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Feminine | Masculine, the Cosmic Dance
Dear Reader,
Lately, we hear a lot about the transformational rise of the divine feminine or the rediscovery of the sacred masculine, archetypical principles viewed through the lens of spirit. In this discourse, ‘feminine’ is typically viewed distinct from female gender, and usually from issues of feminism. Are these distinctions – divine male from divine female, spirit from body, the personal from the political, useful? Is anything actually changing?
For embodied expression of this transformation, we can look to our younger generation. Millennials are not only bending gender, they are shattering its boundaries. 58% describe themselves on a gender continuum from exclusively feminine to exclusively masculine, and select from a menu of gender options, that include ‘androgyne, neutrois, gender fluid and non-binary’ —capacities to move imaginatively beyond and between the dual categories of male and female. And, gender expression – how a person presents to the world through behavior and appearance – is increasingly independent from sexual orientation, biology or gender identity.
Maybe gender nonconformity has always been the same over time, and it’s societies that are transforming, becoming more accepting. If so, what does that mean in terms of communities, economic power, and social justice? And is inner transformation keeping pace with the outer? Is a true integration of feminine and masculine underway in our collective consciousness?
In light of all we face as a species, reflecting on this balance between sacred feminine and sacred masculine may be more relevant now than ever. We have assembled some ideas for your consideration. The cosmic dance between these primordial energies is eternal, each longing for healing, acceptance and unity with the other.
May we all enjoy the dance.
Your Kosmos Team
Dear Reader is written by Kosmos digital editor, Rhonda Fabian. Responses, submissions and queries can be addressed to rfabian@kosmosjournal.org
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By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, via Working with Oneness
“Our ecological devastation points to a culture that has forgotten the sacredness of the earth and the divine mother, as well as denied the feminine’s deep understanding of the wholeness and interconnectedness of all of life. And our individual life, so often caught in addictions and starved of real meaning, has a hunger to reconnect with the soul, which has always had a feminine quality. And linking our own journey and that of the world is the ancient feminine figure of the World Soul, the Anima Mundi, the spiritual presence within creation.”
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Image: Stacey Lawson, entrepreneurship thought-leader, in ‘As She Is’
As She Is, Restoring Sacred Balance is a film that explores the personal and collective journey towards wholeness – to value and reclaim the feminine aspect of ourselves.
“I started with a simple question that guided my journey. What is the feminine? I ask some remarkable people who embody these traits to find out how they would describe the feminine, to get a sense of how being connected to this part of themselves informs their lives and how it is lived in balance with their masculine aspect.
This is my personal inquiry, but I have a sense that this film is also about our collective journey towards wholeness because I am simply a microcosm of the macrocosm…and so are you. – Megan McFeely”
Kosmos Interview and Film Trailer
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By Charles Eisenstein, via his blog
“Outside the extreme case of Wall Street, the same money chase prevails, subjecting men and women alike to the pursuit of numbers. The integration of women into the workforce was considered a great victory of the feminist movement, but today some who call themselves feminist still, or post-feminist, would say that it was the last and greatest insult to the feminine. What kind of victory for women is it, to be permitted to join the mad chase for money at the cost of nature, culture, community, family, leisure, beauty, and health? What victory is it to have won the right to be equal partners in the pillage of the planet, which itself is the consequence of a kind of distorted hypermasculinity run amok?”
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By Katie Redmiles, via First Peoples Worldwide
“Since the Indigenous people of America focused more on a person’s spirit to define their character, sexual orientation was not an identity factor. Instead what spirit, male or female, they embodied determined who they were. If both were present, they were seen as especially gifted.
What is quite unfamiliar to dominant culture today is that Native Americans not only raised these “Two-Spirit” members above others, but they understood them as existing not of either gender- as a transcendence of the two.”
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By Chung Hyun Kyung
In the current edition of Kosmos Journal
Thirty international women peacemakers from 15 countries walked across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea on May 24, 2015, International Women’s Disarmament Day. Our purposes were:
To call for the end of the Korean War by changing the armistice into a permanent peace treaty
To facilitate the divided family in North and South Korea to meet and communicate
To utilize UN Security Council resolution 1325, which requires women’s participation in all peace processes, in the peace and unification process in Kore
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By Anja Beerepoot, via the author’s blog
“To create a new system, both sexes are needed so that each can transform their own part in the patriarchy. A well-known quote from Eleanor Roosevelt is: ‘No one can treat you as an inferior without your permission’. I believe it is time for women to retract that permission and to provide an alternative for the current system. Feminism can then enter a new phase, from equal rights feminism to balanced feminism; committed to balancing male and female energy in ourselves and in the world; feminism for men and women.”
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By Bayo Akomolafe, via his blog
“It comes down to how we think about nature – whether it is the nature of women, the nature of men, or the nature of nature. The history of the world is the history of attempts to stabilize nature, to pin it down, to put it in the family way. Once ‘black’ people were ‘naturalized’ as ‘genetically inferior’ or ‘less intelligent’ by virtue of the sizes of their skulls, it was easy (and even commendable) to justify the institution of slavery. Even the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, reportedly said, “I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” A stabilizing practice of ‘nature’ is always mobilized in order to perpetuate exploitation and domination.
A religio-scientific sexism of sorts has also been used to justify why ‘women’ (notice how even the term presupposes a homogeneous, monolithic group) are inferior to men. From the story of Eve being taken from Adam’s side (a seemingly obvious figuration of her subservience), to the Darwinian idea that men were exposed to more selective pressures and thus more superior in cognitive and physical capacity, gender oppression has found different performances of ‘nature’ to justify its existence.”
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