The Divine Masculine, or How to Be a Real Man

DISCLAIMER: What I am writing about in this post is a way viewing the world, a framework, a myth. Worldviews can be tricky because they can't be proved right or wrong on their own terms; a conspiracy theorist will discount information disproving their conspiracy theories as propaganda; a militant atheist will discount evidence that their views promote intolerance as irrelevant; your everyday Aussie proletariat will chalk up the environmental havoc that we are wreaking on the world as a 'problem for the scientists.' Whether these people are 'wrong' depends on your own mythology. 

Mythology still seriously informs how we interact with the world, but unfortunately we in the west have largely pushed our mythology into our subconscious: outsourcing our norm-creation power to 'sciencism' (arguably a form of materialism) politicians and advertising executives. In this post I use the word 'divine' for its mystical nature; its ability to remain undefined. It's a way of saying 'good' that leaves the point open for debate, as who really knows what divinity is?

An ironic side effect of our large-scale adoption of the scientific method as the standard for truth is that we have largely lost the ability to acknowledge and be comfortable in uncertainty. We have a neurotic need to know things 'for sure', and have forgotten the basic tenet of Science: you cannot prove anything with 100% certainty, you can only form a hypothesis until it is disproved by the next set of data. Most of the great scientists and thinkers of the world were comfortable in this uncertainty and often rested in it: from this void of non-knowing sprung many of their greatest ideas and theories. 'Divine', then, serves to ground us in the comfort of non-knowing, from which real understanding and insight can spring. What I am seeking to do in this post is construct a notion of masculinity and femininity that is decoupled from gender while remaining meaningful. 

This post can equally apply to both men and women, but applies a little more to men given the current crisis of masculinity. Trigger warning: this article articulates the belief that there is such a thing as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ and makes reference to a girlfriend who may or may not be crazy.

Men have gone wrong somewhere. It’s pretty much consensus, guys. Whether it’s the statistics on domestic violence, or the cheerfully goofy and hopeless portrait of masculinity presented to us by pop culture (bumbling dad, ASD teenage boy and irrelevant grandfather) we as males don’t seem to know how to be males well. We’re told it has something to do with earning capacity, sexual prowess, comedic ability – you name it, there’s a mould for us to fit in and measure our own inadequacy by. Common themes include domination, power and strength, certainty and decisiveness. But late-stage capitalism has difficulty making sense of our impulses towards violence, our urge to destroy, to fuck, to assert control over our own situations. You seen Fight Club? Watch Fight Club.

Apparently, we are a problem

But it makes sense that a system designed to dominate us is having trouble making sense of us. Women, having woken up to the fact that they have been dominated for millennia, have put their foot down, raised their voices and said ‘no longer’. And confronted with the empowered woman and our own roles as the oppressors, we don’t know where to turn. Sports, career and porn offer little solace. There is a void that used to be filled with a sense of mastery over our own lives, a sense kept alive erroneously through the power over women that we wielded throughout the ages. We may have been alone in a chaotic and unfriendly world, but at least we had power over the feminine in one sense – socially (and by extension, financially).

And for a while, that was all that mattered. Proprietary interests continued to be a measure of our value and as long as you had a wife to call your “own”, you rested easy in the sense that your role as a man was fulfilled; you had control and all was well.

We conquered everything; women, community, and the natural world.

The feminist revolution was inevitable. It was inevitable because the concept of woman as property is plainly wrong – in a universe that tends towards cosmic harmony, the oppression of the feminine simply could not endure; her nature is to flourish. Se let me expound on the metaphysics of the Divine Feminine for a moment.

The Divine Feminine is, fundamentally, the womb into which the universe was born – the void. However, it is also the form and movement that takes shape afterwards – the expression in material and energetic form of the dance of consciousness. All that you can see, hear and touch. All that moves – form and dance. An easy way to recognise the divine feminine is in beauty: it is her shining her light through the material world. Another way to measure your relationship with the divine feminine is your attitude towards women (if you are a man – if you are a woman, go read some earth goddess blog). In fact, the divine feminine is fundamentally relational. The quality of your relationships is a good indication of the quality of the divine feminine in yourself that is being allowed to be expressed. Also, as a cosmic disclaimer, please note that everything I have said so far doesn’t quite encapsulate the divine feminine – she is still kinda undefinable, which is IMO a source of power. So be on the lookout for her!

Now, to the Masculine. Is what I’m about to say that predictable? The Divine Masculine is fundamentally different to the feminine – they operate on different planes of existence. They are so different they can appear to be oppositional – but that’s a misconception. Their union is essential for the birth and continuing evolution of the universe, and it is through their union that we approach divinity.

The Masculine is essentially the light of consciousness – the field of awareness that permeates all of existence. While emotions (internal moving energies) are feminine, the canvas of consciousness that they are registered on is the masculine. The masculine is also heightened complexity; advancement – the impulse of evolution towards greater efficacy is a great example of the Divine Masculine doing his thing in the world.  The Masculine is primarily concerned with ‘getting it right’. Where the Feminine is concerned with the free flow of energy and movement in the world, the Masculine wants ‘right energy’ and ‘right movement’ –  authority – and he uses rationality to make his point. But without the backdrop of beauty that the Feminine provides, he wouldn’t know what to fight for. What is your relationship with your father like, both as a child and now? It’s a pretty good measure for your relationship to the Masculine (for men AND women! Yay!).

So what are the practical implications of all of this? The current state of affairs has men chasing the old modes of domination – power over women through force of personality, dress sense, earning capacity – whatever. Capitalism has cashed in our desire for validation by creating a whole suite of products and careers designed to help us achieve this. Unfortunately, for both us and Capitalism, women have wised up to our game and are increasingly recognising us for the weak, emotionally stunted shitbags we so often are. We parade our insensitivity to what women want, then resort to entitled vindictiveness when they reject us. We are by-and-large juvenile, wailing half-men that have been abandoned by our fathers and any sense of purpose and don’t we know which way to go. Yet our privilege – our earning capacity, our sense of personal safety, our entitlement – makes a mockery of any claim to hardship, so we wallow in the stagnant pools of self pity, venting our rage at women and the world in general for making mockery of our pain. Or less pessimistically, we distract ourselves with the diversions of material wealth, sexual play and a sense of simulated achievement (whether through sports, videogames or a particularly thrilling TVseries). 

So what is the answer? First, to reclaim ourselves as men we have to reconcile ourselves to the Feminine. For too long we have sought to objectify and dominate it to enlarge our sense of control, making meaning of our own sense of validation. Our first mistake was to divide our mother up into plots of land that we could ‘own’. Soon after we began selling our daughters and buying our wives. We have dedicated ourselves to our own masculinity, our own authority, and in our quest to satiate our material desires we have spiralled out of control, without the natural spiritual anchor that the Feminine provides. If Masculinity is Authority, it only makes sense when it is in service to the Feminine, to Life and Beauty.

We must dedicate ourselves to the Feminine.

We must dedicate ourselves to every neglected child. 
We must dedicate ourselves to every felled forest. 
We must dedicate ourselves to every instance of beauty that the world provides. 
We must dedicate ourselves to our own bodies, the beautiful and terrible sensations contained within, to reconnect ourselves to ourselves so that we may be present in the world. 

To do anything less would be to hold back in our loving, to cheat the Feminine of our full presence, to cop out, to be less than A Man. 

Your own sense of inferiority doesn’t come from women. It doesn’t come from your Father (though he can certainly help). It doesn’t come from Capitalism or Society. It comes from your own knowledge that you are a Coward, that – faced with the terrible wroth of the feminine in her dark aspect; be it a raging and ‘irrational’ girlfriend or the horrors of war, pestilence and disease – you retreat into your shell and reject Her. You throw up your hands and say it is too much for you – that ‘another man’ should deal with it. And that basic rejection of your self (because, duh, you’re not separate from the world) creates a rift in you into which doubt flows and you falter. And yes, in that moment you’re not the man you want to be – you’re less than a man by your own definition.

Your role is to love, fiercely and deeply

If all men dedicated themselves to the realisation of the Feminine, oh, what a world it would be.

PLEASE NOTE: Masculine and Feminine energy are NOT necessarily tied to gender. There can be men that have a Feminine core, and women that have a Masculine core – typically these individuals are very attractive to the opposite sex (go figure!). But generally, women have a Feminine core and Men have a Masculine core. But we all have both. Women’s masculinity (authority/consciousness) tends to naturally serve life – perhaps given their dominant Feminine aspect, perhaps given their biology to create life – who knows. But women in career generally opt for roles of carers, healers – nurturers of some description. We need to value this more. And we men could learn a thing or two, and likely excel in these roles should we allow ourselves to.

Some exercises for becoming more of a man

Confronting Death

1.     Imagine, in the current moment, that a rip occurs in space-time. A black hole opens right up in front of you and devours everything you ever knew or loved.

2.     Really go there. See the rift. Feel the sense of panic, helplessness and sorrow. Feel it all – the void devours everything you have ever known, leaving nothing. Feel into the present moment, feel the real possibility that this could happen, right here, right now.

3.     Now, bring your attention back to the present moment.

4.     Feel that sense of gratitude? Really feel it. That sense of love for everything that is, right now? Feel that feeling.

5.     Cultivate that feeling. You are cultivating a love of existence and of the Feminine. You are also confronting your fear of death and impermanence, which is the thing that holds us back in our loving as men.

6.     Die like this every day. Be reborn every day, and go into the world loving fiercely and wholly.

Repeat this mantra:

You are fundamentally inadequate. The Sacred Feminine, Mara, will never be satiated. She will always demand the more of you – in your relationships, in your work, through your children. She will go on demanding from you until you have nothing left to give, and that is the day that you will die. And the world will still be rife with pain and sadness, injustice will continue to be done – what you gave was not enough.

But before you pass into that sweet abyss of rest, what will your final feelings be towards yourself? Will you feel satisfied in how you lived, comfortable in the knowledge that you loved without holding back, to your utmost potential?

·      Did you give everything you had to satiate her? Were you a warrior of love, fighting the good fight?

·      Or did you ignore Her, pass time, and waste your potential to instill your loving consciousness into the world?

The only way that you will die peacefully on that deathbed is if you go on satiating her, each and every day, to your utmost – loving fiercely and wholly until you die. No regrets, no wasted opportunities. Then and only then will you die in peace.

Masculine in Service to the Embodied Feminine

1.     Sit comfortably, and allow your attention to remain in your body.

2.     Rest your attention gently on the sensation of your breathing.

3.     Allow your attention to go to any other sensation in your body.

4.     Without trying to ‘fix’ any sensations that come up, allow those feelings to be there – gently. Just notice them, breathe into them and allow them the space in your body to be there.
You are cultivating connecting your consciousness (masculine) to your own body – your own feminine.

Meditation is also a powerful way of promoting mental and physical health through heightened
consciousness of your self and your surroundings. Through this heightened awareness of your emotions
and body (your feminine) you will be more effective in your loving and in your actions.