On a dark afternoon, as heavy waters poured from the sky, my younger brother and I cozied up on the family couch and finally watched a movie he’d been telling me about for years: Mad Max Fury Road.

The movie had had such an impact on him that he had adopted elements of it into his life: the way he dressed and adorned himself, his perception of the world, and even his new project of turning a 1950s Ford McFerlane into his own beast vehicle.

There was something in the movie’s themes of post-apocalyptic grit and redemption that made so much sense to him.

And I’ll say, Mad Max Fury Road is one of the best movies I’ve seen. For me, it’s by far one of the most compelling and immersive experiences into what’s happened to our collective psyche.

The wave of post-apocalyptic movies over the past decade brings up the question: are we collectively fearing something that could happen to humanity at the apex of some great devolution, or are we remembering something that’s already happened to us long ago?

In Mad Max Fury Road, we have the gift of experiencing both the literal and metaphorical. And that’s one majestic gift!

Why? We need images to heal. Jung speaks about this beautifully. Images are nourishing to the body and soul, and they have the power to awaken buried memories from our unconscious.

The language of the soul is largely nonverbal. It’s made up of images, sensations, feelings and instincts that emanate from a primordial realm beyond the mind.

An image can make a lasting impression on us, ensuring we will carry its message with us for life. Can you think of an image you received in a dream that will stay with you forever? Or a scene from your favorite movie? Or a visual memory from your own life that informed all moments that came after?

An image is a transmission. It doesn’t stop at sight. It carries information. It ignites emotion. And leads us to the places we long to go, but have forgotten how.

This is why dreamwork is so powerful: our unconscious gifts us potent images — metaphors — that are the most accurate delivery for a feeling we’re often secretly harboring far beneath the surface of our daily lives.

As children, we naturally nurture and express ourselves with images: drawing, daydreaming, and acting out images we see with our inner eye. Our unbridled imagination allows us to get in touch with unlimited possibilities that live within us. It’s a time of life in which we naturally participate in an ongoing relationship with the psyche’s inner world, and with the invisible realms of Spirit world.

Furiosa and the Wives in the Wasteland in Mad Max Fury Road

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Welcome to the Wasteland

Mad Max Fury Road gives us a chance to remember. It offers us a bewildering depiction of the Wasteland — the current state of our collective psyche and of the socio-political structures that rule our world.

And beyond giving us an experiential glimpse into the psychological and spiritual state of the world, this film also gives us a healing story, a new possibility to take with us.

Mad Max is set in a post-apocalyptic world, which, here, is a desert, or more accurately — a Wasteland.

Max, the central masculine figure, is not a hero but an ‘anti-hero.’ He’s first seen standing next to his only possession, his car, looking out into the desert. He has long hair and a wild beard — a post-apocalyptic caveman of sorts.

One of the first things that’s striking about the film is its physicality. The dramatic aesthetic and raw sensations that engulf us from the first moments, mirroring both the realness of living in a human body on a physical earth, and the intensity of the turmoil our psyches in the modern age. This film does a beautiful job of keeping us in this rawness, without ever getting graphically violent.

In the opening scene, Max is standing next to his prized car. In the Mad Max universe, cars are hugely symbolic. All along the movie, cars have an imposing presence. Like massive beasts holding power and status, each car is elaborately customized to match its owner, to become an extension of its driver. Oftentimes in dream work, the car represents our body, our vehicle here on earth (interestingly, in ancient Egypt, the energy body was called the ‘ka’).

Beyond their allegorical nature, cars have also taken on a certain sacredness here. They’ve become living objects of beauty and creativity, showing us that even in dire times, humans have an innate need for beauty and creative self-expression.

Cars as embodiments of power, status, and creative self-expression in Mad Max Fury Road

Surviving inside patriarchy

Max, our hero/anti-hero, is us. He is the masculine inside each of us (man or woman), trying to survive inside patriarchy.

He’s getting near an unknown town, when he’s suddenly chased down by a group of War Boys. As he runs in an attempt to escape, Max is haunted by memories of the past.

During a succession of overwhelming flashbacks, we understand he’s experiencing a form of PTSD. He’s carrying unbearable levels of guilt and trauma from not having been able to save the lives of those he loves, which now has him in a near psychotic state.

He’s eventually captured by the War Boys. War Boys are the progeny of patriarchy. A legion of brain-washed, pale-skinned, hairless boys who blindly follow Immortan Joe, their ruler, their god. Indoctrinated from childhood into the Cult of V8, they’ve been taught to live and die for his glory, with the promise that in death, they’re awaited in Valhalla — a mysterious place of eternal afterlife. Their white bodies are bulging with tumors and scarifications, their eyes smeared in black paint. Despite their sickly appearance, they’re animated by a strange frenzy, and move as one in a maniacal group mind.

Suddenly, Max goes through a teeth-clenching torturous scene where he’s stripped from his identity. Gagged and bloody, his long hair and beard are forcibly shaved, while his back is being tattooed with data, stating his availability as an organ donor and a ‘full life.’ A metal muzzle is snatched onto him. He is to become a ‘blood bag’ for a sick War Boy (literally, becoming a live source of healthy blood for him).

This powerful scene is a heart-wrenching rendition of what’s happened to our sacred men, and to our inner masculine. The nonconsensual shaving of his wild hair and beard is the stealing of his male Shakti, his wild life force, his primal power. Overtaken by brute force and mindless violence, Max is powerless.

This sense of powerlessness and humiliation lives deep within us. We can think of the wars that our fathers and grandfathers have been a part of, or simply how castrating and soul-sucking the economic and cultural system we live in is. It asks us to forsake our true voice and eradicate our wildness so we can give our life energy to a system of financial slavery.

How can a man live from his true primal life force in today’s society, in today’s world?

How can our inner masculine liberate himself from the enslaving system of patriarchy? Both within and without?

The Citadel, the stronghold of the patriarch

We begin to understand more of where Max has arrived. Here, in the Citadel, a small town made up of large, phallic rock structures, the ruler is the repelling yet fascinating Immortan Joe.

While Immortan Joe has kept his long hair (hair has long been universally seen as a source of spiritual power), his face is covered by an oxygen mask, while his severely deteriorating body is kept hidden under a protective armor. Despite his failing health, he makes for quite the persona. His imposing stature, icy blue eyes, and intricately decorated body grant him the aura of a demi-god.

In this strange town, Immortan Joe is the overlord. He ensures the pro-creation of strong heirs. To do so, he holds captive five beautiful healthy young wives (or “breeders,” as he calls them), and collects breast milk from nurses to feed his progeny.

But most importantly, Immortan Joe is in charge of WATER.

Punctually, he opens the massive city valves that release water onto a decrepit, parched population. The people of the Citadel, akin to dried-out beggars, live to receive this water and get a glimpse of their paternal god.

In the Wasteland, water has become scarce, more valuable than gold, and here, the one who controls water controls life.

So let’s break this down, shall we?

What is a Wasteland?

What is a Wasteland, on a literal and metaphorical level?

A Wasteland is a place where there is no water. Without water, there is no life.

In Mad Max, there are no plants or animals left. Just humans and an earth that’s turned ‘sour,’ too sour to grow life.

Water is a symbol for the feminine soul. Water is the fluid of life, and the source of fertility — the nectar that gives, renews, and sustains life, on earth and in our bodies.

There is a feminine life essence within all of us, including all genders. Our feminine self can be felt as our sensuality, our deep emotions, our sexual and soulful essence, our intuitive wisdom, our wildness, our receptivity, our sensitivity.

Our feminine self holds a potent key to our spiritual gnosis (direct knowing), our creative power, and our capacity to live in harmonious, loving relationship with each other and the earth.

When the feminine principle within us becomes diminished because it’s been misused, abused, or held captive, we’re in the Wasteland.

In the Wasteland of the modern world, we’ve lost touch with our feminine soul. Once patriarchy took root, feminine values became inferior and irrelevant, or cast out and demonized.

We’ve been conditioned to place our power in external structures and authority figures — the government, various ‘leaders,’ influencers, scholars, scientists, and even spiritual teachers.

There’s an aspect of the feminine that’s been deemed ‘forbidden.’ This is the part of us we’ve been programmed to believe is too chaotic, too wild, too dangerous, and simply unacceptable in society. The magical creature self within us that’s been killed to make room for the all-knowing intellect, and patriarchal values like reason, productivity, status, security, and control. In the age of science and technology, the feminine force has been forgotten, a remnant of the primitive consciousness of our ancestors.

Subliminally, we’re constantly reminded of the ultimate authority: a distant, willful male God; an elusive master-father figure looming over every major world religion.

Like a Sleeping Beauty in her frozen slumber, our feminine soul waits for our remembrance, while we busy ourselves with the activities that will guarantee our security, identity, and value in modern society.

Where did the presence of the feminine go, in our world?

The Aquifer in the Citadel, from which Immortan Joe releases water at will

The lost feminine soul of the world

Beneath the surface of our conscious lives, we’re starved and parched for something we vaguely remember but can’t name.

From our inception, we’re taught to quietly put our heart’s desires aside so we can cooperate and live out a well-trodden trajectory that ensures our survival and ‘success’ without disrupting the status quo.

Caught in the unspoken rules of our social circles, of who we need to be for our family, our friends, and our work, there’s little to do to escape the race than fall into addictions or numbness — spaces in our lives where we can disconnect, turn our consciousness ‘off,’ and find temporary respite in substances, alcohol, television, soul-less entertainment and insubstantial relationships.

We have forgotten that we have lost Her — our deep soul essence, our true self. Our naked, wild, unbridled self. The life water of our soul.

Yet, the truth is, we will never stop looking for her.

Patriarchy is what it is — a dominance-based, exploitative system rooted in power and profit at the expense of others — because it believes it can and should control water, our feminine soul.

This system has done everything it could think of to control, domesticate, possess, and use the feminine — including our precious planet and her resources.

And while these distorted uses of power have been devastating, our feminine essence is simply inseparable from who we are, and from the existence of our very planet — a feminine being at the core.

Now is the time for the re-emergence of the feminine principle in our psyches, in our bodies, and in our world.

Night scene in Mad Max, the Wasteland as a personal and collective Underworld

You will come to resent its absence

I was captivated by a line that Immortan Joe says, right after closing down the water valves.

He says: “Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!”

This is the paradox of patriarchy. It wants to simultaneously own and destroy the feminine. Beneath the surface, it secretly longs to merge with her once more.

Part of the trick in the false matrix is to hold us in the illusion that our longing for the true feminine is unnatural. That something about this ‘water’ is bad.

It’s been entrenched deep in our psyches that the wild feminine is to be feared or cast out.

I was fascinated to learn in my womb shamanism studies that there are many words which today connote something pejorative, that, when we look far back enough, actually have a root in the feminine realm.

For example, Devil, from 'devi,' Sanskrit for goddess.
The root ‘hor’ found in whore or harlot, in ancient Semitic languages meant cave, cauldron; also found in ‘authority’ and ‘author,’ words of power*.
Related is the root ‘Hur’ in Sumerian, meaning earth womb and dragon*.
Sin, meaning of the moon. Sin was the ancient Akkadian name for the God/dess of the moon*.
Hell, from Proto-germanic meaning ‘concealed place' and ‘underworld,’ also related to the old Norse goddess Hel, who presides over the Underworld.

(*To learn more about this area of research, I recommend Magdalene Mysteries and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess)

For centuries, we’ve been told to fear a great devil with red skin and horns. Yet, red is the color of menstruation, the lifeblood of the Goddess. And in ancient times, horns were connected to the feminine. Animals like the bull and the ram were honored as sacred, their skulls mirroring the shape of the uterus. The Horned God was the consort of the Goddess, the fertile masculine who serves, gardens, and protects life, with his roots of love deep in the earth.

I was recently reflecting on the way news headlines portray natural disasters. We often hear of an earthquake or tsunami “killing” a number of people. Since when is Nature a murderer?

This is the essence we’ve been programmed to unconsciously fear and demonize — Nature herself.

Patriarchy has tried to separate us from the love and deep interconnectedness that dwell in Nature, and the way its essence lives within us.

There is a profound intelligence to Life’s cycles, which includes death, and always — rebirth.

Life’s flow is wise and embodies the necessity of menstruating: releasing creations back into the Great Womb of the universe, so they can rebirth into their next incarnation, their next spiral of evolution.

The terror to surrender into the Great Void of rebirth is at the heart of patriarchy.

And so, with a greater understanding of how patriarchy has parched our psyches and souls, and ignited a restless quest of reunion with our feminine nature — let’s look at some other incredible feminine symbols played out in Mad Max Fury Road.

Max and Furiosa setting off on their adventure

Feminine symbols in Mad Max: Fury Road

By following the clues, and simply listening to our intuitive feelings, we can gather many messages embedded in this movie, which tell us of a greater archetypal story of reunion. Whether intentional or not on the part of George Miller, this is amazing material to sink our teeth into. What is touched in us? What comes alive? Where in this story do we find echoes of our own lives?

Imperator Furiosa: Seeking redemption

An unforgettable and gripping character, Furiosa is the feminine within us (man or woman) who’s geared up to survive in the Wasteland. Her shaved head and missing left arm (the left part of the body is often symbolic of the feminine in many traditions) illustrate the loss of her feminine self — what she’s had to give up to survive.

She’s strong, impenetrable, and as her name indicates, there’s a terrible rage pulsing beneath the surface. She’s worked her way up the ranks, but at what cost? What has she given up? What of herself has she given away? What part has she played in dynamics of power and abuse to stay on top?

On the outside, she’s become one of ‘them.’ But something has changed, and she’s on a secret mission. She’s on a dangerous expedition back to the start, to the one place of hope left: The Green Place of Many Mothers.

Furiosa mirrors our own losses and the agreements we’ve made, consciously or unconsciously, in order to comply, to ‘look the part’ to the authority figures in our lives, or to feel strong, powerful, and in control — to upkeep a false security, even at the expense of our feminine soul. Her buzzed hair and mechanical left arm feel like a somatic reminder of the ways we’ve been dis-membered by patriarchy.

Can we feel the rage pulsing beneath — the fury? The anger that could either ignite a revolution or, left unconscious, perpetuate more degenerative pain and destruction?

And beneath the anger — the grief and the hope, that a place of redemption exists, for the world and for ourselves. A green place where the mothering force of our universe benevolently awaits. A place of love, fertility, and rebirth.

The Wives: Protecting the maiden essence

Immortan Joe’s wives represent the maiden archetype. Young, innocent, healthy, dressed in all white — the maiden energy is that of purity and new possibility. She’s the source of new life, of a new dawn, of the ever-renewing nature of life, imminent within even the most arid of deserts.

In this dystopian world, the maidens are captive to a dark father figure who uses them for breeding, abusing their power of renewal. They’re his property, and wear chastity belts enforced by padlocks.

While they seem to hold little power as prisoners, they will be protected, and safeguarded until the end. They represent the jewel of life within each of us, the grail essence that remains untouched, ‘forever virgin,’ and will magnetize blessings and protection, even in the darkest situations.

This magical part of us will lead us through life’s most complex challenges, all the way to the transformational truth hidden within our greatest initiations.

Our maidenhood is greatly prized by ‘the powers that be.’ Yet, its generative, transcendent powers of life can never truly be possessed, stolen, or controlled.

In what ways has our inner child or inner maiden/grail knight been betrayed, manipulated, or abused by the shadows of patriarchy? Controlled and misled by the dark father or mother, the ‘false parents’ who will do whatever it takes to keep our magic hidden, and our creative powers on lock?

How have we felt, at any age, that we don’t belong to ourselves? That our time, life force, and orientation are held within a greater system that dictates what is possible and what isn’t?

The Vuvalini: Wisdom of the crones

There are three archetypes as old as time, which we revisit again and again — in our lives, in our inner world, and in our relationships. When we pay attention, we can also observe them in all works of art, literature and entertainment.

In the feminine realm, we meet the Maiden, the Mother (also entwined with the Lover and Queen), and the Crone.

This trinity is also reflected in the three water valves that release water onto the Citadel.

By now, we’ve met the first two in the film. The Wives as the Maidens, and Furiosa who is finding her inner Mother — the one who serves life and lovingly mothers herself and creation — and Queen, the spiritually matured, fully-expressed woman. Furiosa is also rebirthing her inner Lover in her journey of reunion with the true masculine (more on that later).

And now, the adventure wouldn’t be complete without the third archetype: the Crone.

In the movie, the Crone archetype is embodied by the Vuvalini, or The Many Mothers. They live in the Green Place, which is implied was maybe once a form of Eden. While we know little about this seemingly matriarchal community, we see that there’s no perfect answer here either.

Their living place has been contaminated by the Wasteland, as has the rest of the world. Yet, they’ve survived and adapted. They’ve grown wise and cunning to navigate their shifting circumstances. They’re also protectors, mothers, and guardians: they guard seeds for future generations (in a world where nature has perished and nothing grows).

In the film’s resolution, the old women are key in the protagonists’ triumph. It’s their grit, devotion, and the absence of the fear of death that allows them to fulfill their purpose in the greater picture.

The Crone, sometimes also known as the Elder or Grandmother, has lived to see it all. She understands the cycles of life intimately. She doesn’t fear the 'big bad wolf,’ for she knows what’s beneath his veneer. Her wisdom is as practical as it’s mystical, and she can navigate death and transformation with love and discernment. Even when the earth has turned ‘barren,’ even when illusions are raging in the world, her faith in life has no bounds — her deep knowing lives in her very bones.

The Crone seems to be missing in today’s world. Historically, this fierce feminine wisdom as a gateway between the worlds has been equally feared and revered.

Meeting the Crone, inner or outer, is an initiation into the soul-stirring territory of loss, death, and rebirth.

Her initiation is a voyage deep into the heart of our humanity, and the mystery of our cosmic nature. A humbling trek down into the Underworld of our biggest fears, a flight into the black hole of the Unknown.

She’s the Winter before the rebirth, and her all-seeing-Eye, which promises that we will be okay, gives us the courage to walk through the door of dissolution that precedes all new life.

Soul grief: Facing the great loss

There is a really poignant turning point in the movie, when Furiosa finally arrives at the Green Place of Many Mothers. Her lighthouse of hope, the one place where she believes there is still good in the world. Her place of redemption.

Yet, when she arrives, she finds out that it no longer exists. Ravaged to the point of extinction, here too, the earth has turned sour, and the water has disappeared. What’s left is just another dead plot of the Wasteland.

Furiosa falls to her knees and lets out a primal cry of rage and grief.

I love this point in the movie, because it symbolizes a pivotal point in the spiritual journey. We may believe that there is something ‘out there,’ a fantasy destination that, if we can only get to it, finally reach it, will save us.

Yet, often, we journey all the way ‘there,’ only to find out that what we’ve hit a fantasy, an illusion, another mirage in the Wasteland.

So if not there, where? This is the greater question. What if the story we’ve been told all along, even in the greatest or most authoritative spiritual traditions — is not the real story?

This scene also represents opening to ‘the feelings beneath the feelings,' the well of grief and unspeakable pain that often sits beneath our well-constructed defenses and spiritual beliefs.

In this moment of falling to the earth, Furiosa meets the primal soul grief within that will, in this humbling moment of coming down to the ground, give her the transmission and orientation she will need to find the real homecoming.

Healing the split: The reconciliation of the masculine and feminine

Furiosa and Max, our two protagonists, are at war in the beginning. There’s a clear power dynamic and mistrust at play, that progressively gives way to a harmonic way of working together, and a total trust that they have each other’s backs.

Their choice to come together as allies, partners, and complementary forces, is the key to a great healing: coming home to free the trapped waters.

They’ve dropped their masks and allowed their vulnerability to show. They’ve committed to something greater than their individual wounds — a new possibility, a chance at rebirth and redemption.

In a critical moment when Furiosa has been badly injured, she’s only able to survive when Max gives her a blood transfusion. Simultaneously, this is the first time in the movie he decides to share his name with her. There’s a powerful element in his choosing to surrender, and gift a precious part of himself to her restoration.

For each of us, the reunion of the masculine and feminine principles is both an inner and outer journey. Healing the split between the masculine and the feminine is the Great Work of our times.

How do we reconcile the complementary energies within? How do we bring our inner masculine and feminine back into a harmonious, loving, and passionately creative marriage?

Homecoming: The Great Return

Max, Furiosa and their crew successfully come home, after a number of challenges and sacrifices on the way. They’ve killed Immortan Joe, and in a strange and disturbing frenzy, he’s dismembered by the crowd gone wild. The false god has died. The rebirth is underway. Immortan Joe is not immortal after all. This is the great recycling or composting of the Dark Goddess, necessary for old and nefarious energies to give way to new, healthy life.

While Max chooses to leave the scene (he’s not quite ready to stop being the loner and anti-hero he’s come to be), Furiosa ascends on a platform with her team. She’s to be the new leader. The waters are set free, the people are quenched and nourished.

In Grail shamanism, the cathartic release of water — similar to healing tears, gushing orgasm, or the waters breaking at the start of labor — announces the last stage of the rebirth. The waters of life have been liberated, returned to the whole. These waters will drench and fertilize the earth, sprouting new life, new evolutionary possibilities, new loving potentials. The cycle is complete. A new story begins.

The waters being set free in Mad Max Fury Road’s ending scene

Mad Max Fury Road: Rebirthing The Wasteland of Patriarchy