The Masculine and the Feminine

Let us begin then. It is an excellent exercise to pay attention to the origins of your thoughts, giving them voice, and hearing their points of view. Listening to these inner voices may generate a certain amount of amazement and wonder, as well as appreciation for that which they hold within you. They may surprise your waking "I" consciousness with their clarity, determination, strength, and points of view.

As a male, broadening your perspective of identity to even acknowledge that the male has a feminine side can be revealing. It is not something only the transvestites and cross dressers know. What would it be like for the males in your society to realize they have a feminine side to their being? Say to the degree of any female you see walking down the street. And of course the reverse is true.

You are simply too vast for any one set of clothing or cloaks to be the totality of your being. There are simply too many energies within you, which you are, and which have a unique divine expression. Personality is quite the collage.

In the past, in some of our guided meditations we have used the image of a wardrobe. As you gaze into that wardrobe, what clothes to do you see hanging there? There may be clothes from many lifetimes represented in the closet. As you adorn yourself, or put on a piece of clothing, there is the potential for remembering a life you lived, and the qualities that you chose to embody. Does not each life, and each life lived in its great variations, offer you unique divine experiences?

If you were only to live life/lives as a male, how much would you be missing. Quite literally, it would be like cleaving yourself in half, and only living from half of your beingness. You would not be whole, and yet each personality in a particular life feels whole, complete. That is because the essence of who you are is embodied in every aspect of your being, even though it may choose to limit and funnel its consciousness through a particular set of qualities for a lifetime in order to enhance, articulate, expand, and develop those qualities within itself.

You have many voices, many characters, many parts, many faces, if you will. Having a lifetime where you choose to become more aware of who you are, rather than solely focusing on the male attributes as an example, is also exploring your beingness. A psyche that embraces both its masculine and feminine sides in a lifetime is exploring unity and harmony in how these two seemingly very different expressions of personality and beingness can coexist. This usually happens after many lifetimes of being both.

We could use the image of the pendulum with masculine-masculine being one end of the spectrum, and feminine-feminine being the other. We don't wish to step on any one's toes, but symbolically speaking your big robust masculine men with a great deal of physicality and competitive energy can represent the masculine-masculine qualities. You can find your own examples of personalities who represent a more feminine masculine expression, and of course the same is true for the feminine. You live many lives embracing the full spectrum of the masculine and feminine , exploring and integrating all these various aspects of your being.

There is a sacred union which takes place, a rejoining-uniting of the masculine and feminine after being separated. This is generally a most significant crossroads in the development of the soul/personality. A demarcation point, and a reintegration of all that you have gained and learned through the process of separation and incarnation. Of course it does not end there. It is simply at that point, you begin to draw upon the energies and consciousness of both the masculine and the feminine, not rejecting one or the other, but able to use the strengths and attributes of each.

At this point, I would say the male and female are delighted to find the opposite voice within them. The feminine is delighted to find her voice and recognition within the male. And as well, the female is delighted to find the male voice, and recognize the masculine within them, or you could say the masculine finds his voice within the female.

For as you know, when an energy or part is judged against and suppressed, then the events in your exterior world and your relationships are going to mirror those judgments.

As an example, if you are a man and you do not get along with the feminine within you, or hear its voice and know its value, then in some way that will be reflected in your relationships with women and how you value them. One of the ways that judgment may be reflected back to you is, How do you feel valued by women? Or, How do you feel perceived by them? It quickly get complicated, does it not?

The male-female relationship is an ancient script, and one which is seeking to be healed. There are multiple layers. The thought that is crossing your mind which illustrates one of the layers is, how the women's movement began to give voice to the feminine in a patriarchal society. Once again the masculine, or that aspect of consciousness, not wishing to hear what the feminine has to say. Another example is the saying, "children are to be seen and not heard". The masculine not wishing to hear about its own vulnerability. The power side not wishing to be vulnerable.

Governments (representing primarily the masculine power side) and societies spend a great deal of money on their military and power side in order not to be vulnerable. This is not a judgment as to the purpose or significance of a military force in your country at this time. Rather it is a discussion about personality and masculine/feminine attributes. We do not endorse judgment on that level. Rather we suggest practicing compassion and understanding for all parts and aspects of your being. We hope that practice will bring a certain amount of illumination, perspective, then choice about how you wish to create yourselves, and what your motivations are for that which you are creating. This will lead to a great deal of wisdom.

Well that is about it for this afternoon. Again, attuning, listening, striving, seeking, and integrating that which you learn into your exterior world. Reality, the ultimate application of all that you are. What you have mastered here in your physical reality is yours for eternity. That is not to say that you eternal self is not always present and full in its own right. Of course it is. Souls, monads, and Deity also evolve and grow, within their absolute nature. A bit of conundrum for western thinking. Let us say three Oms together for All That Is.

Edited from October 2003

Through and by Raymond

Sometimes the events in my life are a starting place for a channeling. The channelings look at the issues contained within an event from a lager perspective, and are not comments about the incidents that occur in my life. I feel the particular event that was a catalyst for this channeling had to do with a comment a fellow racquetball player made to me one evening.

I am an intermediate level player, and enjoying playing with the other beginner to advanced players who show up on a regular basis. For the most part, people are friendly and we all enjoy getting some exercise as well as improving our game.

There is one fellow who is very competitive. In my opinion and others, his playing does not follow the etiquette of the game, and he is generally very unsportsmanlike in his behavior. He is a physically large and verbally loud man. His attitude toward the game might be described as "annihilate your opponent as quickly as possible".

Over time, it became increasingly more difficult to play with this person. It got to the point that I was very uncomfortable playing with him. If I won, he would walk off the court without the general courtesy of a handshake, and the acknowledgment of "good game" as is the general custom. If he won, he gloated and acted superior. The more often I won, the worse his tactics became during following games, until he once again won.

Walking off the court after loosing a game one day, I forcefully told him he had to stop hindering my play. He had to give me an opportunity to hit the ball without blocking or obstructing my path to the ball. His response was to the effect: "Quit your complaining. If I was too much of a sissy to play the game, I should go home and get my skirt." I was amused by his comment, but I hardly felt my request for fair and equitable play had anything to do with the feminine.

I did not think this person would be someone I would seek out to become a friend, or who's company I would enjoy. At the same time, I did not feel the need to polarize against him, or degrade him in some way. I just didn't enjoy his etiquette on the court. I realized he symbolized the "intense competitor" for me. None the less, the incident was disturbing, as conflicts are.

For a very long, long time, mankind has felt and believed that winning is good and loosing is bad, and that our value and worth as a person is determined by winning, being better than another. To various degrees the winner has always been rewarded with fame, money, and success, while the looser is left behind, defeated. In the most extreme cases such as war, winning is life and losing is death, which is probably the root cause for the value we place on being the winner. It is power, and the power to defeat others. The scenario is mitigated in sports, but I think the reflection is still present.

One day when it was our turn to play again, I could feel in my stomach that I was very nervous about playing him. My vulnerability was up, and from my vulnerability's perspective, I did not want to play with this "brute". My vulnerability wanted to be safe. Rather magically, I found a side that went to bat for my vulnerability. I have never played so well. He never scored a point and I was off the court in a matter of minutes, the victor. I had annihilated my opponent. My vulnerability was safe.

As I was talking to a friend about the game, he said he liked to see the "asshole" get beat like that. That it would be gratifying to beat someone who has so much ego around winning. I didn't feel much gratification. What was amazing to me was my energy and focus, and what it felt like to rev up to that level. At that moment, I was glad I had the power within me to protect my vulnerability. It felt like the script, "annihilate other as quickly as possible". I just didn't want to have to relate to others or play the game from that place. My goal might be expressed as, play well and have fun, win or loose.

I remember a time as a child, approximately when I was in sixth grade, when my mother and I were playing Gin Rummy, a card game. During the game, she would throw me cards I needed so I could win. When I finally caught on, she said something like, "It makes you so happy to win". At that moment I understood that it brought her far more joy to see me happy, than to win the game herself.

During some racquetball games I realized I didn't want to win or beat my opponent badly, because they would feel bad about their game, and thus themselves. There was a part of me who wanted my opponents to have fun so the game was mutually enjoyable. I was not there just to defeat them. Of course another part enjoys winning, for all the obvious reasons.

The incident was still occupying my thoughts during my meditation the following day. During the meditation I heard the opinion of my feminine side on the incident. With a clarity and with a strength that I have rarely heard my feminine, she let me know under no terms whatsoever did she ever want me to play with that person again. There was absolutely no point to playing with him. It was not fun and it never would be. After repeated attempts by myself and others, there was no conversing with him to get him to understand what he was doing. There are plenty of other people to play with. Do not play with him again! The end!

Her voice was loud and clear, and there was a hint of a visual form that was perceptible with the voice. Many years ago, after a lengthy confrontation with a government agency, I could feel her presence within me. Up until the conclusion of the conflict, she had hidden, she was unperceivable so she wouldn't have to experience the situation. She dreaded the prolonged confrontation and all the effort and negative emotions that it had entailed.

However, at the conclusion when we actually won our case, briefly she emerged. She had never felt so powerful. She was amazed and delighted by us for having stood up for our rights, and not just rolling over to " the powers that be". She felt incredibly empowered and alive. She didn't know that she could feel this way. This was something new for her.

I feel these incidents illustrate the swing of the pendulum from masculine-masculine to feminine-feminine within myself. There is not one scenario that is appropriate for all situations. Rather, I am learning to hear their voices within me and to understand their points of views and their values. I am hopefully learning how to draw upon their energies, and not devalue, judge, or get polarized against those energies and how I meet their reflections in the world.

With the racquet ball player, I used my masculine-masculine to protect my vulnerability and annihilate him on the court. This is not the place I wish to engage others from on a regular basis. However, I still enjoy playing the game and improving my skills, which obviously involves a certain level of competitiveness. Nor do I accept the belief that my value as a person is associated with being the winner. My value as a person is not dependent upon "beating another", or upon external circumstances. My value as a person comes from being a "spark of God".

Using one stereotype image of the feminine-feminine, that quality can lead me down the path of being a victim. She never would have confronted the government agency in defending our rights. If she had led, our rights in regards to that situation would have been lost. It felt too awful to her to engage in all the confrontation. However, at the conclusion of the confrontation, she felt empowered and enlivened. Other parts had taken the lead, but as with any victim, when the suppression is lifted, and one's rights are protected and restored, there is a great sense of joy and triumph.

Neither end of the masculine-feminine spectrum is solely "negative or positive". In the case with my mother, her "feminine-feminine" had both a "positive and negative" expression. Her nurturing attribute to me as a child was a wonderful gift. However, she also had the tendency to "live through her children", and loose site of what else made her happy as an individual. I feel it is how we apply the masculine-feminine energies that makes them either beneficial or detrimental to our being.

The conclusion this fellow player and I have reached, is not to play. From his point of view, he did not enjoy me jumping all over him about his etiquette, and I do not enjoy the demeanor of his game. Racquetball has offered me opportunities to see several aspects of myself, and the energies and beliefs involved. A much bigger gift than any game I play.

By Raymond Wolf

November 2003