them both, even after twenty years of marriage, Hera was not an
active archetype.
THE SACRED MARRIAGE
Two of the three meanings of marriage are as fulfillment of an
inner need to be a mate and as an outer recognition of husband and
wife. The marriage archetype also is expressed on a third, mystical
level as a striving for wholeness through a “sacred marriage.” Reli-
gious wedding ceremonies that emphasize the sacred nature of
marriage—characterizing it as a spiritual union or a sacrament
through which grace can be channeled—are contemporary reenact-
ments of Hera’s sacred rituals.
An insight into this sacred aspect of the Hera archetype came to
me from direct experience. I was brought up as a middle-of-the-road
Protestant. No mystery or magic accompanied our religious rituals.
The communion sacrament was a commemoration that used Welch’s
grape juice. Thus it was both unexpected and deeply moving for me
to find that my marriage ceremony in San Francisco’s Grace
Cathedral was an awesome inner experience. I felt I was participating
in a powerful ritual that invoked the sacred. I had a sense of experi-
encing something beyond ordinary reality, something numin-
ous—which is a characteristic of an archetypal experience. As I re-
cited my vows, I felt as if I were participating in holy rites.
When the sacred marriage occurs in a dream, there is a similar
shift in intensity. What is remembered is the awesomeness of the
experience. People often use electrical or energy field metaphors to
try to explain what they felt as they connected with the person who
was a sacred partner in their dreams. Symbolizing an intrapsychic
union between masculine and feminine, the dream is an experience
of wholeness. As the dreamer is embraced by her sacred partner,
there is a mixture of erotic feeling, bliss, and union. The dream is
“numinous” (meaning that it has an inexpressible, mysterious, and
divine emotional effect on the dreamer). The dreamer awakens
shaken and moved: “It was a dream that was more real to me than
how I felt when I woke up. I’ll never forget it. When he held
Hera: Goddess of Marriage, Commitment Maker and Wife