Parallel Journeys

PARALLEL JOURNEYS

23 February 2012

If there is a “feminine consciousness”, what is the “masculine consciousness”?  Do we have it straight, or is it another one of those terms, like yin and yang, that we confuse and interpret in our own myopic, if not convenient way?  What is Consciousness to begin with? In our society it stands for yet another masculinised concept that is meant to represent both genders.  With the trend towards a more feminine standard, we persist in alluding to “feminine consciousness” while meaning all sorts of things.

Feminine Consciousness is not about adapting, complying, sitting pretty, and being loving, nor its opposite.  It is a spontaneously yielding force that responds only to Nature.  Its germinating power in the human female depicts a parallel journey to that of the masculine. This world does not yet recognize the fullness and depth, the expansion and power of the feminine as an authentic impulse.

Time and again I come across texts and workshops that invoke feminine consciousness.  They reveal a genuine search for the development of consciousness that may be valid for some but lack depth, precision and inner relevance for most of us.  They glitter and attract us towards the mythical peace we hope for, but in the end leave us women short of meaningfulness.  Both men and women who seek to help other women fall into the same trap of believing in a concept of femininity that is shallow but expedient.

In the various blogs and websites on the subject I find an overwhelming absence of “feminine consciousness”; rather I am faced with what sells as such and seems to be indelibly impressed on the collective.  The link I offer later in this article as evidence is in Spanish.  If the reader is unable to understand it, in truth there is an even more abundant supply of examples in English.  I urge you to look into it in the light of what I suggest here. It is what is currently considered progress in the process of becoming conscious.

The method that claims to lead us towards wholeness addresses itself equally, as always, to both genders.  Is represents the line of thought that perpetuates the masculine notion that conflicts are resolved through dialogue, but discards the obvious truth that woman does not function reasonably.  Even engaging in executing political, scientific or normal debating skills, nothing in women is logical.  The controlled, serene, sweet and subjected image of women before the highly polished linear rationale of the male is a masculine fabrication that went out of style over a century ago.  Our priorities, as well as our way of perceiving, organizing, and solving are unique to us, even if we are not aware of how that works.  It cannot be controlled by rules of communication, or identified by labels; it is discovered through feeling.  Here lies the nexus of the ignorance on the subject: our way of perception is not acknowledged.  It is important that it be woman herself now who begins to recognize it in order to apply it as a viable method of reorganization in whatever ambit may be necessary.

Up to the present moment “feminine methodology” is not known.  Woman is the first to doubt herself and the way in which she utilizes her intelligence, looking instead for refuge in male linearity.  Verbal communication artfully imposed by the masculine mind is based on regimentation suited to men, in other words to society dominated by their formulas.  Masculine help, no matter how well intended, always alters our dynamic, subtly corroding our purpose, and eliciting a simulated solution that is not only not suitable to us, it fails to transmit our particular gift to the world.

In business, in government, and in all branches of society where a woman participates, she must play by the same rules as men, which leaves her at a disadvantage.  If a woman were to serve herself of the feeling capacity she possesses, she would surely be in the favourable position, or at least she would feel more connected to the means and purposes she seeks.  What is even more remarkable is that she would implement the feminine principle without need of entering into competition, manipulation, or dependence on the other.

In the current setup, feminine functions are recognized when and as far as they support or serve male purposes which, at the same time are convenient for a woman.  Man does not know how to yield and a woman does not know how to assume a standard of reference that uncomfortably reveals her all too ample range of perception.  Even while searching for our identity and authenticity, without being aware of it we prefer that which imposes form and limits.  Woman’s true power resides in the generation of potency instead of in the construction of form, but she fears her own power and the initially chaotic experience it provokes.  Our influence and impact does not proceed from the aggression that imitates the masculine instinct.  Woman’s real contribution and her innovative solutions have no precedents in our society for being constantly determined by the masculine, and judged and feared by woman herself.

If we read between the lines of the articles and work suggested in the link I provide as an example,

(http-//www.conscienciafe#6BE6C4)

we see, unfortunately, that it does not advocate for a process of consciousness but rather offers a justification, a defence of the status quo.  It proposes an amalgamation of masculine vectors with feminine labels.  According to the texts, we must support and work together, men and women.  We are still, as we were held to be in the time of our grandmothers, the perennial “other half”.

Without being disrespectful to male nobility, without pretending to substitute or compete with the male gender, where do we find the feminine that is seen, experienced, sensed and revealed authentically by woman herself?

Ex: The site speaks about “balancing feminine values with masculine values to gradually dissolve the duality of the Human Being and live in Unity.” (their caps)

Essence is not dual.  Duality is the property of matter and the physical world.  Applied conceptually to the human being it sustains the scientific notion that each human being is an accidental conglomerate of physical matter and nothing else.  In this context each gender is seen to be incomplete without the other; it follows suite that male and female consciousness work in the same way. This is the actual core process: thought devoid of feeling sensitivity; reason devoid of heart.

Material experience leads to dominion of physical and psychological (electromagnetic) polarity that determines the evolution of the specie, but evolution is not synonymous with the process of consciousness.  Spiritual values are the property of Consciousness and are transcendent.  Each gender has access to it independently and in a unique way, apart from the multifaceted complexity and technicality necessary in the world of matter.  Essence is not subject to matter although spirit expresses itself through it.  Genders, responding to a unique spirit, offer unique parallel journeys in matter.

Ex.: The mentioned blog headlines, “Harmony between male and female Energies”  (again their caps, a common practice in New Age circles to denote higher spiritual attributes)

And, “Action with Consciousness”

Both these phrases are freely used to disguise social functions of man and woman with energetic terminology, instead of dealing with them for what they are.  The use of the term “harmony” here could be replaced “convenient accord”.  It is to be expected that the proposed “Action with Consciousness”, would reinforce the eternal contract.

In my blog I have dealt with the subject of the fixation and dependence perpetuated “inoffensively” by relationship – symbol of self-mastery and possible collaboration in society.

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/for-the-sake-of-clarity/

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/reality-is-something-different/

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/dignified-defiance-2/

These are only some of the entries that deal with this situation.  I consistently address the subject of consciousness in women as in men, and offer my perspective on the real meaning of yin and yang, so distorted by being identified with gender instead of with the extroverted and introverted aspects expressed differently in each.

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/masculine-or-feminine/

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/not-men-vs-women/

The ongoing public confusion goes beyond semantics and into the root of judgment and dependence.  The kind of reasoning that results has no place in a spiritual world.

How to reach harmony between a prevailing masculine energy and the as yet undefined and misunderstood feminine energy? To know the real nature of the energy that will mark a difference, without destruction or battle, without breaking the structure of society – that would negate the Feminine Principle itself – we would need to open a space for the unique process within woman.  In the gap between the known and what is possible, that which is appropriate and genuinely harmonizing will emerge.  Instead of forcing it, harmony springs spontaneously when each party knows itself and is capable of manifesting his or her difference.

This is what might be called true “feminine consciousness”.

*       *       *

MMD – woMen who Make a Difference is a movement inspired by this blog and the book, “The Inner Woman”.

I point the more recent reader to my reply to the video, “Dear Woman” that has been widely circulated in New Age circles, and which appears annexed to the above mentioned Spanish blog.   My text was originally posted here on 16 may 2011 and is wholly coherent with this present entry.

http://theinnerwoman.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/dear-man-do-not-try-to-be-like-us/

The Under Side of Independence

THE UNDER SIDE OF INDEPENDENCE

16 February 2012

In our society women and men believe to be independent with equal rights.  We declare and affirm it but we do not live it.  We half-live it, between being bound to tradition and the status quo, and what we intellectually fantasize as being possible.

Or we are independent or we are dependent.  It cannot be half.  Only in these times of so much camouflage and confusion can we pretend to live independence at the cost of depending on someone else.  The same applies to equality.  By some distorted reasoning we imagine “equal opportunity” as synonymous with material opportunity, and interpret it literally, personally, without considering inner elements or how this affects others in society.  Our society teaches us to accumulate and win, giving as little as possible in return.  It is called “profit”.   Placing a price to our participation, we neglect to calculate the real price of the other’s favour. Of course we also place a price tag on inner intangibles.

Independence and equality become a matter for negotiation.  Better to ask ourselves what are we negotiating? and what do we want to achieve by this independence?  Desires are confused with needs, psychological issues with inner requirements, social roles with the innermost nature of each gender.

We could say that in the corporate world we are considered potentially equal but in the home and in intimacy, never.  One, because we are not, and two, because we don’t want to be.  Beyond any difference of idiosyncrasy or energetic modality of the genders, as I have described throughout this blog, we rigidly maintain a division of socially imposed tasks that are fertile soil for demands.  If we should happen to stand outside the patriarchal heritage we do so because we are “good persons”, modern and understanding.  We do not do it gratuitously.  We delegate such and such a thing to men, or such to a woman, or to the masculine or to the feminine… to the youngest or stronger, or to the most obvious stereotype.  We demand it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

My common sense tells me that to receive automatically implies bequeathing in equal measure, and that to receive more (of whatever it might be) brings forth greater responsibility and involvement.  As it stands now, in receiving supposed equality of treatment in the masculine world, woman renounces her implicit right to sensibility and the untouchable space that has been her domain.  What happens is that woman assumes a masculine role without it being possible for her to renounce being a woman.

Upon granting material equality of opportunity to a woman, men would renounce their right to property and exclusivity.  Is this so?  In fact men have granted apparent equality to women all the while demanding she continue with her role in the home, sharing the minimum, and without losing any of their traditional rights.  While a woman assumes responsibility for generating income and assuring material protection, for injecting and installing the rules that will lead society, a man has not incorporated domestic function as his own or natural condition.

What is needed to be “independent”?  What or who grants this independence?  If it depends on someone or something, it cannot be independence.  At the most it is an accord.  Wrongly understood, independence has a price and this price is a concession.  To assure mutual independence both parties have to give up a morsel of independence.  Absurd!

For example.  I am under the impression that emancipation as understood today dictates that youth no longer live in the home of their parents after finishing their education.  Save for the justification of the economic crisis, to which we adjudicate innumerable ills, in going “out into the world” young women and men set up their own place away from their parents in the Anglo-Saxon as well as Spanish cultures. The freedom they believe in is illusory because at the moment they search for a mate, they expect the same from them as they lived with their parents.  In remote times, women passed from being property and preoccupation of the father, to the care and protection of the husband.  Men went from being served by their mothers to the care of their wives.  Has anything changed?

Who takes care of whom?  Who protects whom?  Who cleans and cooks?  Whose role is it to worry about the material welfare of the family?  Everything is upside down.  Neither woman nor man truly knows what role is theirs.  Add to this the missing inner connection of each gender with their authentic nature; there is little genuine sense of honour, respect or humanity.  This means that instead of naturalness we have competition.  A competition that is skin-deep because just under the surface of equality we have the same old division of roles as ever.

The only incontestable fact is that man cannot give birth, which means that most tasks related to children and their care, is woman’s domain, and remains largely non-transferable.  If we women want our independence, we have to assume the responsibilities that this implies.  In other words work double.  If we happen to fall upon a “good man” who shares in all, it is considered the exception and we believe ourselves lucky.

Nobody questions the abilities or capacities of each gender any more, because it is not about that.  Control is still in the hands of the men; emotional manipulation is in the hands of women.

Imagine a very different society compared to ours.  Imagine that people enter into a committed love relationships but each one keeps to their physical space.  It would be clear that independence and equality relate to social order, seen as something apart from intimate involvement and spiritual evolution.  Their relationship would no longer be built on convenience, administration of finances, or mutual exploitation.  In this case, who would take care of the domestic chores?  Naturally, each one.  If this does not happen in our society today, why is it?

Imagine conceiving children in this same or other society.  Of course, it is a woman’s act.  Gestation, humanity, emotional nourishment, health and social understanding of human nature mark one aspect of care for the child, education, training, participation in matters of the world, discipline, order, and management of resources marks another.  The mother is inclined to look after inner development because her nature lends more easily to it, but often she has to assume the role of disciplinarian, imposing order and material sustenance that deviate her natural function.  The father orients the child in its apprenticeship as executor in the social sense of doing, competition, and excellence, because his constitution so enables it, not possessing the distractions that are present in pronounced feminine sensitivity.  But, all too often a man is forced to assume functions requiring emotional intangibles that weaken his role as example of authority and duty.

Social roles arise in great measure from nature gender structure, not out of obligation.  This does not mean that either may perform yang or yin actions, or that we might possess more of one or the other.  In a more natural society rivalry and rancour disappear.

The discussion about chore delegation is exclusively a modern debate.  Mutual respect of differences allows us to cultivate appropriate models with individual variables for our stage of evolution.  Each one would do what she or he needs to do… as a human being who honours gender difference as much as the value of social functions.  In this light it is important to understand that gender difference does not stereotype: it does what it does naturally, according to inclination and taste.

For quite a while now, our social system has been falling apart, triggered by great changes in personal and social psychology in matters of gender, faculties, abilities, and roles.  The critical need for radical change is being played out in the relationship.  It is not just a matter of roles.  It would be important to rescue the core experience of gender uniqueness sufficiently to be able to produce a viable future model.   Roles are crisscrossing, but not so the eternal feminine and the eternal masculine.  We would have to make the distinction.

First we have to recognize it.

º       º       º

This article is in response to the text, “Urge la implicación de los hombres en lo domestico” (Urgent Call for Male Involvement in Domestic Chores) by José Ángel Lozoya Gómez, a veteran in the search for new expressions of masculinity.  As much as I appreciate his noble intention, to my way of seeing it is far more urgent to understand the depths that stir beyond social convenience.

Please observe how “masculine” and “feminine” continue to be identified with that which we “do” and not with that which we are.

http://fhxi.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/el-rincon-de-lozoya-urge-la-implicacion-de-los-hombres-en-lo-domestico/

 

 

Letter Nine

Excerpt from “The Inner Woman”, pages 46-48.

Letter Nine: How To Communicate Effectively What
I Know Intuitively?

Ancient One,

We have had the same problem for the last 2,000 years and
more. We have transmitted who and what we are through silence
and mystery, preserving, healing, and embracing humanity, all the
while wading through the interpretations cast over us. It has
been something of a losing battle. Now is the time to deal with
detail at every level. The reconstruction of the world depends
on it, and on our ability to use the word.

Your question has to do with the use of the concrete mind
when perception is attained through subjective, intuitive
channels. We are able to prove our point once we master reasoning,
but we are incapable of transmitting the wisdom attained
by non-verbal means through sequential thinking. Just
as we have to embrace the Male Principle, men have to embrace
the Female Principle for any depth of communication
to be possible.

For women, the process begins by isolating and studying perception
from both levels before attempting to bridge the sensitivity
of the body–feelings network with the machinery of the
thinking mind. In other words, you must be grounded in your
emotions. The trick is to develop reason without harming this
delicate mechanism. In ancient times, women were educated exclusively
among women and protected from the forces that might
jeopardize sensitivity and imagination.

Untrained, women tend to be woolly thinkers, and some
women never make any sense at all in a man’s world. Not all
women feel the calling or need to develop debating or verbal
communication skills. In the right measure, and for those
women who set themselves to it, thinking serves to discipline and
enhance an emotional nature. Trained, women make excellent
practical and humane philosophers and leaders, as we are witnessing
today.

We meet men at the level of abstraction, and it is from there
that we reach the higher aspect of mind together, and can lead
them to the realm of spirit through the true intelligence of heart.

To understand and blend with us in creative dimensions of
Being, men go through the process in inverse order. They begin,
by employing their minds, to survive the agonizing marshes of
emotions. We begin with the emotions, and we strive painfully
to harness our spirit as we come to discipline our minds. The
intuitional backdrop of our ordinary thinking is forever present.
Our mind is always functioning on two levels.

Originally, Beingness*, which embraces a lot more than our
conception of God, was conceived as feminine—Mother—and
held the triune power of engendering, creating, and preserving.
Everything—substance, form, faculty, and power— was born of
Her. The Kogis of South America, akin to the Australian aborigines,
call the state of mind in which everything exists simultaneously
Aluna. In Sanskrit She is called Prakriti. This is both a
state of Being as intelligence, and the spontaneous activity emanating
from that state of Being. The emanation is the Light substance
from which the fabric of matter arises. For us to
comprehend this state, we need to fine-tune ourselves. This implies
raising our frequency level.

Attunement (i.e., blending with the energy of, or “falling in
tune” with, another) is a particular way of using the mind. It’s
like centering ourselves in the experience of the thought itself.
This is non-directional. We do not project towards but rather
emerge from that state. There is, in fact, no process. It is instantaneous.
Our mind, the female mind, works this way. Consider
the phenomenon of peace. Only one who is actually peaceful can
instil that energy; no amount of doing will produce what the state
of Being achieves instantly. Very young children speak that language
of Being.

We perceive, and we participate in what we perceive, simultaneously.
This means that our mental activity empowers rather
than defines. The defining, or “doing,” dynamic corresponds to
the male mind. Both female and male modalities compose our
normal thinking and feeling abilities.

The ancients did not waste resources. They did not pursue
explanations that could only be found in feeling experience
through logical, sequential thinking, and vice-versa. This is how
Mystery Schools arose. Today we use questioning intelligence for
things that do not require it. In fact, intelligence is equated with
questioning and evaluation rather than with pure perception.

Women’s vision of life—like that of the ancients who knew
of Beingness beyond the tangible—is simple, humanitarian, and
ecological. But it is a lifestyle that does not make us wealthy, important,
powerful, or special. We are obliged to consider the
whole rather than the particular at all times. Rather than exert
force, it yields. It communicates through harmony, honoring the
rhythms, cycles, and dictates of nature.

This is how we may become masters over creation substance:
alchemists. But that is another subject.

 

*Beingness: The state of Being that connotes essence. 

Dignified Defiance

DIGNIFIED DEFIANCE

Wild Pregnant Mares

2 February 2012

We feel badly and even guilty for the sexual violence done to women in Africa, for the poverty and exploitation of women in India, for the plight of the Muslim woman who has to cover herself up as if in shame for being a woman.  As Western women we do this from the vantage point of our presumed superiority, our own comfort, our own self-righteousness, without acknowledging how our complacency feeds into the whole.  We presume that liberty is defined by external display and whimsical frivolities, and we direct our energies to fitful tantrums of one kind or another.  There are no parallels with the spirit that moves the women we pity.  We are largely incapable of sharing in the inner wisdom that arises from them.

We feel sorry for the traditions of so-called primitive cultures without understanding them.  Without respecting them.  We cannot understand the need for women to be among women to feel nurtured and understood.  Instead we side with men and with the needs of the mythical couple.  In our actions and constant preoccupation, coupling and the meaning it brings to our lives is continually and overpoweringly present.  No matter how outwardly dependent an Asian or African woman is to the male hierarchy, what we fail to grasp is that inwardly there is a world richer than our imagination, a force stronger than our loudest cries.  Their spirit is free.

Their struggle is ours, only we don’t know it.  They call for their voice to be heard in a hardened world.  They strive for recognition and respect as women, while we ask to be treated equally and content ourselves with the surface.  They fight to preserve themselves in their difference, while we strive to prove ourselves equal to a man.

The Arab Spring and African movements could never happen in our homes because we believe we are already free.  Are we?  Can we compare our social and economic hardships to theirs?  Our privations with the brutality that assails them?  And more importantly, can we match the spirit of these women?

We do not see our insensitivity. Cavernous depths inside contain secrets: treasures, traps, magical coves and revelations, unknown worlds and haunting terrors.  We don’t particularly want to know about the inner forces; they interrupt our stubborn sense of purpose. Those remnants of ancient womanhood still living under primitive conditions in different regions of the globe have something we lost. They have preserved their innermost self.  Only in a society where appearances count more than substance, might we still contend that we are privileged.

We tread on shallow waters where we have always been, where our ancestors were, with new outfits, vocabulary and gymnastics that spell progress, arrowed towards where it is supposedly safe and secure.  Our risks are actually small, our battles argumentative.  We are not likely to make life and death mistakes, least of all (God forbid!) experience the inner pull of unknown forces.  The tremendous effort we exert in hiding and ignoring ourselves results in mighty inner wounds as we dam our spectrum of possibilities.  To be normal is, in fact, to suffer one form or another of incapacity.  Our struggles are ludicrous compared to those of the world we deem underprivileged.  The real issue is always freedom from self and for the Self.

In the kind of world we live it is also easy to diagnose physical and mental incapacity, but not so the psychic and psychological lesions of the normal person.  It is simple to acknowledge physical abuses and inequalities elsewhere than your own home, but not so to recognize the absence of feminine values and sensitivity in our own.  We cannot see the scars, palpate the symptoms, or predict the effects.  We can only feel that something is not right.  That something is terribly wrong.

I was deeply touched by the CNN interview of the three Nobel Peace Laureates for 2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Tawakkul Karman, and especially Leymah Gbowee.  In my opinion, the Nobel committee rewarded the original Inner Woman.  The quality of feminine dignity the three women displayed outweighed even the surprising details of their lives and struggle.

Western women pursue truth and justice, have attained incredible heights of achievements, but few can be said to excel for the integrity that supports the indignation exhibited when there is nothing left to lose.  In this respect our sympathy feels hollow.  Janis Joplin was my rebellious heroine in the 60’s, but for all her heart-wrenching bravado she chose defeat.

In the face of unbearable loss a strangely powerful renewing energy arises in the hearts and minds of sensitive suffering people. I am reminded of the American Southern Blacks during the time of Martin Luther King during my youth.   In the 1960’s this was religiously inspired in the Christian faith.  For the three Nobel women Laureates it was based on the right to be and, in the case of Leymah Gbowee in Liberia, on the unity of Christians and Muslim women, a Faith beyond faith.

It is unfortunate that the full video of the CNN interview is not available.  The brief segments that appear on YouTube cannot transmit the power of these women’s presence, or the body language and powerful silences in between, but they give us a hint.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/12/10/bts-mann-2011-nobel-prize-winners.cnn

I wish to focus on one scene in particular. It was one of the missing fragments where the interviewer, in addressing Laymah Gbowee alluded to the sex strike used against Mugabe’s forces.  He then specifically asked about an incident where she stripped naked as a last resort to negotiations.  After some hushed giggles from the audience, the room fell absolutely silent as a fierce energy rose and rose, and then she spoke with resonant eloquence.

Instead of submitting to failure or trusting an unseen force, she resorted to an aspect of herself more precious even than life: her body as a reflection of soul.  Hearing her, identifying with her for those moments, I could almost taste similar feelings of outrage in history:  the futile hope of dying worlds, gladiators, Christian martyrs, Samurais with impeccable codes of honour, dignified and highly educated Jews chanting to the ovens, fervent kamikazes in WWII, and the desperate impotence of modern day people who immolate themselves. Oh that feeling of total and irredeemable injustice and despair!

I recall Ms. Gbowee’s almost imperceptible shudder to the implication of the interviewer’s question to someone who had witnessed the pain of massive rapes. It filled the room, it poured out through the TV screen.  As she said, when there was nothing further she could do to force the men in power to listen, she had stood tall and defiant, and slowly stripped her clothes. Rather than roar, destroy, or self-immolate, this one woman’s gesture spoke more loudly than words.

The chieftains were so shamed that they were forced to ask themselves what had they done that their women had to take such measures.  That one woman’s pristine purity of purpose at that moment stood for all women.

Where a Western woman might have exhibited herself or commiserated, she remained vulnerable and irrepressible.  Woman as she IS: ancient and holy, proud, fragile and powerful.

Now I ask you, who in truth are the women who hold up the world? If men have lost their capacity to respond and no longer hold us in the sanctuary that is our birthright, maybe it is we who need to change.  It is we who need to make a stand IN A FEMININE WAY in dignified defiance of the indignity into which our civilization has fallen.

*   *   *

Know yourself as woman. Join MMD.  First meetings in February.  Palma de Mallorca, 11 February: Barcelona 25 February.

Reality is Something Different

REALITY IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT

26 January 2012

Beyond gender, each person is a unique, whole human being.  In spite of this we perceive ourselves as partial or dependent, and do not ask ourselves why it is that we are not aware of the profound and holistic experience of our own gender independent of the other.

Here is my view.

Each gender possesses receptive and dynamic faculties and instincts.  Today we call them aspects of yin and yang.  These Eastern terms refer to forces that are complimentary and simultaneously opposed, triggering the creativity of each gender and predisposing it to expand or express itself.

It has become very popular to refer to a woman as yin and to a man as yang, practice which has led to the confusion that the yang in a woman is masculine, and that the yin in a man is feminine.  It is held that a woman has her yang side and the man his yin side, but the moment a woman manifests her yang side she is labelled as masculine, insinuating a flaw and therefore rejection.  Something similar occurs to a man when he manifests his yin side and is held to be effeminate, as if his tenderness or acute sense of aesthetics were a defect.  What is interesting is to discover that however yang or aggressive a woman may show herself, she will never be masculine.  Vice versa with a man.  It would suffice to feel and observe the quality of emission and the dynamic of each gender.  Unfortunately, lacking in sensitivity people rely on appearance, belief, and therefore generalization.

A woman is a woman for the way she perceives and conceives the world, for the manner in which her yin, as well as her yang, responds qualitatively, instinctively, and intuitively.  She is not defined by her dress or her behaviour, by her opinions, her attractiveness, or pleasing manner.  It has nothing to do with her sexual orientation.  Equally, a man is a man for the way his yin and his yang perceive and conceive the world mentally and physically.  He is not defined by what he says, how he appears, or by the power he exerts.  Women and men are different, although both serve themselves of yin and yang modalities.  Their energies are qualitatively different.

In truth this misunderstanding is the basis for the stereotypes made of the genders.  It determines the programming to which we are both bound.  It encases us into absurd expedient categories forcing us to follow a fixed model of appearance and behaviour if we wish to be considered normal.  This confusion between appearance and essence, energy and modality, constitutes the nucleus of indoctrination that strangles men as much as women.

Up to now, humanity has needed to be led and in a certain way “tamed” in order to structure norms of society and remodel the race.  The motor power has always been and will be the gross sexual impulse and the ever so subtle aspiration of the soul.  Instinct and the reproduction of the species have imposed themselves over the whispering of the heart.  Slowly and progressively they meet, and we have now supposedly developed technologically a la par with our own spiritual growth.  As if by divine mandate we have come through a learning process in the management of voltages and forms from the amoeba reaching the complexity of civilization today.

Evolution dictates a certain process.  It has served itself of a formula that combines instinct with aspiration, impulse with the need to relate: the couple as a unit.  It has not been appropriate to acknowledge the genuine individuality of each gender beyond the function they offer together.  Convenience has backed the aggressive activity of the masculine (yang) impulse.  We have now reached the maximum point just before masculine and feminine decadence sets in.

While the yin force is receptive and introspective, yang forces conquer and construct.  The key for the quantum leap that has to occur in order to extricate ourselves from the rigidity of the past is the sensitivity of yin – both forms, men’s as well as women’s.  To manifest in our society it needs the background support offered by the dominant yang.  The change is not from yang to yin.  At this moment of evolution and construction of a new world we shift from the masculine yang to the feminine yang.  Greater forces call for it.

It so happens that woman has not yet understood or expressed her real nature and potential.  She does not know herself in spite her conviction to the contrary.  Her realization, aspiration, and action are based on the masculine directional and mental yang model, while her own yang, once reached, is based on the expressive dynamic of consciousness positioned in the heart.  (See 22 July entry) The challenge is to glimpse the probabilities of each gender and the possible accompaniment between whole human beings.

The value that is unfolding in these times of symbolic fission, include value and valour.  The male cannot progress without the unconditional support that the female lends him and his world (ours) is stagnating.  The female, programmed to be the unconditional pillar of man (or of the masculine world) is equally unable to progress due to the weight of expectations over her.

In my previous entries I have sketched grossly the difference between genders, but understanding it is not enough.  We have to see how this applies to our lives in a direct way and discover exactly how this affects the expectations we form of ourselves.  In other worlds the indoctrination or belief about what we are or have to be.  From this arises the current confusion of gender.   What is not yet sufficiently understood is that this state of obfuscation transcends the function of sex.

Time and again I refer to the development of woman and man as being a matter of inner management and not external doing.  The form that emerges from inner management, or state of being, is totally different from the form that emerges from expectation and forced ambition.  The key to understanding this lies in sensibility joined to understanding, and correct observation of that which surrounds us.

We have arrived at a moment for revision and re-evaluation.  Backed by the sensible masculine yin forces, this is the critical moment of faith where the always-diffuse state of trust that comes as a result of sensitivity, needs to be supported and channelled by the growing determination and aspiration of the feminine yang.

This implies the acceptance of the heart as a guiding force.  It is not as simple as the peaceful ideology of the times might suggest.  It does not represent blind submission or the abdication of discriminating reason.  For a man (see 22 July entry) it signifies putting aside his logic as he addresses a higher order.  For a woman it is a call that beckons her to leave behind all self-indulgence and assume her real responsibility as mother of the world.  For both genders it represents forgetting all talk about rights and the reclaiming of old accounts, to address themselves instead to the responsibility of their gender.  All that which we wanted to be, that we were told we were, or that we always thought we had to be, is not.  The message is clear:  reality is something different; it is discontinuous from the past.

*    *    *

Forthcoming schedule of Events:

9 February -  conference at La Lluna bookshop in Palma.

11 February – first meeting of MMD in Mallorca

25 February -  first meeting of MMD in Barcelona

8 March – International Women’s Day Congress in Palma de Mallorca (in English)

10 March -  book launch and presentation of MMD in Madrid