Category: Divine Feminine / Sacred Masculine

Moving Beyond Mediocre Manhood: Sacred Masculinity Blog Series

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

By Raphael Awen

sacredmasculine

Mediocre manhood. Those two words don’t really belong in the same sentence. Sadly though, we can’t escape the reality as it exists today…..or can we?

Escaping mediocre manhood will require awareness of how you are showing up as man, what isn’t working for you, the humility to admit it and the choice to seek something more.

How each of us as men have become the man we are has so much to do with the patterns of manhood that we were shown. These patterns were ingrained into us on so much more than a cognitive level going to the very heart of our being.

The word ‘pattern’ is from the same original word for the words; father; pater; papa and patriarch. Our father is literally our pattern, our ‘patron’ Saint, our admission into the ‘patriarchy’. Each of us as men is running a kind of emotional operating system that came to us via our fathers. Our father got it from his father, and so on and on. It may not be our father, or even a man in the role of our father, but all of us as men received intense male patterning and templating for every boy and man around us.

It is only as the contents of this,…let’s call it our EOS (emotional operating system) become conscious and brought up into our awareness, that we can even begin to move out of mediocrity in our manhood.

Here alone is a big step. Most men have a codependent relationship with all men and especially their fathers whereby they agree not to speak any ‘negativity’ towards their fathers. What this really is, is an agreement to keep the patriarchy intact from generation to generation. Only as you refuse to participate in the insanity will you find any ground to leave the insanity. This means you’re going to have get critical about dad and his pattern as it lives in you. I don’t know how else to say it. You don’t need to be a superiorizing asshole about it, but you can’t escape critique. Your critique will need to be vocal enough to exit the insanity. Being critical beyond that is just cycling in an enmeshed relationship men, dads, and male friends.

Unless you are willing to say no to every man, you can’t actually find your deepest version of your truest manhood. You may not need to say no to every man, but you will need to be willing to say no if your goal is your highest expression of your manhood. You don’t owe your dad a thing, and a healthy self realized dad doesn’t expect a thing in return for his role and years as a father. Actually, the greatest gift a dad can receive from their son is their ‘fuck you dad!’ of individuation, which ideally should come around 18 years old. Now, after this healthy completion of the childhood phase, dad and son can go on to forge a totally new relationship with the old one having truly died and been reborn.

Only now, after this death and rebirth, can new patterns be explored and come to be a part of a new EOS. This is the real initiation into manhood that is not only missing in our culture, but so missing from all of the manhood groups I have encountered this far.

Men want more. It’s in them at their very core. No amount of conditioning can erase that. Conditioning can and does try to manage and suppress this wanting of more which is in itself is a testimony to this essence in a man.

Exploring this ‘more’ will be finding and feeling and healing all the aspects of your EOS that no longer serve your most authentic version of yourself arising. The way this is done in SoulFullHeart is through getting to know the parts of you that makeup your ‘you’ stream. You are far from a single personality. This is probably no more evident than in relation to your masculinity. Our parts can and do respond very differently in different situations. You are not insane. You are multi-dimensional. You have more than one you, several more in fact.

Until you come to discover your parts or subpersonalities, some part of you is posing as you, working so much harder than is healthy to keep your ‘you’ show running uncontrollably on the mediocre default patterns that are in the male collective.

More about the SoulFullHeart Subpersonality Healing Process Here:http://www.soulfullheartwayoflife.com/soulfullheart-subpers…

Raphael Awen is co-creator, teacher, and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.

Venturing Into The Unknown: Sacred Masculine Blog Series

Published on by Raphael Awen1 Comment

By Raphael Awen

 

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So what is this thing out there called ‘the sacred masculine’ or, as it’s equally referred to, ‘the divine masculine’?

The sacred masculine, like the sacred feminine, isn’t easily defined or contained in words, because they are both an energy, a force, a wave form of a specific bandwidth of frequency. They are an awareness of something more than what is in your current consciousness around the masculine or the feminine. It’s a humble admission of ‘I know that I don’t know.’ Herein lies its qualification to be referred to as the divine, or sacred,….it’s in the humility to be in wonder, and to have a reverence for something more that you want, but don’t currently have.

The masculine, however, is by itself sacred. Masculinity itself doesn’t really need the words sacred or divine to designate it as anything more than it already is. In a profound way, two guys sharing beers in a bar, checking out women and watching football is a form of the masculine out seeking to know itself. Even Donald Trump’s recently much maligned words about women is a form of the masculine out trying to know itself. Admittedly, there isn’t any awareness or consciousness around wanting more, or anything touching on an expression of what we’d call the ‘reverent’ to be found here, but even in this unconsciousness, masculinity is out seeking to know itself.

Masculinity itself, like femininity, is the reverent thing. It can’t be made any more or less reverent than it already is. The only thing there is to change is your relationship to it. It’s the ground of your relationship to the thing, not the thing itself that either lets in or holds at bay the reverence factor. To feel this is the beginning of reverence. It’s the beginning of making space for the sacred inside of you.

What is it that you want in relationship to the masculine? What is it that you feel is lacking or missing in your relationship to the masculine? This wanting and willingness to admit a missing piece is what is the essence of your relationship to the masculine. It is making space for desire. It is making space for longing.

That’s just about all for the moment, except that I welcome working with you personally and directly in dedicated session space man to man if what I offer and the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life offers calls to you. Our sessions page is here: soulfullheartwayoflife.com/sessions

Stay tuned for more on the sacred masculine!

Raphael Awen is co-creator, facilitator and teacher of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information about healing sessions with Raphael.

Sacred Femininity and SoulFullHeart Woman Video With Jelelle Awen

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

What is sacred femininity and SoulFullHeart Woman?

In this video, SoulFullHeart teacher Jelelle Awen talks to SoulFullHeart apprentice facilitator Leena Colibri about her perspective on the individual and collective expressions of femininity, which are actually mostly masculine in expression due to emotional and soul congestion blocks that form into subpersonalities or parts of us.

This dynamic can lead to women ‘self mating’ with this masculine side of themselves in expressions of warrior princess, priestess, and matriarchy tones, covering up the deeper feminine expressions of vulnerability, softness and stillness. Jelelle also offers the importance of sacred feminine templating from the Divine Feminine-Mother and to heal from wounded masculine templating from our primary female caregiver.

The arising of the authentic feminine is also an invitation for men to establish conscious connection with their inner femininity. Jelelle has facilitated female teens and women (and men) for several years and written three books about sacred femininity and her experiences with the Divine Mother. Please visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information about individual, couples, and group sessions with Jelelle and, for men, with her beloved mate Raphael.

‘What Is Sacred Femininity?’: SoulFullHeart Woman Blog Series

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

By Jelelle Awen

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What is sacred femininity? As I feel into the answer to this question, I connect to my heart, soul, and body……listening for a response:

My heart says, “Sacred femininity invites the hearts of others out to dance, out to play, and out to be in love. It transacts with openness and vulnerability, eager for every moment to be real and meaningful, whether it is light or it is deep. It is willing to feel what needs to be felt and accepts that which is both in light and in shadow. It aches for union, to be connected, and to see itself through love transacting in resonant relationships.”

My soul says, “Sacred femininity is unknown. It is arising. It is mysterious. It can wait to be noticed and it can draw. It can be so deeply still and it can be beautifully active. It is contrasts and paradoxes. It lets love lead, trusting that the rest will follow. It is open to being watered by the frequencies of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Mother, in whatever forms that She comes. It is healing that from the soul’s history which blocks the current flow of love in relationships with others, self, and the Divine.”

My body says, “Sacred femininity is desire, the rush of orgasm and the joy of afterglow that comes from heart open sexuality with self or with a beloved mate. It is expressed in the physical with a softness that is visible in body, audible in voice, and in touch – gentle at times and passionate at other times. It is natural and real, beyond the images of physical perfection and is not found in the chemicals and products that cover and make over. It is beautiful in all its expressions, in all its ages, and all its packages.”

As I connect to these answers inside of myself related to this question of sacred femininity, it feels like the answers are the same to the question, “What is a SoulFullHeart woman?” The specifics of what it is means to be a SoulFullHeart are offered in depth on our website at soulfullheartwayoflife.com, our blog at soulfullheartblog.com and on facebook. Essentially, it is about being in a place of awakening consciousness in the heart and soul through engaging in the SoulFullHeart healing process. This leads to an increasing sense of individuation or healthy ego maturation with more experience of union with yourself, others, and the Divine as an expression of Infinite Love.

A critical aspect of this exploration that I want to offer during this series into ‘what is sacred femininity’ in the future is to feel what is NOT femininity but is actually an expression of masculinity or comes from our birth mother (or other primary feminine caregiver) templating or is a product of our cultural conditioning.

It can be quite an illuminating journey to feel the way that masculinity expresses inside of us and how it can ‘live inside’ as masculine aspects of us or what we call, ‘subpersonalities’. These masculine aspects form a strong protective energy for which many frequencies of sacred femininity are buried beneath. As we get to know and love them, they can begin to rest and trust us more and allow our femininity to start flooding into our field with often quite transformational results in our physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences of life.

Our relationships with our birth mothers is another key ground of exploration related to our sacred femininity expression. Individuation is a process of feeling through how we are impacted by the template that our mothers offered to us about femininity and feeling into how parts of us relate to that template now. Also, we can be deeply influenced by social and cultural conditioning, especially when it ‘rewards’ the development of a persona aspect of us to ‘fit in’ and seek acceptance around our gender expression.

The frequencies of sacred femininity that we explore as SoulFullHeart women are ones that I am honored to share with women in my life in the form of sister, friend, student, healer, and teacher.

I offer a template to explore this ground for and with women and I also hold space for others into this exploration of this mysterious, magical, challenging, and lovely ground. The forms of this exploration into the SoulFullHeart Woman and sacred femininity will be through writing, videos, virtual telecircles, and through individual sessions with me (in person in the Puerto Vallarta, Mexico area and over skype for those outside the area.)

I offer this humbly and yet with a sense of worth that is based on my own experiences of increasing sense of this inside of myself over the last decade of being dedicated to my own deepening sacred femininity embodiment process. Life has provided many teachers for me in this journey, primarily in the form of relationships such as with my beloved mate Raphael, my adult daughter, sacred friendships with other women and men, women that I am honored to serve and hold space for, and both human and Ethereal guides.

Please join me on this journey into the unknown dimensions of sacred femininity and may we both grow, learn, transform and experience much love during the way!

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Please visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.

 

 

The Queen of Kings: Diary of a Heartman Blog Series

Published on by Gabriel Heartman1 Comment

This is the sixth in a series dedicated to the Journey of the Sacred Masculine.  If you wish to read previous posts you can go here.

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Today is my mentor and life-long friend Jelelle Awen’s birthday.  Her special day inspired me to gush about her personally and publicly.  It also inspired me to talk about what a woman like Jelelle means to the journey of the sacred masculine – the making of a King.

Jelelle and I became close friends more than 25 years ago.  Our friendship became a transformative romance for me that led to a marriage and then to a child.  During those years we always had a close bond that seemed to have roots beyond this life.  Our marriage eventually completed, but the bond did not cease.  We continued to stay close and co-parent our daughter with all the love that we still shared.  Our relationship shifted to one in which she eventually became my facilitator in emotional and spiritual healing and now as a mentor in my apprenticeship.

What I wish to focus on is what happened to me, and thusly us as men, when I let in the transformative power of the Divine Feminine.  I could feel early on in our friendship that there was something different about this woman.  There was a laser-pointed sense of emotional truth that she inhabited that was different than anyone else.  She could cut to the chase faster than a part of me could run.   There was no hiding.  You could try but…good luck.  Despite some resistance, it was actually quite refreshing.  The parts of me who were holding the charade could finally give up the ghost around Jelelle.

As she began to explore her own emotional inner landscape, a newly empowered sense of feminine came over her.  Not in the masculinized “feminist” sort of way, but in a heartful and soulful sort of way.  Her connection to the faces of Mother and Divine Feminine energy laid the ground work for what is now known as SoulFullHeart.  It is the transformative and transmutational process of seeking our selves and our divinity, bringing the feminine back into a world of unbalanced masculine.

This process seems integral in reclaiming our sacred masculinity.  We have gone so far down the path of the wounded masculine that we stand to affect the greatest change this planet has ever seen by our hands alone.  We see epic environmental changes, economic instability, and a horrific nihilistic war upon ourselves.  We need to go back to a balance within ourselves and that means, as men, feeling our connection to the Divine Feminine within.  This healing work helps to open up our deep sacred roots in the Divine Masculine.  It is where we begin to claim our journey back to King.

I have had to challenge my relationship to women that I learned from both of my fathers and the collective male consciousness.  I have also had to learn to stand up for myself and shake the “good guy” syndrome that was in place in order to please mom. The authentic masculine is about holding our spine as a man along with an open, vulnerable heart.  I did not get this modeling from my past female relationships growing up.  They were all affected by the same patriarchal wounding.  But when I let in the wisdom and love of a woman who knew I was more than I was showing the world, my life began to change at the subatomic level.

I still have work to do.   I always will.  But I would never have had the opportunity to do so if it wasn’t for Jelelle’s presence in my life.  My call to all of you men who seek to actually be more of a man in a sacred way, is to find your way to the love and guidance of the Divine Feminine.  She is the Queen of Kings.  Through the spirit, and through the flesh, She will change your life forever.

Happy Birthday Jelelle.  Thank you for everything you have meant to me.

Sequoia Heartman is apprentice facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.

Real Men Feel Their ¨Heart-On¨: Diary of a HeartMan Blog Series

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

This is the fifth in a series dedicated to the Journey of the Sacred Masculine.  If you wish to read previous posts you can go here.

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Where have all the real men gone? By that I mean the men that are willing to be real. Real with their hearts. Real with their pain. Real with their vulnerability. Of course when I hear that question a part of me hears other answers. ¨Real men eat meat. Real men have no fear. Real men don´t cry.¨

I grew up with that meme. All the while feeling my inner sensitivity and the porosity of my heart and soul. A punisher and critic developed inside me to remind me how much of a man I wasn´t in comparison to other men. The sensitive part of me never felt strong enough, good-looking enough, smart enough, or talented enough to be considered a ¨real man¨.

I have done much work to support the healing of this wound. Even today, I still find myself feeling this energy inside me even though it is less intense. It demonstrates how deep the wounding goes. It also shows that as we heal our own personal piece, we invariably start working our way through the collective wounding, and then the archetypal. It’s big shit we are doing, and I want to hold that with reverence and compassion for myself and my parts. It is a process that has a treasure trove of challenges and rewards.

It may feel to a part of me that I will never get to my destination. My place of destiny. A place of sacred masculine kingliness. This is the other meme to heal. That somehow there is some lofty finish line. Some grandiose port of arrival where all of life comes to celebrate our victory. We made it, without ever really understanding what ¨it¨ is. Do we cease to exist when we get there? Will we be disappointed when all the fanfare eventually dies out? Or is it just another part of an infinite journey of exploration, growth, healing, becoming, and creating? An infinite art project.

I may not have those answers, but what I do feel is that I am on a quest of uncovering. Uncovering what it is to be a sacred human man in a time in which we have chosen emotional disconnect, spiritual absolutism, and physical imperialism. I want to heal my own shadow so I can let in more love and more light. The same love and light that can be overflowed into the hearts and souls of other men on similar quests.

Those are the men I want to find myself surrounded by. Men that feel the greater context of their personal content. Men that feel the sadness and powerlessness in other men that inspires them to reach out to be a lifeline for healing and growth. Men that aren´t afraid to feel deep pain and be expressed in vulnerable, salty drops of water. Men that have a love for women in their full expression of feminine power, beauty, and sexuality, while healing their own shadow at the same time.

As I walk outside, down the streets, and at the beach I ache to be seen and felt in my sacred masculinity. I want to walk around with my ¨heart-on¨ and be a beacon to sacred men and women alike. To be an expression of love, strength, courage, and compassion. To be a symbol of self-love, self-worth, true power, and sacred sexuality. I will continue to be as real as I can be. To be true to my heart and devoted to my soul. I will continue to choose who I wish to let in and who I wish to be around. I will continue to pray and desire to draw other real men who want to feel their ¨heart-on¨ too.

It can be a lonely place for a part of us that feels an ache for connection and transaction. It is easy to be less that what you are for the sake of relieving this ache. But then when you feel the larger ache, the ache for authenticity and deep resonance, it pales in comparison. It is a tug between authentic loneliness and false companionship. In the loneliness there is our truest self waiting to be born in the waters of our worth. As we hold to what we want and desire, so shall we be gifted with its presence when we have finally learned to love ourselves first.

Sequoia Heartman is an apprentice teacher of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit SoulFullHeart Way Of Life Website for more.

 

A Woman’s Worth

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

 

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By Jelelle Awen

I am worthy just as I am.

I am worthy no matter what is in my bank account or how others perceive me.

I am worth all that I desire that comes from a place of authentic longing.

I am worth love and to be loved.

I am worth experiencing passion in my relationships and especially with my mate.

I am worth being treated with respect and reverence.

I am worth claiming my birthright as a sacred human child of the Divine.

I am worth growing, breathing, and inhabiting life on this earthly dimension.

I am worth feeling wanted and wanting others in return.

I am worthy of these things and……so are you.

These are not just positive affirmations. This is how I experience life most of the time. It has taken many tears, many tough choices, and much healing to feel this way about myself. It has taken saying ‘no’ to things which didn’t serve my worth or my sense of it. It has taken reclaiming a relationship with the Divine after spending much of my life claiming to be agnostic. It has taken serving others, especially women, to get to know and heal the part of them that holds unworthiness.

A woman recently said to me with tears in her eyes and an ache in her heart, “I don’t feel worthy,” when I presented her with a picture of passionate relationship. This moment of vulnerability being shared with me touched me and I could feel, indeed, the part of her that doesn’t feel worthy of what her soul and heart aches to experience. I don’t know all the reasons why this part of her feels this way but I am very familiar with the texture of unworthiness as I have felt it myself all of my life.

I believe that we all have a part of us that feels unworthy. It is usually buried in the shadows under another part, a more strategic and outbound part of us that covers over this very tender feeling with frequencies of false humility, confidence, even arrogance. Arrogance is always about a part who is trying to protect the feelings of being unworthy under neath. In my experience, getting to know and connect with the protector of the unworthiness first is what allows it to eventually come forward. Unworthiness (like many shadow aspects) is often more visceral, emotional, and non-verbal. It is stomach churning feelings of yuck about ourselves. It is the sense that we are not worth anything and never will be. I remember gut-wrenching sobbing as my unworthiness unfurled itself to be felt by a parts facilitator and the Divine. It was very challenging to feel this and to share it with someone else but I am so very glad that I did.

My heart hurts for the unfelt unworthiness parts inside of so many people. As I have felt this aspect of myself, it has healed to a sense of innate goodness about myself. Unconditional and mostly unfaltering. Working with this aspect has allowed me to set boundaries with people when I’ve needed to, when it doesn’t serve my goodness to be in relationship with them. At times, I still have a part of me that struggles with ‘rejection’ and can still feel unworthy related to that, especially when it concerns my writing or SoulFullHeart. I imagine that this aspect is something that I will be feeling and healing for the rest of my life.

The message that I have been able to let in from the Divine more and more is that I am worthy to experience love and that, actually, I am Infinite Love. It can be very challenging to claim a life based in self worth yet the rewards of feeling your own goodness alive in your life are so worth it. As are you…

~

Jelelle Awen is an emoto-spiritual teacher, sacred feminine and union facilitator, soul scribe, waySHOWer, galactic love ambassador, and co-creator and teacher of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. She is author of  Keep Waking Up! Awakening Journeys To Avalon And Beyond and an upcoming book,Sacred Human, Arising Wonder. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information about space holding sessions, group calls, videos, community, etc. Visit our patreon page to offer a money donation to support our offerings at https://www.patreon.com/soulfullheart.

 

Diary of a HeartMan: Brotherhood of Sacred Power

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

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I see and feel a picture in my heartmind. There are machines that have cords attached to the brains of men who are nothing more than slaves sucked of their essence. Above the machines are other men who are the creators and controllers. They have a sinister yet pained look on their face. In the background there are men hunting and killing other men. In the whole scene there is a play-out of control and powerlessness. In not one place do I see men in their full power together, creating and leading.

This feels like a painting of the collective masculine condition. Everyone feels alone and isolated, detached from their humanity and nature. What is missing is an authentic and sacred brotherhood. I used to call a close friend of mine a ¨brother¨ and even my brother in-law a ¨brother¨. What did that really mean? Our desire to call each other brother was based on a need to feel a deeper connection that we weren´t getting from other men. One that we couldn´t get from the women in our lives because there is a uniquely male ache, just as there is a uniquely female ache that we cannot relate to as men. And this ache isn´t satiated just by playing sports, fixing or building things, complaining about politics, or going to bars and trying to get laid. So what the hell is it?

Raphael and I attended a men´s group in Canada to get a feeling for what other men were talking about and feeling together in these kind of circles. I had never been to one so I had no idea really what to expect. The men in the circle were processing an issue that had been effecting them as a group and was centered on one man in particular. What was refreshing was that I was around other men who were actually being more real than I was used to experiencing outside of my relationship with Raphael. However, in the end it was really nothing more than a place to off-gas frustration, letting it permeate the space without actually getting to the heart of the issue so that there could be movement and healing.

In the circle there was a sense of brotherhood but it still didn´t hit the mark for me. Not by a long shot. Relieving frustration is not enough. I am certain not all men´s groups are like this. I don´t want to generalize by my one experience. One could say, ¨Well, at least they have that outlet.¨ I guess so, but why stop there? There is collective ache out there that is so desiring to be felt by those that feel the same. In all the expressions of ¨brotherhood¨ from the dense to the more porous, I feel you, I, and all of us are searching for love and a reclaiming of our authentic male power.

I feel ¨man-love¨ deserves its own dedicated blog space, so I will get to that on a later post. The loss of our natural power as sacred masculine beings has occurred over history. Our separation from our spiritual essence, I feel, has led to a collective experience of fear and isolation. The male psyche, without feeling its divinity, needed to gain some sort of control in order to cover over this existential terror. Over the centuries, many men, and women, have tried to direct us back to the source of our real nature as spiritual beings, but only to be rebuffed by the empirical, the tyrannical, and the industrial.

Men in days gone by gave their lives for ¨freedom¨. Men, and women, are still doing it today. I put the word in quotes because it feels like a loaded term. Whereas a kingdom is the domain of a king, freedom is the domain of the free. It represents power. The ability to live in your fullest expression. But what is your fullest expression? Is it to be able to digest all the entertainment you want? Is it to be able to buy all the coolest technologies that complicate rather than simplify your life? Is it to be able to work your ass off for 30 years only to find out all your savings disappeared because the fuckers in charge shorted all the stocks that were in your 401k? Fuck no!

The Tyranny of Industry has put more men in slavery than any other despot in history. Is that an over the top statement? Do you want me to find the ´facts´? If that is the case then you are in the wrong room. I want you to feel this on a soul level. Look around you. What do you see and feel when you observe other men going through the motions every damn day? What has this done to our sense of power? Are the men and women overseas really fighting for ´freedom´ or are they handing over their power to the grim reapers of the corporatocracy?

All of this makes me feel a sadness in my heart. We have allowed ourselves to be divided and conquered. However, to make this an us versus them only puts us in the realm of victims. We are not victims. We are powerful beings who desperately desire to remember what we have forgotten. Even the men who are ¨in control¨ are no different than you and I. We are all brothers in need of a community of love. Individually, you need to feel your own responsibility in continuing the story that I mentioned in my last blog. What part do you play? Only then can you see what choices you can make to move from slave to sovereign.

The Industrial Age has had a huge impact on us as men in regards to our balls and our hearts. We are in a time of great change and upheaval. The control structure will try to hold on as long as possible but inevitably will collapse. This is where a vacuum is created. What will fill that empty space? Fanaticism or grounded, human leadership? A despot or a king? Looking at the world today it is hard to find a single example. We have a destiny together, you, I, and us . Rome is burning and what comes out of the ashes is totally up to us. I hope you will join me in creating another picture more humane and beautiful than the one I started out with.

The Fight for Equality: A Suffering Loop for Femininity

Published on by Kasha Rosa

By Kathleen Calder

Sad businesswoman

…the fight, in and of itself, is masculine in nature and energy and is in fact still placing men above us, keeping us in a suffering loop that we can not get out of.

Women’s suffrage and the political movements that accomplished many things, including women having the right to vote, were important without a doubt. This morning though, I find myself feeling deeper into this question of the inequality between genders and what the battle for women’s equality really feels to be about. I’m feeling in the moment that even calling it a “battle” is actually very masculine. I feel this is actually at the core of all our efforting to be regarded as equal to men…that the fight, in and of itself, is masculine in nature and energy and is in fact still placing men above us, keeping us in a suffering loop that we can not get out of. There are many ways in which trying to achieve a more masculine picture of ourselves actually keeps us down and in a dis-empowered state. Instead of advocating for what makes us different and standing in the power of that, so many of us are still “fighting” what needn’t be a fight at all. Perhaps it is time now for us, as women, to invite the men more into what makes us authentically feminine. We are softer, not weaker. Most hyper-masculine men could use more softness, more vulnerability and a deeper awareness of their own emotionality that has been buried under layers and layers of deep cultural and family conditioning. These are things that we as women, by nature, seem to be more aware of on our own, and yet so many of us try to be braver, tougher, stronger, smarter, all in terms of a false picture of what it means to be “powerful”, which is actually so inauthentic to us (and probably to most men too, if they really felt into it). Real bravery, strength and smarts needn’t come from a picture of what this means from a male perspective. The longer we hold this false image as a benchmark, the longer we will be suffering.

I get and have felt inside myself that within the majority of women there is a deep soul-wounding that comes from many lives of persecution in one way or another, usually with men at the helm leading as the primary persecutors. I would love for us to feel into why we want to do the same sports, receive accolades for similar achievements, lead the same politics and organizations, or have the same role in the family as men. We have different capacities inside ourselves, making us different, not lesser than, this doesn’t look or smell the same as the men we behold on the TV and in our personal lives. Also, why do we want to bend over backwards in order to please men with how we look? I’m not saying I advocate for dressing down on a regular basis and refusing to shave your legs, but I do feel there is a more healthy, much more balanced way to even feel our own attractiveness.

I am still working with a part of me that is self-conscious and sometimes very hard on herself for how we look. There is still some self-image that I am working through with her and some of my other parts, which extends into what they feel makes a woman attractive in many areas. It has been important for me to feel the attention and validation I didn’t get from my father, a key man in my life. Without my dad giving me the love and attention I deserved and needed as a growing young woman, I had a couple years of a more masculine approach in my relationship to men and sex. This is just one example of wounding in my heart that has led to a deep lack of self-worth and decisions that have stemmed from that, often unconsciously in an effort for men to finally “see” me. All part of me wanted was for dad to see me, underneath it all. For a man or even a woman to call me out on what wasn’t really me and also on the ways in which I was fighting my own femininity. With SoulFullHeart, I have finally found men and women who call me back to my heart, and so often the mystery of what is actually real in my heart arises anew again and again, in the shape of desires, wounds, and who I really am in my essence.

I would like to leave you with what Jillian has said a number of times – what the world needs right now, in this state of our evolution, is more Divine Feminine consciousness. This means, in part, more men and women embracing what authentic femininity is. Really it feels to be an arising mystery, but there is something about stepping into this unknown territory that is mystical and feminine in and of itself. What I have felt so far in my own journey with this is that being feminine does not mean that everything is soft and fluffy, though there is definite softness and strength within it. There is also a spine and a fire, yet it is not the same as the male spine and fire. The truth is too, that we need men in their essence to contrast with ours in order to find what true femininity is – embracing a partnership and collaboration between genders for co-empowerment instead of reinstating a power struggle that has lasted for centuries.

Kathleen Calder has been embracing the SoulFullHeart Way of Life since January, 2012. Go here to read more of her writing and visit soulfullheart.com for more information about SoulFullHeart.

A Son’s Ending, A Man’s Beginning

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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Male By Birth; Men By Journey

By Wayne Vriend

I originally wrote the following piece in March, 2010, and published it on a previous blog. I wanted to share it again as healing the wounds between men and their fathers (whether possible in person or in spirit) is so foundational and critical to our healing into authentic male expression.

***

It had been over two and half years and I had not been back since the day of the funeral, until today.

I took myself, my backpack, my umbrella and a piece of plastic to sit on and set myself down, right on top of the grave. I was reminded of the times I was too young to remember of sitting on Dad’s stomach. I felt welcome and belonging here now. I snugged my umbrella over me as the rain was lightly falling.

I unloaded the green stemmed purple crocus potted plant with the fuchsia wrapping, that I had purchased on the way out, in front of the headstone. The light rain was opening their blooms. The colors of it all fit well with the maroon color of the headstone, which I took in for the first time. The front read simply ‘VRIEND,’ and on top ‘Jim Vriend 1934-2007,’ and ‘safe now in the arms of Jesus,’ and ‘Loving husband, father and grandfather.’

I looked at the photo of my dad in his early seventies attached to the wrought iron prop. He had bright blue eyes and a boyish alive playful happiness. Here is where we rested his body, committed it back to the earth, in solemnity, in ritual, with hymns of the church and a homily of remembrance. We all stood that day. Today, I sat down, on the earth, and remained there for the better part of two hours.

My father had attended church every week of his life, and felt a palpable connection to God, and remained his entire life not too far from the safety and comfort of his family upbringing. I’d often chafed with him in my desire and decision to explore beyond the bounds of safety. I’d often tried to be nice and not so antagonistic and hoped in exchange that he’d see my soul for who I am, in the hope I could see more of myself. I always felt crazy for not being able to overcome the wall between us.

Today, however, I felt the wall was dissolved between us, like it had simply never been.

I breathed in and out the incense I had lit that was wafting in my face. I read aloud the words again before me: ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus.’  I said, “Dad, how I longed to feel safe in your arms.”  His pained eyes felt my pain, and bouncing shoulder sobs shook me. My pain mingled with his pain for the joy he missed in not knowing me in this way, and for his not being known by his father in this way.

For the first time, the anguish became ours.

I shared with him a piece of treasured driftwood I brought and a jade stone, both of which reminded me of his love and familiarity for the earth. He accepted them with an ocean of gratitude, and we shared eye to eye tears over the gifts we had not up until now been permitted to give and receive.

The rain subsided along with my tears and I set aside my umbrella and jacket.  I said to the spirit of my father, “Dad, so much of my life, even to this day, has been shaped by the attempt at trying to feel your deep approval, your love, and admiration.”

He paused, and then replied in a cadence and tone that contained the world, “Son, I can tell you with everything that I am now, I have never ever met a man that I esteem higher than you, in fact you are truly my hero.” The genuineness of his heart and words I ingested easily, and my tears now were of deep gratitude.

The differences in our beliefs and choices in so many areas of life did not even require a debriefing here in the domain of heart and spirit where beliefs often only serve as a wall of protection and alienation.

I paused to drink some of the coffee and eat the bar I had brought with me, not wanting the host in him to fuss.

Eventually I said, through tears, “Dad, I’ll be 49 this year. I’m again embracing more change, and letting go of securities. I know I need to keep food on the table, but living for a job, and a mortgage is not what I am here for. I need to find new courage and I want to ask your help. Dad, will you help me?’

I waited until I felt his response and then let my voice carry his voice through mine, “Son, I would be so honored, and I will do everything in my power to show you, to guide you, to cheer you on in the choices you make.” In the tears that wouldn’t stop, I was able to feel some of the reason we’d been so unable to connect in this life and to give way to the connection I’d need with him now.

The coffee was moving through me, and I didn’t think the cemetery workers across the way would have an issue with me taking a side trip to the bushes. I relieved myself and returned and sat down again, digesting all that had moved in a matter of minutes.

My last visit with my father had been in the hospital, with warm smiles, small talk that differed little from any other visit, and no mention of his soon passing. I felt his true joy at seeing me. The young boy in me was struck by the weakness in his body and the bruising on his arms and legs, a sad contrast from the man I had always admired for his strength. Then his tone and focus changed, sitting up in his bed and with fore finger tapping the hospital table like a pulpit, he exclaimed, “I’m not the one who instituted the family,” reminding me what the Bible teaches about family, and referring to my recent distance from family. I knew he meant well, but I felt the gulf between us and our values (since I had left Christianity a few years earlier along with my marriage) as uncrossable. I kept the visit short and we exchanged back tapping hugs, “I love you,” and “I love you too.” And, I left, aching for so much more.

Here though, perched on his grave, there was no awkwardness, no taboo subjects, no inabilities to simply ask for what we wanted from each other, no fear of our angst, no withholding of our forgiveness and our apologies. There was just love that filled the space that gave rise and fall to words to assist the love.

It was evident we had both taken in all we could.

I remembered singing his favorite hymn “Amazing Grace” at the funeral. I sang a few lines now as I gathered up my things and got up. As I took in the scene and caught my breath, I realized that my dad and I had just met for the first time. I said to him, “Yeah, Dad, grace really is amazing.’

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