I was going through images I'd taken of stuff I want to sell on eBay, and upon working on images of a book called "When I See the Wild God," I was reminded of my own points of view on the Divine Masculine and how I relate to it as a woman.
This is not going to be a totally "pat-answer" blog post by any means. In fact, I hope to turn this topic upside down, shake out all the crap layered on by society, and even views held by certain sects of the Pagan community that are geared towards the thought of the Divine Feminine being totally quashed by the shadow aspect of the masculine energies on this planet, and that in order to honor the Sacred Feminine, the masculine energies deserve to have all kinds of vitriol heaped up on them, or at best, ignored completely.
That kind of limiting view just by itself does a huge disservice to the men I've known in the past, and currently know in the here and now.
Because for us women to hate on the masculine energies completely is to hate the masculine within ourselves. It is just as dangerous a viewpoint as the men hating on the feminine, especially within themselves. Ironically, the women I've encountered who join such groups as Starhawk's "Reclaiming" covens, etc. are often expressing energies usually deemed as "masculine": anger, indignation, etc.
But are they really truly "masculine" energies, or just energies that *every* human experiences at feeling repressed and blocked from being able to be who they are meant to be?
Because, growing up, I watched my own father--a very gentle soul--repress his anger at his very aggressive, dominating mother, because he was taught that not only were you not supposed to "talk back," "sass" or otherwise contradict the parents, but my grandmother wholly believed that she was in the right for treating people the way she did. If they did or said something that she thought was foolish, or whatever, she would speak up and say stuff to shame that other person, and if you were around her enough, or were sensitive to criticism at all, she would slowly but surely insinuate that her way was always right (which it wasn't--she was very narrowminded, racist, etc) and speaking up against her was a surefire way to invoke her wrath.
Sometimes, I want to tell every "man-hater" I meet that story about my dad, and then ask them, "So, do you still believe that every man is a pile of crap just because he's a man? And do you still believe that women are in the right always, just because they're women?"
The question I want to ask the men is: do you know any strong, opinionated women? What did they accomplish? Did they accomplish what they did by being meek, quiet and doormat-ish? Or did they accomplish what they did by saying to their detractors, "I have a voice, I'm going to use it, now shove off and let me talk"?
In my studies of Taoism and Buddhism, there are the Yin (feminine) energies, which are more resting, yielding, more receptive and "introverted," and then there are the Yang energies, which are more active, giving and "extroverted."
People have tried to place judgments on which form of energy is "better" or "superior," and therefore have tried to place certain social statuses on people based on these judgments. In my experience, these are merely gender polarities, and neither one is "better" than another. The folks that try to claim which energy is more "superior" tend to have power and control issues of one sort or another.
As I said, I am not going to try and iron out everything I feel and believe in just one blog post. This is going to take quite a bit of time, quite a bit of thought and quite a bit more study.
Blessings,
Kat ^.^
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