| The Feminine. The Masculine. Women. Men. Yin. Yang. Feminism. Patriarchy. Spirituality. Religion. Individual. Humanity. Marriage. Sacred Relationship
These topics, and even moreso the search for 'right harmony' between and amongst them, has been a long-standing exploration for me. In many ways, it's a question woven into the very fabric of my being: What is the right balance between Feminine and Masculine? How do I -- how do we -- explore and achieve that balance in a loving rather than hostile way?
This is an unsettling time for many people, with reason. A good number of us are now aware that we stand at the threshold of a new consciousness, a new field of possibility whose very soil is Love, or the continued fear, aggression, and destruction that is the hallmark of our culture. We're at what feels like a crucial Choice Point.
And many of us are aware, though we may be uncomfortable acknowledging and speaking it, that it is the Patriarchal system itself that has brought us into this state of imbalance and to the brink of destruction. That's a hard truth for many to admit, because it takes us straight into 'gender issues' and sensitive truths, whether we like it or not.
But it's where we have to start. To ignore it, to shy away from it, to fail to summon the courage -- the heartfulness -- to see it and speak it, means that the conversation remains stuck in prevailing and historical biases and imbalances, and in attack-counterattack or debate rather than dialogue that actually includes listening and empathy with the intention of understanding more deeply, learning something new, and moving into a new place.
When the conversation remains stuck, so do we, individually and collectively.
To move forward, we have to speak the truth about Patriarchy, and the fragmented-Masculine bias that is its most prominent, dominant feature. It's a hard truth, but speaking it -- as men and women -- rather than continuing to deny, silence, ignore, or marginalize it, helps to free us so that we can move forward into healing and new potentials for the Feminine, Masculine, Women, Men, and Sacred, rather than unholy or wounded, Relationship.
It starts with Patriarchy.
In the beginning, there were both -- Feminine and Masculine -- united as aspects of the Whole. Two frequencies or expressions of the One. According to Wisdom literature, among other sources, they danced, co-created, and played with one another, and took pleasure in delighting the other, and the One.
For more than 30,000 years, according to contemporary archaeologists, historians, and theologians, there was the Goddess, and yet, from what we can see, the Goddess orientation did not exclude, dismiss, or subjugate the Masculine, nor the male.
There was, according to the evidence we have available to us, more of a balance than we experience now. This is not to say such times were idyllic, and yet the archaeological evidence suggest a more peaceful, artistic, and sensual time in which there was a greater harmony with and reverence for Mother Earth and the Feminine aspect of experience.
During the last several thousand years B.C., Patriarchy, and its emphasis on warring, aggression, fear, hierarchy, power-over, and Masculine/male dominance, gained influence through invasions.
As a result, the previous Goddess-revering, Feminine-Masculine-respecting cultures were slowly transformed, almost always through the 'shock and awe' tools of superior weaponry and the violent, brutal orientation for using them to create control and dominance through fear. In order for Patriarchy to flourish, that which feeds unity, creativity, sensuality, uniqueness, expression, and liberation must be killed, often literally so that the symbols and metaphors also die and fear can be fed.
Patriarchy is a system that embodies, emanates from, and almost exclusively biases the Masculine and men, though, ironically, not in a way that sees or allows the Masculine or men to be in their wholeness. Patriarchy is a worldview that is male-centric and male-dominated, and yet one that stems from a fragmented and horribly incomplete version of what it is to be Male, Masculine, or a Patriarch. There is nothing sacred about this expression of the masculine.
And yet -- and here is where the conversation might open up -- Patriarchy, while created by and for men, and dominated by men who exerted violent control and suppression of the Feminine and women (and others), is not synonymous with men, or at least not all, or even most men. Men, right now, do not equal Patriarchy, even while some or many men foster or perpetuate it so they can feel like petty, mean little gods.
Under Patriarchy, men are very much wounded, because Patriarchy does not allow men, either, to be whole. As the author and cultural critic, bell hooks, says, while Patriarchy goes after girls' voices and the very essence and power of Feminine, even by cutting off the genitals, literally or metaphorically, Patriarchy also goes after and attempts to kill boys' hearts, empathy, and sensitivity. And the heart, according to diverse and ancient Wisdom traditions, is the very center or portal of the Feminine. It's where the two become one; the birthplace of empathy, compassion, and wholeness.
A Need to Shift From Debate to Conversation
We get lost, confused, and derailed when we focus this conversation, or rather debate, on 'men' and 'women', though both are intimately involved. Focused there, the conversation goes nowhere but spinning in circles of victim-perpetrator blame, shame, and anger -- even though anger is understandable and must not be denied -- which is one orientation that the Patriarchal worldview feasts upon.
Our common ground and the place from which we create real dialogue, real understanding, real healing, real wholing, real progress, and real Sacred Relationship, is the absolute fact that Patriarchy is deadly to all of us, because it is not whole, and in its 'not wholeness', it is not sustainable.
The fact that Patriarchy is as horribly wounding to men as it is to women is not to negate, at all, the reality that Patriarchy is about men, was created by men, and perpetuated by men. It was men, under Patriarchy, who inflicted cruel, inhumane, fear-centered, and violent destruction upon women, animals, the Earth, and other people -- men and women -- whose land and resources were annexed and whose bodies, psyches, and traditions were conquered.
Under Patriarchy, there were men who architected and choreographed the ways and means of 'power over' culture, and those who 'went along to get along', because it was easier, sometimes understandably -- how many us have the courage to stand up to power when power is horribly corrupt, cruel, violent, and inhumane, and thus seems overwhelming? And if we can eke out some small ration of 'survival power', might most of us take that small token and deny its cost, or effect?
So we can't speak honestly about Patriarchy without saying, "Yes, this has been created and perpetuate by men." To try to avoid or 'pretty up' this fact is to continue to act in the very Patriarchal ways of silencing, denying, and lying about whatever rises up to counter it or show it for what it is.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that not all men colluded with Patriarchy, and some women did become its foremost apologists -- Good Daughters of Patriarchy who were, and can still be, among the most effective negaters of the Feminine and gatekeepers of Patriarchy.
And even under Patriarchy, while navigating the treacherous waters of its cruelty and violence, there were both men and women who protected, kept, shared, and shepherded the 'heretic' traditions of the Goddess, the Feminine, of Wisdom-Sophia, of Sacred Masculine that is revealed in the luminosity of the Sacred Feminine, of Harmony between the two, of Sacred Relationship and Union, and of true spiritual and liberation Wisdom.
We all -- male and female, boys and girls, men and women, society and the planet -- experience and feel the anger and despair over that which has been suppressed, denied, or for too-long lost.
We all need to experience the healing so that we might become whole once again. In our most ancient and cellular memory, we remember wholeness and the harmony its expression brings. We remember through ancestral memory when the Masculine was not at War with the Feminine, but walked and danced side by side with Her.
It heals with the Feminine.
By acknowledging and 'speaking truth', rather than blaming or getting stuck in victim-perpetrator ruts or Patriarchy-protective debate, we can begin to 'come current', which requires that we see and speak of the wound in order for it to heal. We can't heal what we keep invisible and refuse to admit, no matter how hard the truth, and no matter how much we, as individuals horrified by the methods and effects of Patriarchy, don't want to be associated with it.
Though we've made it otherwise, it's really that simple.
"Yes, this happened. Yes, this has been a system designed by men for men and perpetrated, primarily, by men. Yes, there have been unspeakable horrors that have wounded our individual and collective souls for several millennia. Yes there were women colluders, too, and both men and women who kept the Flame of Truth and Union alive throughout. Yes, we see its ills and costs even now. Yes, there is something new and wonderful on our horizon. Yes, it's time to heal, within ourselves, and together. Yes, let's do that, together, because humanity and the planet depend upon it now."
Yes.
The Return and Renewal of the Feminine
Many ancient and indigenous prophecies and wisdom traditions say that we're now entering, or have entered already, the 'Oceanic Age', the Age of Aquarius, or Era of the Feminine: a new era of peace, humanity, and heartful prosperity that seeks the wellbeing and benefit of all Being, and beings.
The Goddess returns, remembered and re-embodied, to her place at the altar of Divine Union. Her presence -- full, luminous, and radiant -- allows the Light of healing to reveal the most Sacred in the Masculine, and Sacred Union once again becomes possible. The restored Feminine brings the hope and the way of wholeness with Her.
There have been those who, through impatience or Patriarchal bias (whether conscious or unconscious), want to skip the messy and uncomfortable Return of the Feminine and move right to Sacred Union.
Of course, this is Patriarchal shadow at its craftiest, attempting, oh so subtly, and often in the guise of 'enlightenment' or 'progressiveness' to keep the Bride unwholed, invisible, and fragmented, thus perpetuating the 'power-over' era.
The Feminine must be acknowledged, remembered, re-embodied, restored, revered, and respected. She must be honored, fully. Yes, the Era of the Feminine puts the Feminine, She, once again at the heart of the matter. She takes center stage, for awhile.
While this is difficult for some to accept, and uncomfortable for many as we shift from our own Patriarchal, Feminine-negating programming, it's crucial for all, because the Feminine is the medicine that brings the horrible imbalance into healing, into wholeness. It is the Light that reflects the sacredness of the Masculine back to him, as the full moon reflects the Sun's brilliance back to it.
The Divine Marriage does not take place when the Bride is missing from the altar, or is dragged up, in chains and in drag, in a faux theatrical rendition of the marriage that is designed to perpetuate the old, too-long dominant worldview, or prevent us from being temporarily uncomfortable.
By restoring and embracing the Feminine within us -- men and women -- and honoring it around and outside of us in real rather than patronizing ways, we become the midwives of the healing and wholing that is the sacred Great Work of our times.
And though it may be a challenge to embrace with intellects steeped in and shaped by Patriarchy, and while the men who are able to join us have a crucial role, it is women who play a central role now, as potentially full embodiments of Goddess, and as vessels of the restored Feminine that illuminates the way to true Sacred Relationship and Divine Union.
© 2008 Jamie S. Walters, Ivy Sea. No distribution or reprint in any form without express permission from author. If you'd like to reprint this article, please contact us at Ivy Sea.
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