Archive for July, 2010

Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at some distortions of the masculine and feminine.  Today I’d like to start looking at what I believe the healthy manifestations of these energies look like.

Throughout this blog I’m going to use the labels of man and woman, and masculine and feminine interchangeably. However, these are not the same thing!  Gender is a biological determinant.  It is set by your chromosomes (XX for females and XY for males) amongst other factors.  Masculine and feminine are energetic qualities which have different aspects.  These are core qualities which have divine nature to them and are present in both men and women.  Men have feminine qualities and women also have masculine qualities.  But typically a man will be more masculine and a woman more feminine.  This balance of masculine and feminine energies also holds true for same sex couples.  Typically one partner will be more masculine and the other more feminine.  This may even switch between partners at different times, either energetically or physically in the act of sex but in most cases there is a predominately masculine and a predominately feminine partner.  So, these statements really apply to “feminine” and “masculine” much more profoundly than to “men” and “women” and as much to same sex relationships as hetero-sexual ones but for convenience I am going to assume that most men reading this blog will want to become more masculine and most women will want to become more feminine.

Earlier, when talking about the masculine roles which women can assume in office situations, we started to look at a distortion of the feminine but before we address that more deeply, let’s look at what the healthy feminine is.

The true feminine nature is to be in a state of oceanic bliss. As oceanic bliss the feminine is in constant flow.  A woman lives much more in the moment than a man does.  Like the ocean a woman is dark, mysterious, powerful beyond measure and ever changing.  Sometimes she may be tranquil, at others stormy and tempestuous.  But there is a majesty and natural beauty about the true feminine, whatever her age and physical appearance may be, which is very powerful.

Like the ocean, the feminine flow changes.  Sometimes the oceanic tide of the feminine is coming in.  This may be a moment when a woman says “Yes” to something, for example when she gives her “Yes” to sex.  But a few hours later the tide turns and begins to go out.  Her “Yes” may become a “No”.

This tends to confuse most men.  This can be one typical and often repeated source of argument between men and women.  A woman agrees to something in one moment or suggests something and then days, hours or even minutes later she may feel that she no longer wants to do that.  As men tend to be more linear in their thinking, we tend to get confused about this apparent contradiction.  “Why can’t you make up your mind?” the man cries in desperation. But the woman IS making up her mind.  It’s just that she’s doing it in each moment.  In one moment her mind (or heart or sex or belly) was saying “Yes” and now it’s saying “No”.  There is no conflict for a woman in this.  She is simply speaking her truth in each moment.  As men we need to understand and respect this.  These two ways of thinking and feeling are one of the beauties of difference between men and women.

Of course it’s possible to try to stand in the way of a woman’s flow but like the tides, when a woman is truly in her power it’s not advisable!  Men too often lack the strength and courage to face a woman in her power and meet her there.  Afraid of this awesome power they try to dam up her flow, to turn her ocean into a trickle of a stream.  And too often women conspire together with men to allow them to do this.  Both men and women must learn to respect the differences that separate them and to honour them and most importantly, learn how to bring the two natures into co-operative alignment so that they can communicate together more clearly and work together to create stronger relationships and a sense of creative unity between men and women.  That is what this blog is about.

To flow takes energy.  So as the feminine is a state of flow, she is energy.  In the Hindu tantric tradition the feminine force is represented by Shakti, the divine goddess.  Shakti is energy.  Science tells us that everything in the known universe is in fact energy.  All matter is made up of energy and tantra has known this for millennia.  Everything which is manifest in the ordinary world is energy or Shakti.  In this respect everything we see about us is a manifestation of the feminine.

The feminine is energy and so when a woman is in her feminine she is more in a state of flow and movement.  She will want to dance and express herself through sound and movement (two different forms of energy).    Women tend to be more communicative verbally and this is because sound is the most important sense for women.  Women need to hear that they are loved.  Sending her a text message is not the same!

When a woman is in her flow she is magnificent and powerful beyond imagining.  She has a deeper sense of intuition than a man.  In the chakra system, which we will talk more of later, her positive chakras are the second (the belly and womb – this is the seat of the feminine in the body), her heart and her third eye.  It is from both her third eye and her belly (her gut feeling) that she can sense subtleties which are usually lost on most men.  She has a power in and over her environment which exceeds that of the masculine.  Only a man (or woman) who is in their full masculine power can fully love and support a woman in her full feminine power.  Lesser men are terrified of the true feminine because they cannot contain it and from this place of fear they seek to control and limit it.

The feminine is fed from the ground.  Mother Earth nourishes and protects and this is another aspect of feminine power.  Think of a tigress protecting its young.  This is the power of the feminine which is very different from the power of aggression of the distorted masculine. Our society discourages connection with the Earth, praising mostly what is created with our minds or our hands – physically and energetically upper parts of our bodies.  It discourages free expression of sensuality and sexuality and this in turn dissociates us from our roots in the earth.

Physically and energetically the feminine is light.  I mean this in both sense of the word.  A woman in her true feminine will embody this femininity through a lightness of movement and touch, a sense of being ever in motion, her body flowing with her own oceanic current.  Light as “radiance” is another quality of the feminine.  When a woman is connected with her own femininity she glows, her skin seems more alive.  She emits a sense of radiance and light from her presence and her body.

Love, too, is a quality which pours from the true feminine.  However, in order to love fully and freely the feminine needs to feel safe enough.  The feminine nature is to be open to love and this is a woman’s yearning – to feel safe enough to allow herself to be open to love.  A woman longs to open her heart and be met in that openness with love.  But too often the Other cannot meet this incredible and powerful yearning and in not being able to receive the open hearted lovingness of the feminine, the hearts of both parties may close again.

But for a woman to be truly in her flow she needs to feel safe enough.  In childhood, in relationship, culturally and in our daily life women so often learn that it is not safe to be in her flow and to allow herself to be open and vulnerable.  Failed relationships, abuse, trauma and neglect all leave these qualities stunted, subdued and diminished.  And it doesn’t have to be anything as severe as abuse which can trigger a withdrawl of the feminine.  A thoughtless word from a father or mother, a less than true modelling of the masculine or feminine from parents, teachers or spiritual leaders can all have a crushing effect on the blossoming beauty that is the youthful feminine.  One of the aims of this blog and of my work at www.heartdaka.com to is help empower women to reclaim their true nature and help them step into their power by reconnecting with the goddess within each of woman.

When a woman feels safe enough to surrender into the flow she is in a state of being, not doing.  She may be in constant motion but she is not doing as such, she is much more about being.

A woman’s yearning is to surrender into love.  To do that she needs to be in touch with her feminine and to be held in that by the masculine.  When I speak of surrender I don’t mean submissiveness or giving up of her power.  I mean letting go of anything which stops her being fully present in the moment.  In relationship when a woman surrenders she is not surrendering to the man but to love itself.  Anything which stops a woman from surrendering into love is a block to her being truly and fully in her feminine.  For the feminine the only question which matters is; how can I more fully feel the unobstructed flow of love in this moment?  Sometimes the blocks to this letting go are that her partner cannot hold her safely enough.  Sometimes the blocks are that her history and experience have taught her that it is not safe to let go.   Sometimes she does not have a strongly enough developed sense of self or boundaries to trust herself to let go into love. We will look at all these in more detail but having defined the true nature of the feminine, let’s look at the true nature of the masculine.

Distortions of the Masculine

Last week we looked at some versions of the unhealthy feminine; now let’s look at what happens when the masculine is unhealthily modelled.  In the same way that the feminine can easily be prone to distortion, the masculine too suffers all too often from similar mis-representations.  Here we will look at the two most common forms of distortion which occur in the masculine.

The journey for men and women into their mature selves is very different.  For a man to step into his masculine he must first tear himself away from the safety of the mother’s hearth.  Most ancient societies have an initiation ritual where young boys, typically aged between 7 and 14, undergo a sacred initiation, or series of them, into manhood.  In many rituals they are taken, sometimes forcibly kidnapped, with their mothers’ consent, away from their mothers and brought out into a space where only men, or sometimes simply nature itself, is present.  They undergo a life-changing ritual and are initiated into the secrets of becoming a man and a warrior.  They are introduced in a new way into the company of men.

Sometimes older boys aged around 14 are given charge of specific rituals for younger boys so that even at this young age there is a sense of responsibility and also a sense of transition between different phases of growth into full manhood.

These types of ritual are desperately important for boys for a wide variety of reasons.  It is important for them to know that they can know they are no longer dependent on their mothers and that they must learn to support and defend themselves.  The line between boyhood and manhood is clearly defined.  This distinction between boyhood and manhood gives them a sense of pride in their masculinity.  They have undergone an intense, possibly life-threatening, ritual.  The rite of passage engenders self-respect and gives them a sense of responsibility and empowerment.  Once they are initiated into manhood they have a sense of belonging to a community of men which is distinct and separate from that of the women.

Our society has lost the importance of this ritual severing of ties with the mother and bringing boys into manhood.  At best this ritual usually involves a boy being taken to his first football match with his father or having his first drink.  Initiation into sexual contact is also a rite of passage but again one which has lost its true sense of direction.

How many “adult” relationships can we see around us where the “man” is really being mothered by his woman – something no healthy adult woman wants?  “Men” in their thirties are still playing computer games designed for boys; they don’t take responsibility for themselves or their obligations; they objective women through pornography or, worse, domestic violence.  Sex, alcohol and sport, to name but a few, are used as substitutes for masculinity – at a huge cost to individuals, relationships and society at large.

In some layers of society, one of the unexpected consequences of this loss of ritual is the youth gang culture.  We have a society where young boys know instinctively that they need to undergo some affirming rite of passage into manhood.  They look desperately around them, searching for adult male role models and find none.  So, they create their own initiation rituals by forming gangs and proving their manhood by knifing someone.    In a way, this is a beautiful concept poorly executed!  In a way the intention is good – to undergo an initiatory ritual into manhood to draw a line under childhood, but of course this form of initiation is totally unacceptable.

So, the consequences of this loss of direction into manhood are disastrous.  This leads us into the first type of distortion of the masculine, the Puer.

The Puer

Just as the feminine can be distorted into the little girl, the Puella, so the masculine can get stuck in the Puer, the little boy.  Sadly this is one of the most common distortions we can see around us.  The Puer is the little boy who never leaves the safety of his mother’s hearth and never grows into a man.  Although he may physically leave his childhood home, he never psychologically breaks free of his mother’s apron strings.  Often borne of an over-bearing or dominating mother, he feels safe only when protected by his mother or a mother substitute.

Some men chose to stay at home into their thirties or even forties but whilst most men may physically leave home, the Puer casts around looking for a mother substitute.  He finds himself a woman who allows him to indulge his childlike behaviour and looks after him.  Of course all of this is unconscious and may not be apparent at the outset.  It happens over time and the formation of these co-dependent relationships may deepen as both partners step further away from their true power and masculine and feminine cores.

The Puer lacks a sense of his own resilience and self-sustainability.  He does not trust himself to look after himself and so looks to a woman to do this for him.  If a man does not trust himself how can he possibly expect his woman to trust him?

To be fair, the mother’s hearth is (usually) so safe and secure, why would anyone in their right mind elect to leave it?  This is why ancient societies sometimes forcibly separated boys from their mothers.  But modern society chucks young men out into the world usually at university age without teaching them self-reliance and independence.    A weak or absent father may also contribute to the creation of the Puer.  Lacking an older male role model to model the mature masculine for him, the boy does not know how to grow into his manhood and so can get stuck in being the boy. A gain the societal obsession with youth and beauty helps to endorse this immaturity by making boyishness a supposedly attractive quality.

This youthful Puer mirrors many of the aspects of the Puella.  He may be impulsive and irresponsible (after all mummy will sort out his mess for him!)  He may have poor self-discipline and very low self-esteem.  He will tend to be needy and in fear of women, his over-bearing mother has taught him that he will be punished for his transgressions and so lives in a state of nervous anxiety much of the time which he may mask with playfulness or arrogance.  Sexually he may be very active but not owning his responsibilities around this.  He may be the Playboy, always sleeping around but never risking the intimacy of a relationship.

Beneath his playful exterior he may hide a deep well of rage, which whilst it was originally directed at his over-bearing mother, will now be projected onto any woman who gets close to him.  Whilst he relies of a woman to look after him, he also does not want anyone to truly get to see him as he lacks a strong enough sense of self-worth and of his own boundaries.  Unlike the true masculine essence, which is grounded and solid, the Puer is flighty and unsettled.  He may manifest as the spiritual man, with his head in the clouds without having a sense of his weightiness and rootedness in the earth.  There can be an avoidance of the practicalities of everyday life in the Puer which is very ungrounding, they may be spiritually idealistic and impractical, after all they may never have been shown how to model the practical, self-supporting aspects of the mature masculine.

Narcissism and a desire to escape into fantasy, whether that is sleeping with many women, driving fast cars or pursuing artistic or spiritual ideals, typically characterise the Puer.  Lacking a sense of their own robustness, which comes with the healthy masculine, they struggle to remain present in the reality of the world and may choose to indulge in fantasies which allow them to escape its harshness.  This “lightness” is modelling an unhealthy form of the feminine and the Puer may manifest as the feminised new age man who is overly identified with his emotions and is not psychologically strong enough to hold himself together in adversity – running off to his mother substitute when things get tough.

Just as the Puella, in modelling some aspects of the feminine, is appealing to lesser men, so the Puer, with its youthful exuberance, vitality and energy, may appeal to lesser women.  But be warned his charms are paper thin and his co-dependence will quickly emerge.

Macho-Man

While the Puer models flow and lightness, the Macho-Man is rigid and inflexible.  Living in fear of his vulnerability he puts up high walls around him which keep women away.  He will feel energetically heavy, not grounded but planted, stuck in the earth.  His fear of women may manifest as a cold, unemotionality towards them or worse as becoming angry or abusive to them.  The Macho Man is in denial of his feelings; that would reveal far too much of his vulnerability.  Lacking access to his emotions he lacks the ready ability to care for his woman in a gentle loving way or be nurturing to others.  This inability to express his softness also extends to himself and he will be brutal in his self- judgements and often neglect his own needs.  He may be characterised by having strong Will, but it is not tempered with Love (we will talk more on the concepts of Love and Will later).

Whilst the Macho Man models the aspects of self-reliance and independence of the healthy masculine, he lacks the flexibility to enable this to be healthy in himself.  To make sense of his world the Macho Man needs strict rules and regulations to follow.  He must obey or knows he will be punished and is keen to impose these laws on others.  He is tough and undemonstrative.  Like the Amazon he has walls, not boundaries which keep others away from intimacy with him.

His energy will be blocked and not flowing freely.  He identifies with some aspects of the masculine while denigrating the feminine.  His mistrust of his own internalised feminine may manifest as homophobia or misogyny.  He may become obsessed with his work and his role as provider for his woman, at the expense of the relationship itself.  Not trusting his own vulnerability to be held, possibly because of an unemotionally supportive mother, he does not allow himself to go into his softness.  His world is very closed and blinkered.  He will tend to deal in binary concepts: this is Right, that is Wrong.  He needs this over-simplification to help him navigate away from anything approaching feeling or sensitivity which he distrusts.

His sexuality will be dominating and, like other aspects of his behaviour, may be controlling.  Unlike the healthy masculine which is strong and holding of the feminine, this mini-character demonstrates his sense of power out of fear for his own vulnerability.  If he dared show even the smallest chink in the armour of his emotional defence he would fear falling apart so he masks it behind bravado and domination.  This dominating of the feminine is a fear of it, not a holding and honouring of its divine essence.

Distortions and Relationships

To a great extent I have over-simplified and exaggerated the description of these archetypes to demonstrate their qualities.  Naturally very few people are fully in one position or another but you may recognise some of the qualities I describe in yourself or your partner.  Most women who hold distortions of the feminine hold aspects of both and it is important to realise that in fact although one mini-character may be dominant, the other is almost certainly lurking behind her waiting to appear.  Hence a woman may be more strongly connected with her Amazon, showing what she perceives as her strength and putting up walls around her, but in fact this is usually because beneath this front is a very tender, fragile little girl who doesn’t feel safe enough in her own sense of self to emerge.  Once we break down the walls of the Amazon we may well find a scared Puella hiding behind them.  The converse is also true.

In terms of relationship, the strongest and most powerful dynamism and connection with another, both sexually and emotionally, comes when one partner is strongly connected with their healthy masculine energy and the other is connected with their healthy feminine energy.  This polarity of opposites creates a spark of energy, love, life, creativity, passion and connection which both will feel at a deep, core level.  It doesn’t matter whether the man holds the masculine or the woman in the relationship or if it is two men or two women.  To have the most profound connection we need to be in that place of polarity with our partner.

Unfortunately when one partner is in an unhealthy aspect of the masculine or feminine, he or she will attract an unhealthy version of the opposite.  For example a woman who is predominately in the Amazon mini-character (the unhealthily masculinised woman) will tend to attract a man who is modelling an unhealthy version of the feminised man.  Once we learn to step more fully into our true healthy embodiment of our own core masculine or feminine we will naturally attract someone holding the opposite polarity.  A woman in her power is a terrifying prospect for a man who is not in his power.  A woman in her power would not want to attract anything less than a man who is healthily in his own power – she deserves no less.  So lesser men will be frightened off, but they are not worthy of her in the first place.  Why would she want to waste her valuable time with them anyway?  So like attracts like and as we change our inner landscape our external reality begins to manifest to reflect this.

Since the feminist revolution of the 1970’s women have come on a long way but sadly there is still a lot of disempowered feminine around.  In my work as a sacred sexual healer I see a lot of women who are trying to connect more deeply with their true inner feminine.  Often the true feminine can be distorted through life, experience or, sometimes, trauma.  But it doesn’t take sexual abuse or other intense trauma to create distortions around the feminine.  Sadly our society doesn’t support the full growth of women into their power and here are some typical ways in which I witness the feminine being twisted out of its true state of oceanic bliss, now-ness and expansion.

Firstly let me say that this blog deals specifically with distortions of the feminine.  I have written extensively on the healthy feminine which is flowing, empowered and blissful.  You can read more about that throughout my blogs, and more specifically in the following blogs:

“The Shape of a Woman” – 8th May 2010

“Your Deepest Desire is to be Recognised as Light” – 29th April 2010

There are two classic distortions which I see regularly in the feminine, which we will discuss here – the Puella and the Amazon.  This blog is not about pathologising the feminine but my intention is that these descriptions will serve to illuminate ways in which the feminine can so easily lose is power and thus enable and empower women to step more fully into the full glory of their feminine core nature.  It is, naturally, true that the masculine suffers from similar distortions and I will write about that in my next blog, next week.  Today, however, let’s address  the feminine.

The Puella

Puella is Latin for “girl”.  In today’s youth oriented culture this is a very common distortion of the feminine.  The Puella may outwardly be very feminine.  She can appear to be soft, sensual, often very sexual and receptive in an apparently feminine way.  She can be very impetuous, magical and in the moment.  In these ways she is extremely feminine, but she is a distortion of the true feminine, not least because she is not connected with her power.

The Puella is often a rebellious little girl.  She may not fit into social norms and she will have poor self-discipline and a low sense of self-worth.  Having low self-esteem she can feel that she needs to bring something valuable of herself to others to make herself worthwhile.  This can look like becoming a pleaser or a seducer.  She can use sex to attract men to get their approval or attention.  Since she can be sensual and sexy she is the perfect projection screen onto which men can project their fantasies about the feminine – seeing only her softness, her willingness to be receptive and her desire to please especially men.  A man who is fully in his masculine will not be drawn to this type of woman because she is not in her power but lesser men will swarm about her, attracted to her apparent femininity and, being in fear of the full power of the true feminine, loving the reduced  doses of it which she delivers to them.  They may get a touch of the feminine from the Puella but not the full effect of feminine power, which terrifies lesser men.

The Puella may often be distrustful of the feminine while identifying herself with her own weakened version of it.  Having a low sense of self-worth she will also have a poor sense of, or no, boundaries.  Sometimes this is the result of sexual abuse or trauma.  Her poor sense of boundaries may lead her into unhealthy, even dangerous, sexual encounters in a desire to get male attention or to seek some sense of self as defined by another.

The best way she knows of getting her needs met is by being dependent on a man to meet them for her.  To achieve this she can often be manipulative, using sex or other charms to manipulate men.  She can be extremely seductive and great fun, but underneath this apparent confidence is a very fragile person, terrified of not being seen and not being loved.

Another manifestation of the Puella, particularly in the alternative community, is that type of woman who identifies with the spiritual.  Energetically she may be wispy and floaty, lost in the transpersonal, the divine.  She will often be very disconnected from her body (again sometimes as a result of physical or sexual trauma).  This disconnection from her body allows her more readily than some to put her in those unhealthy sexual spaces of which I already spoke.   She may be much identified with her spirituality, however it as an empty form of spirituality.  It is one where the divine is void and emptiness rather than full, juicy, creative and vibrant.  This is the spirituality of nothingness, disconnected from the body and from her experience of being a real person in a real body.  This disconnection from the body is very common in a society which mythologises youth and the form of beauty which is approved by advertising companies.  If we don’t have the “perfect body”, then it’s sometimes much easier to dissociate from it, become spiritual and denigrate our physicality as unimportant.

The Puella is a very common distortion in our society, partly because women are often taught that their sense of self worth comes from caring for others.  In the case of the Puella this “caring” is distorted into “pleasing”, especially of men.  But this is not the loving nurturing of the empowered mother feminine but has a needy sense of “I’m only worth something if I look after you” quality to it.  This form of co-dependency tends to be very attractive to both players in the dynamic and can easily form part of relationship addiction – a fear of not being in relationship because “if I’m not in relationship, I’m not worth anything”.

Whilst desperately craving male attention she can also objectify men as providers of security – either physical or monetary.  This dependence on male power and poor sense of boundaries disempowers her.  However attractive she may appear, especially to the lesser masculine, she is a weakened and thus distorted form of the feminine.

The Amazon

The second distorted feminine archetype I would like to discuss is the Amazon.  The Amazons of Greek mythology were courageous warrior women, as fierce in battle as male warriors.  In Greek mythology the Amazons were a tribe of female warriors who lived without men, creating a matriarchal society where men were excluded.

The image of the independent woman as Amazon has many parallels in modern society, most obviously in the business world.  Many women in the business world identify with the masculine principle and ape men in order to gain success in what is still a very male oriented environment.  I worked for many years in the investment banking industry and on the City trading floors I saw both Puella and Amazon.  One particular woman embodied this Amazonian quality one day when I asked her about her day.  “I’ve been working my balls off” she replied!

Although associated more easily with a sense of power than the Puella, the Amazon is also a distortion of the feminine, because she rejects both her inner feminine and, at the same time as aping the masculine, she rejects the external masculine.  She is often angry and defiant.  Many, both men and women, will find her intimidating and this is a useful defence against the intimacy that she both longs for and fears.  She has an over developed sense of independence which does not allow her to go into the place of surrender to love which enables the feminine to truly be in her flow.

She may be obsessed with work or the gym.  Driven by her egoic needs to appear strong, independent and “successful”, she can throw herself into her work with little or no respect for herself.  She is detached from her feelings and demeans the feminine as being weak.

Whilst the Puella has poor boundaries the Amazon suffers from the opposite problem.  Instead of clear boundaries she has barriers which stop anyone getting too close.  She may engage in sex but rarely intimacy, her walls are too high to allow men in to truly experience her.  When she is sexual it is more like a form of mortal combat and she must win it!  Sexually she will wear a mask which stops men from seeing her true self.  This is a defence mechanism which protects the fragile vulnerable aspect of herself which she cannot own for fear that she will crumble.

Another manifestation of the Amazon is the do-gooder.  While some Amazon women get their sense of self worth through industry and an outward appearance of business success, others get it through the “selfless” pursuit of charitable causes and by becoming a martyr to a cause.  The Amazon’s anger makes her perfect material for this and she may espouse a cause, spending huge amounts of energy supporting or caring for others whilst neglecting her own needs.  Her poor sense of self-worth manifests as little capacity to look after her own needs.  She is often very self critical and feels the need to pursue an unachievable perfection in herself, which when it is not realised, as it never can be, leads to harsh self-judgement.

This distortion may fear relationships and whilst the Puella can be needy, the Amazon may keep herself locked away behind her barriers not letting anyone truly get close to her, thus tragically denying herself the richness of being held in a loving relationship.

Both Puella and Amazon are widespread in our distorted and dysfunctional society.  Often one hides the other behind it (the Amazon masks the Puella and vice versa).  It is part of my role to support women to reclaim their power to step more fully into their divine feminine nature and free themselves from the limiting beliefs which hold them back from becoming the goddesses they truly are.