Integral Men and Women

Discussions about Integral Women and Integral Men have been going on for some time now, and those discussions are still continuing.

In this thread I'm interested in combining the perspectives of men and women, and to go even further using the insights of those threads as a foundation.

Very roughly, it seems that the women have dealt with issues of autonomy, being heard and finding their true voice in the world. The men have dealt with deconstructing the male gender role, and seeing how men are wounded, molded and constricted by their upbringing - much more than is generally acknowledged in mainstream media and such.

These subjects are valid, important and cannot be bypassed for either sex. But what happens beyond these insights, and beyond the healing that has to take place for both genders?
Because in all honesty we are dealing with integrating healthy green for both sexes, that is what both the Integral Women and the Integral Men thread has been about.


This quote from Jane in the Women's thread got me thinking:
We have to step out of those ridiculous high-heeled shoes and be prepared to dance alone, to our own rhythms, to our own lead, with our own open and vulnerable heart.

How is this different from achieving healthy green? Is there really nothing beyond this for women? Will we settle for having a relationshipship between to fully autonomous individuals who retain their complete autonomy in every situation?

The quote itself triggers me of course, since the quote makes me think of tango, and the beautiful leading and following I've seen happen in that arena - between two mature adults. I believe there is a huge difference between not being able to be autonomous, and surrendering parts of an already achieved autonomy to a person whom you trust deeply.

To what extent is it reasonable to repolarize within an integral relationship? Is it only in bed that we want polarities, and then equal autonomy in all other areas?
Personally I don't believe you can cut a relationship up in different pieces, and if you want polarity in bed you will need it in other areas of life as well.

What do you all think?


Pelle

Re: Integral Men and Women

What? Are the man/woman thread a franchise business now?
I think I'll start one with the title of a famous Texas country song: “I don't know if she bitches 'cause I drink, or I drink 'cause she bitches.”
We can explore the ontological nature of interrelationship disputes. What do you think? ;^P

Re: Integral Men and Women

Pelle,

“To what extent is it reasonable to repolarize within an integral relationship? Is it only in bed that we want polarities, and then equal autonomy in all other areas?
Personally I don’t believe you can cut a relationship up in different pieces, and if you want polarity in bed you will need it in other areas of life as well.”

My thoughts: You do want those polarities - they’re responsible for a big part of the fun in any relationship - you just don’t want to identify with them. In other words, you have an active play between the partners, exchanging polarities and experimenting with them. This works best if both partners are at a certain level of development (7 or 8 in KW’s gender identity scale), but it even works if one partner is ahead of the other - just be very careful not to confuse the other party too much…Gitanjali and I had a very brief discussion about these dynamics earlier on.

Things to keep in mind: any annoyance/fear/resistance that comes up is ego creeping in and needs to be recognized as such - this is the part of development where you can’t ignore or pretend anymore…

Frans

Re: Integral Men and Women

Pelle asked:
To what extent is it reasonable to repolarize within an integral relationship?

Frans said:
You do want those polarities - they're responsible for a big part of the fun in any relationship - you just don't want to identify with them.

My initial responses…

The extent feels endless to me. It depends on how deep, integrated and broad I want to or can go and same for him.

A man at the gym yesterday was marching on the treadmill and it seemed to me to be in a “masculine” way. Hard to put that into words, to dissect it but, for example, his centre of gravity was higher, he was moving his shoulders vigorously, and barrelling his chest.

To me it felt masculine but it did not feel deeply integrated. It did not feel as if this masculinity was emanating deeply from his body. I don’t mean to make a cold judgement here. I’m interested in my inner reactions to this.

I was also watching the performance of the Haka by the New Zealand All Blacks in a rugby match with Australia. Ahhhh…its great fun to watch, have you seen it? Its an elemental warrior dance. And its such a great occasion for it – a rugby match where our primitive tribal feelings…are welcomed! The opposing team always looks a little lost when faced with it – maybe they feel the lack of their own ritual…

You can check out a version here…its not the best version I’ve seen but its all I could find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DX_8-uXUk

I could see how the players were feeling this haka spirit with different levels of depth. Again, no shame in that – that’s now important for me to say. And it’s interesting to see how my soul and body respond to the different levels that were being embodied.

What my soul seeks now for its thrills  is the deeper emanation. And that is rare because it does mean we need to feel deeply into ourselves and honour what is there. And of course if I seek it on the outside, it reflects my inner desire to integrate deep and down into it.

This is not to say that I or anyone shouldn’t play the M/F dynamic right where we are. Especially because “acting as if” can reverberate back into our depths and awaken them a bit…

Some authors focus a lot on the “acting as if” (John Gray?). Its fun. And I’m also interested in how we access and ground and integrate our deepest vibrations. In this world as it is. How we protect them when need be and how we nurture them. How we release them at our command with…well…with a single mudra…

Warmest
Gitanjali

Re: Integral Men and Women

[Jane: “We have to step out of those ridiculous high-heeled shoes and be prepared to dance alone, to our own rhythms, to our own lead, with our own open and vulnerable heart.”…….__
Pelle: “The quote itself triggers me of course, since the quote makes me think of tango, and the beautiful leading and following I’ve seen happen in that arena - between two mature adults. I believe there is a huge difference between not being able to be autonomous, and surrendering parts of an already achieved autonomy to a person whom you trust deeply.”__]

Pelle, This discussion may become a tango in its own right. Indeed, much of my last post on women’s thread was an indirect response to you– to your image of doing something different one night not long ago when you ventured away from the ‘cool crowd’ to dance with, shall I say, ‘the rest of us’.

I can tell you, except for a very, very few women, genetically endowed with utter beauty, heiresses in their own right, with unusual intelligence and quick-wittedness, and yet a demur and conceding nature, all women are ‘the rest of us’. There are dance halls teeming with ‘the rest of us’. Some of us are marginalized along the wall because of our irregular looks, some by our body size, some by our eagerness and openness, some by our beauty and intelligence marred by lack of concession and submissiveness, many factors that constitute being ‘unattractive’…god forbid, maybe there are a few of us, a very rare few, that are sidelined on the dance floor who can’t actually dance, who are actually without rhythm! The ‘rest of us’ are the ‘rejects’, the ones that apparently are overlooked by the men in our lives, we are the ones who are not engaged in an exploration of tango-like communion.

This ‘no man’s land’ of ‘the rest of us’ is the result of a particular polarity where women’s external power is given to us by ‘society/men’ because of what we look like, because of whether or not we are ‘sexy’. In the polarity of 1st tier society, women’s power in the community can largely be equated with whether or not she turns men on, whether or not she is considered sexy by the very men who have been blinkered by their own 1st tier fears of inadequacy and imperative to perform. we are wounded by wounds….. ‘we carry with us the germ from which we flee.’….

How do we make it through the knot-hole to second tier, integral relationships?

As you know, in dancing a tango, both people have to fully show up….not in a submissive/dominant mode of polarity, but with a full hearted intension to deeply connect, to attend to, to appreciate and to respond to the other. It is little wonder that many of us prefer dancing to making love. There is the freedom to become intimate with another person’s physical space, to play, to experiment, to embody the sentience of the other, without all of the dratted pretence and fumbling around and often lunchbag-letdown that unconscious, performance-demanding sex entails. When Shiva rises, Shatki will dance– this is far more than an erectile function, this is the embodiment of the eternal masculine and the eternal feminine.

I would contend that until anyone of us is prepared to show up at the confounding knot hole, where is, as is, with no apologies and no explanations, filled with presence, void of pretense, and open to the fearless exploration of the other, we will not be going into integral relationships with each other.

I love Robert Masters essay on mature monogamy. It is all about getting real, and showing up, bringing the constrictions to the table, keeping one’s own side of the street clean, polishing the lens of one’s own perception.

If any of us can learn to look deeply, we will see an astounding story unfolding before our eyes. Each one of is such a story. Beauty arises. That we are so often caught in our conditioning, refusing THIS banquet before us, well, this is a serious and confounding situation.

Love Jane

Re: Integral Men and Women

Dear Ones,

If, beneath the superficialities of age, gender, race, life station, even Kosmic address, it is true that we (our Self[s]) are a perfect bliss, or ecstatic stasis of the m/f in full realization, then, seeking to identify with any form of polarity is to play with the fire rather than to nurture it and live in its wonder.  My understanding of the goal of Tantra is that this yoga will lead us to an unfettered appreciation of both gross “sensation” and the subtle energies (kundalini shakti manifesting nadis, chakras and the path to and through the pearl {bindu}) to Realization - Realization being the ecstatic stasis of the m/f.  IMO, Tantra, for me as a man, is not about behaving in a masculine fashion in the bedroom, or any other venue for that matter, rather, it is about accepting that my senses are dominated by the identity-illusion of myself as a man.  Thus accepted, I can surrender to the experience of the balanced but still illusory feminine in response.  Here, both parties can choose to accept but still not identify with their respective illusions.  Strivance subsides.  Gross and subtle sensation merge.  Realization arises.

Thus, if Realization is not just the knowledge of divine stasis, but also the steady state awareness of it, then any identification with superficial polarities will lead to suffering and divergent desire.  Following this, it is indeed true (though my awareness is fugitive) that I am far more God'ess than man, more perfect than not, more eternal than mortal.

Gitanjali, you said:  “And I'm also interested in how we access and ground and integrate our deepest vibrations. In this world as it is. How we protect them when need be and how we nurture them. How we release them at our command with…well…with a single mudra…”

When it comes to the m/f issues, it seems to me that the Gyaan Mudra (thumbtip to index fingertip during japa meditation) is the best way to release the vexation and enmity from the m/f paradigm however illusory it might be.

Jane, Its good to see you back on these pages …

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Integral Men and Women

Fantastic thread, folks, each post deserves its own frame, some modern, some more ornate, I want to earmark this page in my brain.

The dancing scene in the movie Witness came to mind – you know, the famous scene where Harrison Ford dances in the barn with Amish widow Kelly McGillis. These people are acting consciously, but they're not faking it, they are definitely feeling every last squiggle of that energy - - so this is real, and at the same time a knowing play. That's where we're headed, if you ask me (which you didn't, but anyway) Tim and Michael know all about acting from that place in oneself. I hope they will say more about that here.

“When the witnessing is perfect, the acting is total.”

Scroll down to the third post on this thread. There's a video of the Dancing Scene in Witness.

Nobody has to look like these guys to feel the way they do - or be of a similar age. My mother and stepdad have this thing (a certain je ne sais quoi :p) going on in their sixties and seventies. Very cute to watch, moving and sweet.

M

Re: Integral Men and Women

Jane:
Some of us are marginalized along the wall because of our irregular looks, some by our body size, some by our eagerness and openness, some by our beauty and intelligence marred by lack of concession and submissiveness, many factors that constitute being ‘unattractive’…god forbid, maybe there are a few of us, a very rare few, that are sidelined on the dance floor who can’t actually dance, who are actually without rhythm! The ‘rest of us’ are the ‘rejects’, the ones that apparently are overlooked by the men in our lives, we are the ones who are not engaged in an exploration of tango-like communion.

I hear you Jane, and I am more and more able to feel and see the pain of women. To be honest I've always seen it, but it is only lately that I feel it on a deeper level.

Let me tell you about how the struggle of men manifests for tango dancers. Many more male than female dancers quit tango the first couple of years, even though the numbers are even on beginner courses. Part of the reason this happens, is that beginner men are rejected on the dance floor - even by beginner women! A man is not a real man in our society until he can perform and be competent, hence even the beginner women are looking for a man “who can lead” and who has been dancing a couple of years. Tango dancing men know this, and it is only the high status experienced male tango dancers who can go out dancing feeling relaxed, knowing that they won't be rejected when they ask for a dance. All other men know that they have to go around asking for dances and constantly risk public rejection.

I don't won't to turn this into a fight about which sex is worse off (and I know you don't want that either Jane). It is simply the wounded wounding the wounded, just like you said in your post.

It is my belief that if we all cultivate our inner beauty, we will start seeing it in others as well. This does not mean that we let ourselves go on the exterior, but simply that taking care of our health and bodies becomes an extension of the radiance and energy emanating from the inside. I also strongly believe that the whole polarity issue will take care of itself as we go deeper. We don't have to artificially “work on being feminine” or “work on being masculine”. Simply by going inside and becoming intimate with ourselves we will find what we need and what is authentically part of us, polarity-wise and otherwise.

I'd like to end with a short note on how leading and following work when dancing Argentine tango, because they are often very misunderstood concepts. Leading simply means offering a new space to the follower, it does not mean dragging them or making them walk to a new place. The follower then chooses to accept this new space, taking a step into it - while the leader in that moment actually follows the movement of the follower, and both dancers take care of the connection. This is then followed by a new initiative and offering of space, etc etc.
So it is far from the domination/submission dynamic that people normally assume it is.

In real life we also have the opportunity to switch between being the leader and follower within an intimate relationship, all according to our polarities and other preferences…


Pelle

Re: Integral Men and Women

I can appreciate that problem for novice male dancers. And I know what it is like to go around and around in circles ad nauseum with men who will be befuddled and hurt if I were to suggest a new move or an alternative. I would imagine that anyone who signs up for tango classes has at least got the intention to want to dance. But the ‘learning’ part might often be very frustrating when the ‘woman’ partner has to wait, silent and bored for the man to get his ‘lead’ right. Well, I can’t speak for the tango, but this is certainly the case for every other dance that I know. And in truth, who doesn’t love a man who can dance!

The learning curve could be made so much more interactive! There could be mutual leading going on…. it could be an excellent adventure for both sexes, as opposed to one being silenced to wait as the other bubbles around trying to gain some competence. The men that I have danced with who are open to new moves are usually the ones with the confidence to take the lead, AND to stay open and vulnerable while they do.

It is a terrible condition on the learning curve when anybody is shamed for not knowing something….and it is confounding. Learning becomes next to impossible. We need to look closely at how this shaming happens. Women are often bursting at the seams to share what they know, but silenced by the cultural norm of not wanting to ‘hurt the delicate male ego’…… how does that get looked at. Dancing is a great place to learn how to communicate as fully and engaged partners, with agreements and understandings, mutual moves and plays.

I love all of the dance movies that have recently come out, ‘Take the lead’, ‘red hot ballroom’, ‘shall we dance’….. We all need to be fully met where we are, and we need to appreciate and look at the places that are not fully aligned, where we can learn from our partner, or our surrogates….and where our partners can learn from us. What is so confounding about this!?

One of my greatest teachers was my horse Brutus. He was mounted police trained horse, fabulous dressage, trained for the musical ride. He was a way better horse than I was a rider, and sometimes I could just feel his boredom: he would begin to prance, canter on the spot, do half passes, do piroettes…. He would talk the lead, and try to teach me how to ride… sometimes, he would plod along and then jump over a fence on his own, while I sat on him.. Oh, what he wouldn’t do to bring some life into the party….. Perhaps all the subsequent time on the dance floor is pay back time…..

I appreciate your openess in this discussion Pelle…. I think it is a frontier working out these dynamics with two alive awake intelligent mutually-engaged partners.
Jane

Re: Integral Men and Women

Jane:
But the ‘learning’ part might often be very frustrating when the ‘woman’ partner has to wait, silent and bored for the man to get his ‘lead’ right. Well, I can’t speak for the tango, but this is certainly the case for every other dance that I know.

Who says the woman has to be silent and bored? In my experience this is a  core part of the problem, that the women are looking for the men to get the lead right, instead of practising getting their own part right. We all underestimate the importance of “following”, it takes a lot of practice to get it right - and it involves so much more that simply going where the man asks you to go.


There could be mutual leading going on…. it could be an excellent adventure for both sexes, as opposed to one being silenced to wait as the other bubbles around trying to gain some competence.

Again, both parties should be bubbling around gaining some competence! The women are just as incompetent as the men, yet they are simply waiting for him to get his part right.

Taking turns leading and following can indeed be liberating, and queer tango (where you learn both roles) is spreading around Sweden. It's not the way I teach but I think it's great that those courses exist as well.


Women are often bursting at the seams to share what they know, but silenced by the cultural norm of not wanting to ‘hurt the delicate male ego’…… how does that get looked at.

It is indeed a problem that men have fragile egos. But then we have to ask ourselves: why? IMO, the main reason for having a fragile ego is if you have a lot to lose, and I think all men know how much prestige they'll lose if they appear unsure and less than confident. Encouraging men to loosen up and become more playful is very important, and it is such a gift if the women can support them in this.

In my experience far from all women are silenced by the cultural norm. What I see is that women tend to be silent if they don't know the man very well, but if they are married or good friends she won't hesitate to let him know that it's not working, and then bring the teacher (me) over. When I actually try it with them, it can be either one of them who's struggling, even though she was sure that it was him.


Again, this might sound that I'm only sticking up for men, but I look out for the women as well. Giving healthy and direct feedback should be fine for a woman. I also tell the women not to cover up for the man and do the steps even though the leading is not working. Furthermore my tango partner and I work hard at always feeding the women with just as much technique and tips as the men, to make everyone in the room realize that while the two roles are different they are equally important. Traditionally dance classes do not do this, whether it's tango or something else, and that is a huge problem. Both sexes are empowered when they see that the follower's role is just as important.


Ok, so this was a lot of tango talk, but IMO several of these patterns are nothing but a reflection of current norms and beliefs in society.


peace
Pelle

Re: Integral Men and Women

Pelle, I agree with the challenges of being a good follower…..it is a great art, and it is delightful to practice…. I have been taking salsa lessons, and I have a lot to learn. Ho hum… I practice following when I can… and I have to say, I have done my time doing circles,(well, er, until I just could not stand it any longer… eventually I break down and add suggestions….there has been mixed results with this…) I have realized that sometimes the dance is really not that important to my partner, indeed, the person I am with just wants to hold on to me for a while….. I stay present with this… Glomb dancing, really.

Obviously, you are much more experienced in dance dynamics than me, and a professional to boot, but in the work-a-dancing world, the fragile male ego remains a real obstacle for many a dancing woman. Of course, we don’t have to remain ‘silent and wait’, but the alternative of a stony deadness….eeeee!

And hey, I love this: “Encouraging men to loosen up and become more playful is very important, and it is such a gift if the women can support them in this.” The men who are amenable to being supported in loosening up and playing are delightful and fun…Yay to these men!…. the ones who freeze up and go missing in action, well, no amount of joyful exhuberance on my part is going to work… and I have no skillful means at my disposal to be supportive. My experience is that ‘my support’ has the opposite effect. It has also been my experience that North American men are far more resistant to ‘support’ than Europeans, and oh, thank the lord, Latin American men appear to be delighted with dancing, and playing on the dance floor, and they have learned to lead too…and think all of it is funny….

I know that women need to learn the ‘following’ role just as much as men need to learn the leading roles…….. I truly appreciate this…… I would love more opportunity to consciously explore following….. perhaps I will go to a dance camp, or head to Argentina for a while. It many be that I am in a forsaken little territory, not typical of the rest of the world… still, even at a Robert Master’s group session a year ago, I sensed the same pattern. He got all of the men in the group to dance with me at once. It was great…. (arthur was there, and Mary and Liz)…for me anyway!…. and all but one of the men in that group seemed uneasy at least at first. I have no doubt that the women would have loved to have jumped up and gone for it, all of us together…..
this is typical of my experience.

So when you write: ” IMO, the main reason for having a fragile ego is if you have a lot to lose, and I think all men know how much prestige they’ll lose if they appear unsure and less than confident.” Well, I can hear that this is a male fear…. but man-oh-man, this is back to the reason that we have not yet started the party! Male FEAR…. and if men think they lose prestige by appearing unsure and less than confident….they could consider what prestige they lose by being chronically unsatisfying ‘I-don’t-want-to’ dance attendants. “bumps on logs”…. howz that for an alternative! I think this is an area where Male Fear flourishes..performance anxiety… .. and it cripples the entire dynamic….. I wrote an essay about this on the integral naked one forum….which unfortunately has gone missing…. (maybe I will find it and post it on my blog) …and so in a world where conscious dancing is faced with such a confounding circumstance, the whole evolution into ‘intimate communion’ with our Beloved is similarly affected.

I am not saying that women don’t respond to confidence and competence in men….but when confidence emerges as an controlling ego-based put-on, it can also be a real turn off too…… what I find most interesting is any person who has a beginner mind and stays present and willing. It is what I find most interesting in myself too. I believe that when this is the starting foundation, true ‘integral’ confidence and competence emerges. this becomes life in the fire…. and oh, who knows what might happen!?

Jane

Re: Integral Men and Women

Jane:
“what I find most interesting is any person who has a beginner mind and stays present and willing. It is what I find most interesting in myself too. I believe that when this is the starting foundation, true ‘integral’ confidence and competence emerges. this becomes life in the fire…. and oh, who knows what might happen!?”

What a great place to start for men and women alike, and what a challenge for all of us…

Pelle

Re: Integral Men and Women

Hi Pelle and Jane,

I enjoy the analogy with dance. My experience with Aikido is similar; to lead and to follow, to blend and harmonize, to absorb and guide, to “go up-river” to join the current, to extend and expand. Now following now leading, now learning, listening, now directing now merging.

What I find promising for anyone is, regardless of all the obstacles men and women, society and culture lays in front of us, is there are places for training this interaction, this union of polarities. Aikido is one of these areas where the energies of our polarities are exercised(with the right teacher of course).

But regardless of all talk about it, it comes down to years of living and learning. I never knew how to be with anyone, let alone women. It has taken 40 odd years to come home to a comfortable understanding in regards to these issues.

But I must say that if I hadn't been interested in truth, a spiritual understanding that reveals a perfect relationship to the other, I could have danced for a thousand years and not have gotten closer to understanding relations.

Beginners mind on the dance-floor is just the correct attitude to have when your feet don't know left from right.