not born in conflict, but united ; that life does not separate us to punish, but to teach us to recognize love in the midst of difference.

From here begins my reflection on Lilith and Eve , as two expressions of the human soul's search to reconcile its polarities, to feel whole, free and at peace again.

The patriarchal split: when unity is fractured

Between 3000 and 2000 BC, many cultures that worshipped the Great Mother began to transform into patriarchal societies.

Authors such as Marija Gimbutas and Erich Neumann explain that this change was not only political or social, but a fracture of the collective soul . In this transition, the feminine was divided: one part remained within the system, while the other was expelled into the shadows.

Thus was born Eve, a symbol of the feminine accepted by the patriarchy: the mother, the wife, the docile woman who cares and obeys. And with her was banished Lilith, the oldest, the one who does not submit, the one who remembers the power of desire, intuition, and speech. The myth of Lilith preserves the memory of the ancient woman, the one who knows the mysteries of life and death, the guardian of fire and knowledge. In this symbolic expulsion, patriarchy not only harmed women, it also wounded the souls of men: it divided them between the "good woman"—the one who can love herself—and the "free woman"—the one who fears or represses herself. This division became a collective wound: hyper-maternal or nullified women; men disconnected from their sensitivity; both trapped in roles that prevent them from being whole.

Within a woman's psyche resides a predatory animus , an internal figure that pursues, demands, measures, and devours her. Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls it the predator of the female psyche : that internalized patriarchal force that distrusts instinct, desire, and the wisdom of the body. Therefore, women need to awaken their Lilith , the wild part that refuses to submit, the one that remembers that its eros is sacred and that its voice has power. Lilith is the one who gives women back their inner territory.

In the human psyche, on the other hand, there lives an asexual anima , an extremely spiritualized feminine, incapable of embracing the body and desire. From this image is born the figure of the Virgin Mary , seen only as the pure mother , the one who even without sex conceives a child: a symbol of love without body, of the spirit separated from the flesh. And on the other hand, Mary Magdalene , the beloved disciple, was excluded from the story not because she was her shadow, but because she embodied what religion could not integrate: sacred sensuality , the union of eros and spirit, the woman who loves from the conscious body.

For centuries, these archetypes—the predatory animus and the asexual anima—have kept the forces of human love separate. But the soul, tired of living divided, begins to remember and reconcile them, so that the divine and the erotic may once again meet at the heart of being .

The story of Lilith preserves the imprint of feminine wisdom, inner fire, and primordial knowledge. However, by removing her from the official narrative, not only were women silenced: the male soul was also fractured. From then on, men were divided between the idealized woman—the one who loves herself without desire—and the free woman—the one they desire but who arouses their fear or even censure.

That fracture marked all of humanity: women who care until they forget themselves, men who fear feeling and desire, and relationships that seek completion without success. The myth reminds us that only by reconciling these two halves—the free and the loving—can we feel whole again.

📘 References: Neumann, The Great Mother (1955) Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess (1991) Perera, Descent to the Goddess (1981) Bolen, The Goddesses of Every Woman (1984)

Archetypal and psychological reading of the myth

1. From myth to psyche: what the ancients saw outside, we now understand inside

Ancient myths spoke in the language of the soul. What was then told as stories of gods and goddesses, we now understand as the internal workings of the human psyche.

The story of the whole being that then divides can be understood as an archetypal function : the moment when consciousness separates from the whole to begin its journey toward individuality.

From analytical psychology, Carl Gustav Jung describes that both principles live in every human being:

• In women, the animus , her inner masculine, which provides direction, speech and discernment.

• In man, the anima , his inner feminine, which provides sensitivity, intuition and connection with the soul.

  
  

Thus, the stories of creation and division are not just ancient history: they are mirrors of what happens within each of us. The union of the anima and the animus represents, in Jungian language, the path to wholeness .

📘 References: Jung, Aion (1951); Symbols of Transformation (1912); Von Franz, The Anima and the Animus (1980).

Emma Jung: The Soul Who Also Thought the Anima

In this reflection on the integration of the feminine and the masculine in the psyche, it is also necessary to acknowledge the voice of Emma Jung , whose work Anima and Animus (written in 1967 and published posthumously, translated into Spanish for the first time in 2007 and reissued in 2022 by El Hilo de Ariadna ) offers a deeply complementary perspective to that of Carl Gustav Jung.

While Jung developed the concept of the anima and the animus from the archetypal structure of the psyche, Emma brought the lived experience of that internal dialogue : the way the soul embodies, feels, and transforms the relationship between the two principles. Her writing not only expands theoretical understanding but honors the feminine dimension of Jungian thought , showing that soul awareness is constructed not only from the gaze of the man observing his anima, but also from the woman who recognizes, integrates, and matures her own animus .

To honor Emma Jung is to remember that knowledge also has a body, sensitivity, and experience, and that the union between the feminine and masculine in the psyche requires—as in all alchemy—the conscious presence of both creative polarities.

📘 References: Emma Jung (1967/2022). Anima and Animus. Buenos Aires: Ariadne's Thread.

Current times: the Moon in Scorpio and the call to integrate

Today, the sky speaks to us again with symbols. The Moon , which joined the Sun in Libra during the New Moon, has now moved into Scorpio , while the Sun remains in the final degrees of Libra.

It is a time of transit: the Sun, still learning about balance and relationship (Libra), prepares to descend into the depths of Scorpio , where Mars (the will), Mercury (the word) and Lilith (exiled wisdom) await it.

In this descent, Sun and Moon embark on a joint journey: a pilgrimage into the depths , toward the integration of polarities.

Lilith waits there, alongside the oldest goddesses— Inanna, Hecate, Themis, Gaia, and Tethys —those who existed long before the young Vestals emerged.

They represent the memory of the Earth before patriarchy, the knowledge that was relegated when the light of day sought to impose itself over the fertile darkness of the night.

The sky invites us to let the narratives learned in the 4th House —those of fear, guilt, and shame—die so that we can write, from Scorpio, a new word that unites rather than divides , that embraces both light and shadow, both Eve and Lilith.

The ancient Lilith does not come to replace Eve, but to restore her roots, her depth, and her creative power. The human soul prepares to remember that wisdom is not only found in obedient youth, but also in the ancient woman who remembers and reveals.

Return to the primordial mother

The integration between Eve and Lilith is not a conflict, but a reunion . Eve represents the tenderness that nurtures; Lilith, the voice that reveals. One is the visible face of love, the other its invisible root. When both look at each other and recognize each other, the woman becomes whole, and the man is also liberated, because he no longer needs to divide women in order to love.

This is the time to reintegrate the divided soul , to recognize in the female body the chalice, the grail, the mothership of life, and in the male body, the force that protects and honors that mystery.

Thus, the Sun and the Moon—the masculine and the feminine—begin their transit together towards Scorpio: a journey of symbolic death and rebirth, to become one again, as at the beginning of time .

In love, service and learning.

Li

October 21, 2025, Medellín, Colombia

City of Hope

If you'd like to hear this reflection spoken aloud , here's the video I recorded today at noon, under this same Moon in Scorpio. There, I share the pulse of the moment and how these movements in the sky invite us to integrate the feminine and masculine within us.

You can watch it in full on my YouTube channel.