A JOURNEY AROUND THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE

Did a journey the other day. It was in my usual spirit-movement way, where the spirits pass through me and take over my bodily movements: this seems to be the norm amongst many Siberian and Mongolian shamans. I added a few extras, coming from Ulchi Shamanism: the drummer varied the drumbeat on an intuitive basis; there was no callback signal (which I have always found discordant); and I spoke my journey aloud as it happened.

Ulchi Shaman

In the journey I was shown the natural relationship between the masculine and feminine principles, with the masculine (me) like a chessboard king embodying action and initiative and natural authority, emerging from the infinite ground, the infinite connectedness, of the feminine, like the grid of Einstein's curved space. 

 

It was a message for me personally as a man about the relationship between masculine and feminine, in particular about the need for the masculine to be deeply in service to the feminine when it acts. And energetically, it was one more step in the decades-long process of deepening that relationship. 

 

It is only through being in service to the feminine that the king has his power. And the feminine needs to be found within, rather than vicariously through a relationship with a woman, which is the norm, and which can be a step along the way.

 

I am coming to realise that I will never be able to do relationship in the conventional way again, because it involves 2 people each enacting a part of the psyche for the other, and when that happens it is joyful and is called romantic love. But something in me no longer allows that, it is painful when it happens - it has always been painful for me, but I still used to do it. 

 

And I am sure many, if not all, of us have had experience of giving something of ourselves away in relationship. Many people are happy to live even their whole lives like that, as part-persons. It is 'normal'. But I think if Spirit is seriously trying to work through you, then a more whole, more balanced person is required.

 

In a dream last night I was supposed to be making cakes, but a woman was buying them in instead, and they were made of artificial ingredients. I see this not as a comment on women, but as saying that the real sweetness and nourishment comes from finding the woman within; having a woman do that for me is ersatz.

 

And I think the journey was also an illustration of not just the natural relationship between the masculine and feminine, but between male and female, because by and large they correlate. In these politically correct days one is not supposed to say this, and this is part of our modern confusion around men and women and their natural relationship. Put crudely, and at its worst, nowadays all women are supposed to want to be like warrior men in the workplace, and all men are supposed to acknowledge that their basic maleness is toxic. It is a horrible mess.

 

Two Spirit Flag

Of course there will be exceptions and big overlaps, and they are to be honoured, there is sacredness in these exceptions. And we are probably all a mixture of both. But the basic impulse of the male consciousness is to be courageous and get things done, and that of the female consciousness is to hold the vision and ensure that things are done in the right way. A healthy indigenous society understands this balance. 

 

And the fundamental problem with the modern world is that the relationship between the masculine and feminine, as embodied mainly in men and women respectively, has broken down so that men and women no longer know who they are, let alone have the capacity to listen to each other. It is why we treat the earth as an object to be exploited, instead of as our Mother who needs to be honoured and listened to and continually given thanks to and loved.