Posts tagged masculine

To better understand these challenges to intimate relationships at this historical point, we have to look at the archetypes of masculine and feminine. The earth is called what? Mother Earth. Why is it called mother and not father? The earth is constantly changing, constantly giving new life, and it’s unpredictable. Women all have the promise of creating new life. Men do not. Women have periods and heat cycles. Their bodies have higher water content and in general, they are more emotional. Their body composition is 20 percent muscle, while men are 40 percent muscle. Men and women are simply wired differently.

If we were to close our eyes and meditate on Mother Earth, we would most likely be drawn to her pleasing aspects: peaceful valleys, blue skies, flowers and majestic mountains. Our conditioning, however, has taught us to reject her more turbulent attributes, such as hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, tsunamis, cyclones. Because of the power of Mother Earth, her winds and waters that can sweep you away and destroy everything in her path, there has been an undercurrent of fear of the force of the feminine. This has persisted since the dawn of civilization.

Thus, what we have come to desire is that women only embody the qualities of “beautiful” Mother Earth. We do not honor her destructive elements as “beautiful” and valuable, as well as being sacred. In other words, when the feminine storm rises up, both men and women can learn to embrace it. From the feminine upheaval follows new understanding and awareness. It may seem ferocious but it is anything but that. The range of emotion and movement that women express is vast; their beauty takes different forms. Limiting her expression limits the possibilities of deep intimacy.

The physiological and anatomical makeup of women is decidedly different from men. Women’s bodies are more volatile than men’s. These physiological differences also mirror emotional differences, and these differences inspire the foundation for Modern Intimacy as an approach to love and romance. As in nature, the greater the distance between two poles, the greater the magnetism. Thus, the greater the polarity between two people the greater the attraction between them.

The archetype for the masculine, in Western culture, is God the Father. For purposes of keeping this conversation to the play of the masculine and feminine, consider the notion that beyond the blue skies is the infinity of love which we call God the Father. Beyond these blue skies, there is no oxygen, no ice cream, no children, no spring, no summer, just a vast nothingness. Unlike the earth’s ever changing spectrum of life, there is only the vast stillness of existence.

The great religions of the world have been organized and dominated by men who, in one way or another, have sought this infinity of silence. But many of these men have failed to realize that only together with the movement and life-force of “She,” the Mother, the feminine can true unity be achieved. In Modern Intimacy we recognize that full expression of the masculine and feminine principles have the potential to bring us into an unprecedented state of fulfillment.

Looking more closely at the attributes of the masculine, there is a history of his having to face death. Men have been going into battle since humans first formed into tribes. In movies and endless war stories men are willing to die for each other, to protect the village, the society, the nation. You don’t generally see women on fierce battlefields, ready to join the men. Why is this?! It’s because the feminine is about life. This does not mean that women cannot go into battle; it’s just that from the archetypal point of view, the feminine disposition is more interested in creating life and abundance than in ending it. This is the disposition of “Her.” Engaging in a battle to the death is about bringing things to an end. Extreme sports demonstrate a modern expression of the masculine disposition. Women are not as drawn to participate in these sports which are, in a sense, an challenge to cheat death.

The feminine is about life, color, texture, design, feelings, aliveness. She doesn’t want to face death. She wants life to keep expanding. Again, this is not to say that men cannot embrace the disposition of desiring life in abundance; however, they have an innate tendency to compete with and overcome one another, even if it means fighting to the death.

When we understand the differences between the masculine and feminine, men will no longer try to squeeze the ocean into a box. Furthermore, they become conscious that any attempt to do so only results in a rising storm that has the power to crush anything in its way. It sounds simple, and in many ways it is. The feminine is everything that we can perceive in the physical world. The masculine is unchanging stability, which is often not sensitive to feeling. Standing present to the feminine depth of feeling will bring any man to a new recognition of her deepest heart.

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