Gaia: The Integral Pod - Embodiment - Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:45:41 GMT

Bruce said...

This sort of communal work - this body to body presencing, this adoption of each others' voices and perspectives - is deeply Feminine work, and we need more of it. To ground and inspire the "practical" work we must also do.

Its sounds beautiful Bruce (wot you experienced that time) ! And yes! yes! this my soul hungers for. I also wonder..is this the way to the visceral masculine? is some part of this the way?

Clarity is much much needed - so in my view this is a gift never to be dismissed. What I'm saying is we need your pounding blood as well.

Love G

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:29:53 GMT

Lol

We have to feel, feel, feel it ... let it in, let it in, let it in. Out of this we will find a way to act.

This really speaks to me where I am. Breathing, drinking.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:56:50 GMT

Michael, I also really appreciated your beautiful and provocative post. The Shaivite "portrait" of the Kosmos is quite profound.

Gitanjali, Lol, Jane, everyone - I felt a little bad to be spending time on "clarification" and "criticism," as I said, because Jane's post was pointing directly to painful and moving truths that need to be acknowledged. Truths which are not accessed in rational "clarity mode" -- or at least not fully appreciated.

I used to be in more direct, visceral contact with these things than I am now -- when I spent more time out in nature, or when I was traveling the world and seeing some of the "hellholes" (environmentally, socially) that we have created.

Awhile back, I created a ritual to help connect with these truths. Feeling the pain of the human "footprint" on mother Earth, I decided to practice tonglen for nature...particularly all the animals and natural forces that have been compromised, poisoned, choked, decimated, and damaged by our seemingly insatiable hunger. I think I posted the details of this ritual back on one of the old Integral Naked forums. Of course, much more is needed than visualization exercises and rituals -- our present situation demands immediate action, on many levels. But sending feelers of awareness, compassionate attention, and intention, into all of the poisoned corners of our biosphere, breathing in the pain and poison and loss, was a powerful experience for me -- one which opened channels between my heart and the ecology of my neighborhood as well as the world beyond.

Years ago, I attended a Council of All Beings retreat with Joanna Macy. This was a wonderful experience as well. She led us through a number of exercises designed to allow us to shed our habitual identities and to expand our identification out to encompass the natural world, to "speak" from the position of natural presences.

This sort of communal work -- this body to body presencing, this adoption of each others' voices and perspectives -- is deeply Feminine work, and we need more of it. To ground and inspire the "practical" work we must also do.

Warm wishes,

Balder

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://ma-rig-pa.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 16:34:11 GMT

Michael: I loved your last post, found it deeply moving, full of the beauty you're honouring and praising. I echo Pelle's "Thanks Michael".

Likewise, I find the Golden Mean awesome to contemplate. I googled "Phi - 1.6180" and discovered this blog offering, which I found both fascinating and humorous.

I could highlight different parts of your post to murmur appreciation of. This is one such, but also one I'd like to add something to:

"The fractal Phi is thus, I claim, prima facie evidence of the existence of God/dess (attribution: Adastra.) Who else could have pulled off this act but an intelligent, compassionate Source?"

I'm happy personalising Source as God/dess, about "whom" one can ask the question you're asking. It's not my intention here to split hairs .... I also want to eulogise, sing praise .... intelligence / prajna yes, but something that goes beyond (paramita) prajna is primordial wisdom / jnana, ever inseparable from Ground. This inseparability is our true nature, ever within the 'zero point' of our heart centre, and ever 'without', in the totality of our dimension. I resonate with Shiva and Shakti, but don't karmically 'belong' to the culture within which they reveal themselves. 'She' who quickens my pulse, makes my skin tingle, is the Wisdom Dakhini of Dharmakaya, Samantabhadri, whose many faces can be glimpsed within clouds and mountains both .... and who is ever inseparable from her consort the Dharmakaya Buddha Samantabhadra.

I'm not contradicting or competing here, m' friend, but joining in the refrain., in harmony.

Om shanti shanti shanti.

Gitanjali: "Just read jane’s post after a week of long hard work. It felt like quenching juice in my throat and under that a layer of red despair. I read the responses here too. While I feel that there were things in the post that felt partial, not giving the full picture, and I get that some of you felt the need to provide some clarity, I feel jane’s post demands something else from us too. It demands something more than calm loving analysis or beholding of its rolling beauty."

Gitanjali, it's so great to hear you again, and thank you so much for articulating the above. (And thank you Jane for your post .... and I know a mere 'thank you' isn't enough .... something else is demanded, as Gitanjali makes clear).

I have been all week with what Jane was crying out about .... and heard Gina's and Mascha's answering cries. I won't deny that I also appreciated the distinctions Bruce made, and Michael's contribution. But I am hearing more and more deeply the outrage, the despair, the cries of grief. Over on our "Shadow "thread I shared a dream fragment I had the other morning. It is complex and many layered, but feeling into it with my Jungian person the next day, she said for her the grieving I was experiencing and expressing in the dream was (also) showing that the feeling function in me was developing, and that I ... we all ... had to really feel it all, all the suffering, the conflicting emotions. So many of us are numbed, and in that way significantly inured to the enormity of the anguish in the world. We have to feel, feel, feel it ... let it in, let it in, let it in. Out of this we will find a way to act.

So much more I'd like to say, but have to get on the road to London town.

Blessings to all,

Lol

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://pelle.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:41:42 GMT

Michael:
Phi is more than mere order out of chaos. It gives us beauty. Beauty resonates within. What is that point of resonance? Our own spark of God/ness, I propose. Reason is quiet in the face of awesome beauty. Thus, as it can't be Reason that deduces beauty, it must be an inborn capability. Where did this capability come from and why? Phi can be found in the spiral of the DNA strands. It is established in every cell of every living being. Contemplating its presence and affect will lead us to re-union.

We recognize beauty because it is part of us too.
Sacred geometry.
Subtle energies interacting with DNA.
Before everything, the word.

Thanks Michael.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 10:27:08 GMT

Just read jane’s post after a week of long hard work. It felt like quenching juice in my throat and under that a layer of red despair. I read the responses here too. While I feel that there were things in the post that felt partial, not giving the full picture, and I get that some of you felt the need to provide some clarity, I feel jane’s post demands something else from us too. It demands something more than calm loving analysis or beholding of its rolling beauty.

It is pleading for us to touch our grief, for a response that brings an aching throat. A willingness to look at what we have all done to the real feminine. I find it hard to look sometimes. Images of oil slicked dying birds and stick figure refugees emerge. This too is us. If we bring that into focus we bring the eternal masculine with it. The eternal masculine requires that soul level response. Clarity alone will not lure him.

I know you know this, but I also know its so easy - for me at least, to get inured, to be a bit numb. Somewhere in my dreams are a pair of eyes that carry both sorrow and its the essence…a wild, unaccountable love. It can only emerge, walking into the sorrow.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://mqs.gaia.com — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:40:49 GMT

Dear Ones,

I like the Hindu definition of the Eternal Feminine because it seems so inclusive. When it is said, that the "Shakti is every-thing," here is what it means to me: the Shakti is all facts, factoids, and patterns. A fact is a singularity of any kind, be it material, conceptual, or spiritual. A factoid is synergy of facts that, when assembled in a particular way, produces a more or less predictable result. A pattern is characterized by having a vibrational component which can be measured for frequency, amplitude, and wave form. Pattern can be "memorialized" in a fact (seashell) or factoid (recorded music) while at the same time existing independently of either fact or factoid as pure vibrational matrices like gravitational waves in space.

Consider the rock, the beach, and incoming waves as an example of the inclusiveness of pure Shakti. This is Consciousness manifesting itself, but it is not all there is to Consciousness. What is it about the Shakti, (the rock, the beach, the waves) that is so beautiful? Why does apparent reality activate our "awe" factor? What do we "see" in beauty that activates us emotionally? I propose that all, achingly beautiful manifestations have one thing in common: they are either evidently revealing the golden mean (Phi - 1.6180. . . ) as in the nautilus shell and human physiognomy, or fractally manifesting it in cloud forms, mountain ranges, and galaxies for instance. Think about it. Aren't clouds beautiful? Have you ever seen a mountain range or a galaxy that you didn't like? Phi can be found virtually everywhere in the crystal geometry of the constituent minerals that make up objective "reality." Phi continues to manifest from the minimal scale where the beauty is simple and elegant to the fractal where the beauty becomes subjective, ephemeral and more "awesome." Phi governs the unfolding of beauty.

The Phi in Om inseminates and sustains the Shakti to manifest "reality" as beautifully as possible. The Shiva principle is not a one act play. Our job, as sentient creation, is to adore the beauty of the Shakti. Adoration begets gratitude. The Shakti does not need the gratitude as performance is Her bliss. She is pleased by the adoration in the following way: it's the Source, Shiva, who utilizes the gratitude, as He is the Doing performer and turns the gratitude into His sustained performance of the fractal Phi Intention and eternal sustenance for the Shakti thereby stimulating Her to produce more and more beauty. This is what "pleases" the Shakti. The more we recognize this and, living in adoration of the Shakti, and a humble, grateful, "giving" relationship with Shiva, the more rapidly Consciousness expands. Accelerating expansion seems to be the natural state of the Universe. The Phi intention is designed to help that along once we surrender and begin to contribute our full attention to the cyclic flow. Breathe in the adored Grace of the Shakti, breathe out Gratitude.

Thus it is we ourselves who are responsible to sustain our own Intention to bring beauty into the world. By adoring our own creations, we are generating the self-sustaining gratitude that enlivens the loop of Intention. Fully imbedded, we join the Gods and the universe bursts forth from our heart center. This fractal Phi of Intention embedded in Om Divine through the in-spir-a-tion (spirit-to) of beauty thereby secures It's continuing live presence in Consciousness. This inspiration contained in beauty and manifesting across space to our eyes, ears, hands and hearts is pure Love. All is Love.

The fractal Phi is thus, I claim, prima facie evidence of the existence of God/dess (attribution: Adastra.) Who else could have pulled off this act but an intelligent, compassionate Source?

Phi is more than mere order out of chaos. It gives us beauty. Beauty resonates within. What is that point of resonance? Our own spark of God/ness, I propose. Reason is quiet in the face of awesome beauty. Thus, as it can't be Reason that deduces beauty, it must be an inborn capability. Where did this capability come from and why? Phi can be found in the spiral of the DNA strands. It is established in every cell of every living being. Contemplating its presence and affect will lead us to re-union.

Literally, we look at great beauty while audibilizing "Ahhh. . . ." This is the foundation of the word "Awe" which is the first component of realization in the Word Om, pronounced ah-O-mmm. Try it with the above in mind. The initiator "AH..." bursts forth instantaneously from the throat and the -O-MMM part carries the cascade of diversifying vibration. If Phi was an intention-less pattern that emerged from insentient chaos after stuff just banged together enough to begin to "settle down," there might be a pattern there, but why would it seem so profoundly beautiful and emotionally stirring? If not, we would have lost our attraction to it long ago. The more awareness seems to expand, the more capable we become of appreciating the sheer beauty of the Shakti manifesting. The less we are drawn to the egoic seduction of knowledge as the source of personal power, the more we are drawn to the beauty of knowledge and on to the true source of power in Om Divine.

Thus, the last refuge of the uber-rational intellectual position of Atheism, depends on a rendering of this universal attraction to beauty to mere pre-rational fantasy. Joy subsides.

I propose that the Attraction to Beauty principle is the engine of both the evolution of matter as life and Life as the expansion of Awareness. Intelligent, creative Intention is thus evident.

Addenda:

Now, as another little tidbit for you linguistic theorists out there, consider the following: Assuming that Phi was intentional, producing the Awe of beauty, then how did Pi, (3.1416...) the organizing principle of circularity, vortices, and egoic constriction come into the picture? Was it derivative of the Word or contained within it? Well, consider the Word Om (Aum) again. It really begins with "Ah," the beauty sound, then comes "O" the circular egoic (performed by the throat with the mouth in an actual "O" shape) and finishes with the chanting vibrational impetus of MMMMMM.... mouth closed in concentration. (Check me out again here Pelle. I know I might be dabbling in XX and XY territory, heh heh heh.)

Thus both intention to beauty and death/regeneration are embedded in this vastly simple and elegant single Word. I think.

"In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was God".

Despite every egoic distraction I have ever been confounded by in this life, this simple phrase has resonated within me as the Truth and I have never had a decent answer about Why? until just now. Presence arises.

Yer pal,

Michael

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://Mascha.gaia.com — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:57:08 GMT

So Jane,

did you get what you needed here yet? Enough to sustain the flame?

I thought I heard you scream in your artfully constructed post. I thought I heard a wail that can't be answered except in kind - and by kindred, no less. Because it is precisely imbalance, imperfection and eternally uncontrollable off-the-charts-messiness that keeps demanding to be invited, feasted, fully honored and seen - that ancient dark, hoary Queen. Gina is also crying out loud from her perch atop a high tree... And here's another woolly chick warbling in the swamps around some far off lagoon, most likely a loon, who calls back loudly out of tune.

Aaaiiiiiiiihooooooowwwwwwllllll

There, that felt sane.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://FireAngel.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 21:26:07 GMT

Hello everyone,

So much of this exchange has triggered things deep within me and what Jane posted is, for me, a call to both the masculine and the feminine. This is about the masculine that is hidden deep within ourselves, it is our unconscious selves acting within the world as it is. It is the feminine we are awaking to respond to the world; she has been asleep to for a long long time. Why must it be balanced? Is it balanced REALLY? Can we say that the world is in balance today? Of course not.

I also strongly identify with Jane’s connection to the Feminine as Spirit. Not because I think that the Cosmos is strictly Feminine but because in our consciousness the cultural reflection of the Cosmos IS mostly masculine and to ‘balance’ the scales it is to embody the Self as Feminine in order to even begin to recognize that it is there.

I thought about speaking to each of you point by point… as is the way here on the forum. Then I changed my mind. This is how I communicate. I look at the points being made, I combine them and in my experience of that combination, I respond.

Maybe I should take part of my ‘rage’ and post it elsewhere. It is not directed at any person, especially all of you amazing people here in this space so willing to explore, it’s more of call to step away from the personal and connect more with the viral collective of masc/fem shadow that is within all of us.

Gina

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://mqs.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:56:09 GMT

Dear Ones,

Balder:

"Essentially, my disagreement is with two things: One, it appears you are contrasting the failings of real human men with the perfection of the Eternal Feminine, and then in some ways identifying women with that eternal ideal (simply suffering silently through the many errors man has made). You may not be intending this, but that is the impression given by your post. The Feminine here, ironically, appears to be exempt from all of the developmental messiness of growth and evolution; it is a perfect state, which is continually missed or trampled on by males."

I wonder if I have possibly contributed to this sense of unfair comparison - the messiness of coercive, egocentric men to the eternal feminine. I think perhaps I have. Still, women, in the gestation, birth and nurture cycle come closer to expressing the "perfection" of the eternal feminine, than men seem to be able to manage expressing the perfection of properly directed "eternal" intention. My sense is that men have been distracted to a greater degree from perfection of Intention than women have from the perfection of fecundity. In a sense, women have more limited choices in the matter, and, liking it or not, once pregnant, are subjected to the expression of the eternal, while men are never so "forced" to express the eternal Intention. Men have the leeway to be distracted away from pure Intention and into egoic pursuits while women are required by circumstance to stick closer to the high road of the eternal.

Of course, women can be equally distracted, refusing to manifest the perfection. Abortion, abandonment, and neglect are evident, but they are not the "norm." For men, I think, the norm is distraction. We do the insemination piece, we "hang in there" through gestation, but we de-prioritize the nurture piece as we turn back to competition among ourselves. This is easy to justify/rationalize as we have to go out there and "make some meat," and that takes concentration and etc. Its just that we have possibly forgotten what we are doing out there. Have we turned from pure Intention to serve the gestation, birth and nurture cycle? I believe so. Why? Possibly because birthing and nurture have historically been women's work. Women had the babies. They knew what had to be done. They were the experts at difficult births because they had personal experience. Men could only watch. Birthing, breast feeding and nurture was women's work and men were gradually excluded from the nurture technology. Women played a role in this - perhaps unwitting at first, but women were under pressure to keep the balance strong in the face of their mortal dependence upon men to protect them from cave bears and rival clans. Men could make women's lives miserable by beating them. Men had the weapons, could leave to hunt when they chose, could hang out and smoke dope in the woods without having to listen to the babies crying, could develop secret societies and ritualize behaviors, could come home with secret smiles on their faces further confounding their women. Women could retaliate by further shutting men out of the birth phenomenon and learned to gossip among themselves about the failings of their men.

So yes, we share responsibility for this distancing. Still, I believe that men have become more absorbed in the technology of egoic distraction, than women have from the duties and surrender to the expression of the eternal feminine. Fundamentally, I see it as men's responsibility to recognize the danger's of this egoic, competitive, glory distraction, and turn more fully to serve the eternal feminine as expressed by the women in their lives.

I believe that this is the Shiva principle in action: pure, sustained Intention to inseminate beauty to and through the eternal feminine. Men can choose this, while women are "stuck" so to speak, "having" to do what they do. Men need to initiate the change. Women can facilitate it by taking risks to be fully vulnerable again.

I would suggest an image of "space" and all that it "contains" in manifestation, only "appears" to be exclusively feminine, while the truth is that the feminine is one half of the equation and can only manifest when constantly supported by the sustained evanescent intention of the masculine.

Yer pal,

Michael

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://pelle.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:47:41 GMT

Michael,

I'm sure you'll work it out again, even better than the first time, and I'll love to read about it.

Beyond "look good" humanity arises. Now there's a lesson I'm learning, relearning and learning again.

peace
pelle

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:37:07 GMT

Hi, Jane, I hate to concentrate on my points of disagreement, because that can obscure the many good and important things you are saying. So, I will keep this relatively short.

Essentially, my disagreement is with two things: One, it appears you are contrasting the failings of real human men with the perfection of the Eternal Feminine, and then in some ways identifying women with that eternal ideal (simply suffering silently through the many errors man has made). You may not be intending this, but that is the impression given by your post. The Feminine here, ironically, appears to be exempt from all of the developmental messiness of growth and evolution; it is a perfect state, which is continually missed or trampled on by males. It does not appear to consider that the feminine also passes through stages of development, each with its attendant gifts and limitations, and that women in their growth through them have also contributed to the problems we see in the world. I do not see all the "limitations" of women as simply being due to their having been "twisted" or led astray from their ideal perfection by coercive males. We're all evolving together! (If there is a primordially perfect Feminine, I do not believe she is to be found, as the Romantics would have it, in the human historical past.)

Two, it appears (in your post) that you have left scant room for the "masculine" in the Kosmos, identifying Nature, the Now, the Presence of Being, and Life as feminine. I mean, what's left? As Pelle points out, it appears you treating Spirit itself as Feminine, perhaps because of certain ambiguities in your post.

I agree with you about many things -- particularly about the need to really take stock of the damage our way of life is causing, and to consider the deep roots of this crisis (some of which are in masculine and feminine shadow). And I hear the Feminine speaking through you -- She does not really feel that she has a space in which she can stand in her full power and essence, unapologetically; She feels she has been confined to the basement, while a pale imitation of her works and converses and plays in the house upstairs; She feels that man cannot handle her, and will not find her attractive, if she stands forth in her full essence; She has been maligned and feared and stepped on, particularly when She has dared to stand up to male power in the last couple millennia. I hear and deeply respect all of these things. I just wanted to respond to some of the ways you "framed" these issues, since the framing seemed incomplete or lopsided to me.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://mqs.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:32:25 GMT

Pelle,

(also a minor piece of information: men are XY and women are XX.)

Dammit! Is shtoopid a feeling? I was so proud of myself after working that thing out, really. As they say, pride goeth before a fall. Why is it always you that points out my mistakes? Ah, God! The wonders of life - the road to humility is ever paved with humiliation. Part of me wants to go back and work it out again, right this time, but I would be afraid to publish it for fear of looking really shtoopid and stubborn. As far as the "look good" is concerned, this is a no-win situation. Humanity arises.

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://riversong.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:53:06 GMT

First of all Bruce, thank you for your open and considered thoughts about my post. The masculine holds the space, the feminine unfolds the content. Without the space being created, I think you are very right in considering that what we would be left with is a formless raw explosion. The process of creation is not an either/or proposition but a both/and. You write: “By using the word agenda, you seem to make the so-called masculine tendency towards form and order an unnatural imposition, a coercive force instead of a cooperative partner.” I am not trying ‘to make’ the masculine tendency toward form and order into anything. I am trying to look and discover what has really been played out over these last years while the masculine tendency toward “form” has moved into the feminine tendency toward “content”. That this mixture has been wildly unbalanced, I think can go without dispute. I am thinking of that beautiful saying, “we don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” How many years/centuries have we borrowed from our children with our present mode of being? How long will it take before the oceans are restored, the air is clear, ‘til we can eat the fish in the Great Lakes, ‘til the breast milk of Inuit women is cleared of toxins? ‘til the garbage has all been recycled? ‘til we are living in a resplendent world where the creative abundance is again in fluorescence. Brian Swimme and others document that we are now in the 6th great die-off, the magnitude of which has not been seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs and the coming of the cenazoic era. The difference between the last great die-off 200million years ago(or whenever it was) and now is that the vector of change that is creating the great die-off is human consciousness. Thomas Berry says that we are now at a fork in the road. One direction is the technozoic era, the other the ecozoic era. I would argue that the technozoic era will be a continuation of our present direction, heedless of the earth community, and the destruction of our very life-support systems. It is most aptly reflected by Hermann Daly when he said, “There is something fundamentally wrong with a civilization that treats the earth like a business in liquidation.” In contrast, the ecozoic era, not passive or unscientific at all, rather will be a reflection of a deep, profound choice of humans to bring everything we know and have learned into the service of creating a mutually enhancing and sustaining community for all of the children of the world, including and recognizing all the species that make up this magnificent plethora of creation. It is perfectly clear to me, using your words, that we have been living out a script in which “the so-called masculine tendency towards form and order (has been) an unnatural imposition, a coercive force instead of a cooperative partner.” As Michael says more or less, when the motivation for the male agenic is egoic glory, there is ensuing calamity. When the motivation is to inseminate beauty at the service of the Eternal Feminine, order and balance are restored. This is our challenge right now in this Earth moment. And I would venture that the human experiment is hinged on the choices we make now. One thing is for sure, the earth will survive. Whether humans do, this is another issue. Regarding the issue of ‘control’, whether it be masculine or feminine seems to be a question that belongs to a ‘dominator’ mode of being. Shifting to a partnership mode, the only question is what creates the greatest good, the greatest beauty, the greatest truth. The issue is not of who is in control, but of the choice to give yourself, myself, ourselves in sevice to the divine, or the alternative choice continue with this ratty, jarring, dissonance and destruction. This is not about suppressing, deriding, discounting or hating men or the masculine. Far from it! This is about learning to dance.

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://pelle.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:42:31 GMT

Jane, as always your texts are beautiful. What I think we have to remember is that it is only now that the healthy feminine and the healthy masculine can emerge.
It isn't only because of men that the healthy feminine hasn't been heard, it is because there's mostly been unhealthy feminine around.
Also, let's not confuse Spirit and the Feminine, I'm not saying you do but parts of your text are ambiguous. The Feminine is not all of Spirit, even if the immanent forms are the realm of the Feminine. The creative power is gender-neutral.

Michael, I agree that men, and anybody accessing masculine intentions and polarities, need to have a higher purpose when doing that. Serving Spirit, or serving people around you.
(also a minor piece of information: men are XY and women are XX.)

peace
pelle

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://ewantownhead.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:28:40 GMT

Pele

You're totally right...I had a niggle I was missing something ;)

I just email IN, as the last video in the sequence is playing the extremes part 1, and they never posted part 2!!!!

Theres some Deida DVDs too isn't there? Have you seen them? I think I may look into them...

EWan

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://pelle.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:23:37 GMT

Ewan,

yeah, those are great videos.

The way I remember it Deida broke it down like this:
Therapy restores function
Yoga restores flow
Meditation gives glow

peace
pelle

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://ewantownhead.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:12:54 GMT

Hi Everyone

Last night I watched some David Deida videos from IN - stunning, tottaly blew my pants off! Heavilly reccomended, and very relevant to some of this thread!

I particularly loved his analogy of a stained glass window for demonstrating the difference between flow and glow. Flow is about mending all the broken bits of the window, making sure its working as best it can - which you do through therapy. Glow is about clearing all the dust and grime off the window to allow the light to shine through - and this is done through yoga (in the broad sense of the word). Beautiful...

Ewan

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://mqs.gaia.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:15:36 GMT

Dear Ones,

Jane:

"How loud does the pure volume of this unbridled feminine outrage need to be for any of us to stand up and be counted, for any of us to get real, to be honest about who we really are? "

I don't know for sure about pure volume, but it seems to me that you are close here. All my life I have pretended (from the reactionary state) to be "real" and "honest." Its no wonder I was terrified to see unbridled feminine outrage. It just shattered my fragile shell. My only defense was physical threat or retreat to silent rage - both domestic violence crimes in my book.

I too, see this same picture of fecundity, that every "thing" is an expression of the feminine unfolding, including Muhammed Ali, Ghengis Khan, Elton John, and the Star Spangled Banner, Including the trees and beavers, the dams, the geysers of Yellowstone and the Golden Gate bridge. Whenever Man invents and/or constructs something, his surfboard of intention rides the standing wave of Shakti unfolding through the feminine. XX Man is all intention. XY Woman is intention and receptivity. Man's two XX's may stand for the intention to inseminate and the intention to take responsibility for, and to, his procreation. The XY Woman yields to insemination while holding the intention to protect her offspring with whatever level of nurture or fury that might be required.

Balder:
"... several things emerge for me. One, by using the word agenda, you seem to make the so-called masculine tendency towards form and order an unnatural imposition, a coercive force instead of a cooperative partner. Second, without this agenda, do you think there would be form or being at all? If there were no need to "pull" form into being, to create the newer, to build up and organize, do you think there would be an inhabitable universe at all? It doesn't sound like it! What's left, then, of "feminine" fecundity but a formless, raw explosion in space?"

Man's "tendency towards form and order" is confounded by the wrong-headed conviction that he is "doing" anything at all. The real doer is the Yang God Shiva whose perfect intention is to inseminate beauty in the universe. When men fully realize that they are, in perfection, but channels for this original intention, then the true power of Shiva will rise within them and the power imbalance will be utterly restored. To women, I will wager, the present form of collective male agenic expression is coercive, is only superficially cooperative, is, when "hogwild," destructive and toxic. This is not you and I Balder, or the other men in this forum, its in the collective of man - our blindness as a gender. Of course "our" women hesitate to show us this fury. Why would they want to jeapordize relationship with us good guys? But who will they show this to who gives a shit if not us? I think we have to stand up and just friggin' take it. It will be easier if we remind ourselves that it is not about us personally, that it is not really about "our" women personally, its about the deep, the way-back story, the countless hours of women's grief while men battle for glory in war, while men strive for the Nobel Prize promising to recognize the "little woman" out there in the audience who "backed them all the way." If men can learn to motivate their "achievements" not by egoic glory, but by service to the Shakti, then we will be able to live in humility, pure intention, pure yearning for reunion.

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Faces of the Feminine and the Masculine.

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:58:38 GMT

There is a lot I resonate with, on a visceral level, in what you wrote, Jane. And your prose is powerful and beautiful. But I'm going to respond here to what doesn't click with me.

One, I don't think nature is "feminine," except by convention. It sounds as if you are saying nature is feminine, and that the masculine is some sort of alien imposition on her. You may not be saying this, but the image you painted above gives this impression.

Also, when you say:

"By the male agenda, I am referring to the need (in men and women) to ‘pull' form into being, to create the newer, the bigger, the better, the faster, the stronger, the need to fix and control; the need to be in charge of this Eternal Feminine force, a force ineffable, and primary, and enormous, a milieu as big as the universe, a milieu that is the universe; this agenda, in short, is the need to create ‘relative safety' in this ecstatic dance where there is no safety, where everybody is eaten in the end"

... several things emerge for me. One, by using the word agenda, you seem to make the so-called masculine tendency towards form and order an unnatural imposition, a coercive force instead of a cooperative partner. Second, without this agenda, do you think there would be form or being at all? If there were no need to "pull" form into being, to create the newer, to build up and organize, do you think there would be an inhabitable universe at all? It doesn't sound like it! What's left, then, of "feminine" fecundity but a formless, raw explosion in space?

Three, as I said in another letter, I think it is a fantasy if we imagine that the world in total feminine control would be without violence, or that women are not complicit in (and often supportive of) mankind's baser actions and desires.

Best wishes,

Balder