I'm not sure if this is the norm for most people, but I can't help but wonder if we'd all be a little better off if we could do these 2 things: 1.) avoid boxing ourselves and others into only one spiritual path of masculine or feminine and 2.) intentionally develop models of spiritual development that help us to nourish both aspects of our soul.
Lately I’ve been reading many of the existing models psycho-social-spiritual development, and comparing contrasting these models with my own personal experience of the spiritual life stages that I wrote about in this blog a week or so ago. This has been very helpful for me to locate myself in a larger context and to learn how others have done things before me. But at the same time, what was also somewhat disheartening to me, was to learn that many of these models are still largely superimposed by ideas defined by gender and sex, rather than that of masculine and feminine sensibilities that reside within all of us at varying degrees.
Firstly, it remains true that many of the traditional models of psycho-social-spiritual development are written by men with the arrogant and ignorant supposition that this quite masculine, linear, individualistic approach to god is a one size fits all deal. This, of course, is not surprising since that is what centuries of power and top down dominance will do, cause you to forget that your own narrow way is not The Way. The exact same argument could be made for the major religions of the world proselytizing their paths to god on the rest of us as The Way rather than embodying the Unitarian Universalist 4th principle which suggests an allowance for "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning."
On the other hand, there are also more recent models that pitch themselves as by women, for women. But for me, the models are equally problematic as they remain too narrowly focused toward the feminine. Referring to these differences in models of spiritual development based on gender or sex in A Woman's Journey to God Joan Borysenko writes sentences like "one way is no better than the other, just more suited to us by biology and development."
I have to say, I read that statement and I think, "what an unfortunate and overgeneralized statement to make" because it lessens the value of the feminine (not female) ideas for spiritual growth that would be beneficial to both men and women. Ideas like this also taken from A Woman's Journey to God:
"the circular process is more unplanned, unexpected, intuitive and irrational. It leaves room for God to change our path at any time and suggests that we are not always the 'doer.' Unseen forces and circumstances can provoke sudden transformation that comes through us, rather than from our own will."
Such a great statement...and don't you know both women and men who'd benefit from such a spiritual path?
It seems we have few role models for such a spiritual life that combines an intentionality toward the masculine and feminine, and I think that is because mistakes were made when these dualistic paradigms were attached to gender and sex- that just sold everybody short for centuries upon centuries up to and including this day.
So what can we do now? Four practices I do to nourish both the masculine and the feminine aspects of soul include:
1.) My yoga practice. I try to intentionally do yoga asanas on both sides (meaning if I do triangle pose on the left side, then I also do it on the right side). I try to blend poses that to me feel more masculine like Warrior II, Plank, Crow and Handstand with others that tap my feminine resources like Tree, Camel, Squat and Goddess. And then at the end of yoga I like to bring my two hands together in prayer and simultaneously touch my third eye and my heart.
2.) I try to balance moments of being and doing both at work and at home. I think sometimes working parents can default to the belief that doing (or masculine) is work and being (or feminine) is home family life. But anyone who has tried to get 2 children ready in the morning for daycare knows that that is certainly a myth. The trick, I think, is to have times (even if only for a brief 30 seconds to take in 3 long breaths) of both being and doing at work and at home each day.
3.) I'm working on leaving space for a nondualistic "other" which transcends the masculine and feminine. I recently went a professional training that talked about the importance of three modes (rather than two) when practicing psychotherapy (my personal vocation) of: Being, Doing, and a third, Flow. This suggestion has stayed with me as I try to remember that undoubtedly we as human beings are still at the very beginning of our own awakening to all that our species is capable of; masculine and feminine may be antiquated thinking in not that long a time.
And 4.) I like to read the spiritual autobiographies of others' and continue to research various models of spiritual development that define themselves as simultaneously earthy, intuitive, circular, and relational with space for the individual, the quest, and enlightenment. Then I like to try them out for myself.
I recently re-listened to an NPR radio interview with Joanna Macy, a self-described philosopher of ecology and a scholar of Buddhism who has published translations Rilke poetry; she is 86 years-old. In the interview she shared a part about her life when in her young 20’s, with small children, she was living abroad in Germany working for the CIA and she came uponThe Book of Hours by Rilke. She said, “I identified completely with it and I saw — it was just eight lines in that poem — that it could redefine that I was on a spiritual path.”
There are many aspects of the spiritual autobiography of Joanna Macy that I love, but I’ll describe just a two.
One aspect I admire is the simple fact that this an 86 year-old wise woman talking about her life as a “spiritual path" while also being a working mother. We absolutely need more role models, particularly female role models, who self-describe life in such a way, at least I do.
Which brings me to the second, I love that even though she is a woman who has had a spiritual awakening, her journey is not compartmentalized into simple dualistic boxes of masculine & feminine only. She described a career that she defined as "service," she was a parent, and she was open to a spiritual journey, all at the same time! Amazing!
There is also a sense of adventure in this woman’s life that combines the adventure of relational experiences like mothering 4 children, spending summers with grandparents on a farm in upstate New York, going to antinuclear weapons protest rallies with her adult son, as well as the adventure of living and getting educated in Europe, working for the CIA, being a Peace Corps Volunteer working with Tibetan refugees in India, and fighting nuclear power as a fierce activist. What a fantastic example of blending of masculine and feminine sensibilities!
But I don't think all of our lives have to be of a Joanna Macy-like scale to set the same intention. About a year ago I read Joan Anderson's spiritual autobiography called A Year by the Sea in which she shares her story of a more masculine solitary retreat to Cape Cod--not the CIA in Europe though she did also do the Peace Corps with her husband in Africa--that was steeped in individuation. But this very same masculine moment of spiritual unfolding was embedded in the feminine life cycle of midlife- in fact the subtitle is "Thoughts of an unfinished woman"-and it included earthbound moments like feeling a baptismal sense of return to self while swimming naked and alone with seals in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and being guided throughout the year through the wisdom of a Wise Woman.
I think sometimes it can feel daunting to imagine lives such as these, and it might even feel easier to just fall to one side of the masculine-feminine paradigm and say "that's just who I am." But I challenge you around this: just because it is difficult, don't ignore that piece of yourself that yearns for a deeper expression of itself.
For instance, if you find you are more drawn to or comfortable with (those are 2 different things!) the masculine spiritual practices, also be mindful to intentionally include the feminine, and vice versa. And of course if you are a woman, look out for not considering or pursuing what might be considered the masculine leg of the spiritual journey just because you imagine it as somehow ruled out or off limits. And for the men, be cautious that you don't act aversively to a stint on the feminine path just because of fear around internalized stigma and stereotype about what it means to be a male.
I mean, imagine if a woman named Cheryl Strayed had not followed her masculine calling to take a solitary trek on the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her parent and her divorce as depicted in the book The Wild which was recently made into a movie with Reese Witherspoon. Or on a larger scale, imagine what a loss it would have been if Ralph Waldo Emerson had only followed his friend Henry David Thoreau's more masculine spiritual journey of building cabins in the woods to live alone for a year, and had not participated in what I'd describe as the more relational feminine gathering of The Transcendentalists' Society which regularly brought a group of like-minded friends together (men and at least one woman named Margaret Fuller) for a time of being (not doing) in an exchange of ideas and comradie- aka a modern day women's Bookclub.
Now, I don't mean is not to imply that this balancing act of the masculine and feminine must be a 50-50 even Steven, as my grandmother used to say, split. Not, I will spend exactly 30 minutes doing something to cultivate my masculine side followed by 30 minutes on my feminine side, as we might in Pilates. It is more like a see-saw. There will be times of 80-20 or 60-40 or 99-1. But both are always present, always there, requiring varying amounts of mindful love and attention at any given time.
For example I love to imagine poet Mary Oliver in her self-described practices of spending hours upon hours walking the sandy dunes of Cape Cod by herself, notebook and pencil in hand, allowing herself to be enraptured by nature as it presented itself to her in the form of a heron, a field, a flower. To me this is a beautiful tapestry of masculine and feminine spiritual sensibilities.
I recently heard a musical term called counterpoint. In my non-musical laywoman's understanding, it is a musical approach that says you can combine more than one independent rhythm into the same piece of music that will also weave into an interdependent harmony. In other words, how much more interesting and dynamic could a piece of music be, or an individual life, if we cultivate and bring together these separate & unique threads, rather than trying to make everything just sound and look the same? We need masculine. We need feminine. We need both in our spiritual lives and development to embody god, who for certain is not limited to our oh-so-human tendency to put ourselves in teeny tiny boxes, I being no exception to that rule.
But let's agree to not do that- to try anyhow. We could be so much more if we allow ourselves to be as god made us, dualistic and all.
I am always looking for more ways of embracing the masculine and the feminine, what practices do you find helpful?
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