Our times are dire, even apocalyptic. Millions in America today actually are committed to destroying democracy which, though flawed, seems to offer the best hope for survival as a community. The earth is warming up to the point of no return and many corporations we have spawned run essentially on unbridled greed which means all other species are paying a severe price.
(Witness the latest oil spill in the news, this one in southern California. Or the news that mighty AT&T has sunk millions into a radical right station whose goal is to destroy democracy.)
Women and men alike need to wake up and grow up fast as time is running out for homo sapiens, just as it did for all our previous hominid cousins, nine of which we have now named. We are the last ones standing. Will we be standing 100 years from now?
Growing up means, among other things, tapping into our deepest resources such as love and forgiveness, justice and compassion on the one hand; and putting our considerable intelligence and creativity into responding to the moment with useful science and technology.
It also means we learn to balance anew the healthy masculine and divine feminine in our souls and institutions including education, law, economics, business, religion, politics.
How can men in particular grow up and touch what is hidden even from ourselves?
As a species, we can no longer be stuck in our adolescence. Growing up spiritually means we can no longer afford to be stuck in puerile religion or puerile anti-religion.
We need to explore ancient wisdom and deep teachings about the Sacred Masculine and how we touch it and how it touches us and brings us in line with the Sacred Feminine.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. xiii, xv.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: Meditating in the womb of Earth Mother, Zion National Park, Utah. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you sense that men are eager to awaken their sacred masculine, their deeper selves, in response to the challenges of our times? How best to do this?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
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10 thoughts on “Inviting Men to Their Deeper Selves”
Thank you Mathew for sharing your personal dream. Its a dream that inspires hope, encouragement and exhortation of whats possible. In these desperate, chaotic and crisis times, your dream helps me remember that which is necessary in balancing beauty and goodness, wisdom and strength, the inner and outer marriage of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred masculine harmoniously Oned With nature, the nature of creation and also the true nature of our humanity. This is a celebration that I want to be apart of, in my journey as well.
Jeanette, I too am impressed by Matthews dream and how it imaged the Divine Feminine (elephant) and the Sacred Masculine (tiger). As they say, “a picture says a thousand words.”
Matthew’s very powerful dream on Mount Madonna reminds me of the many ‘Forwards’ of YouTube videos I have received in recent years showing various animal and bird species interacting with each other, many times in ways of affection or protection of each other. These live videos seem to show that the boundary between species isn’t fixed, and occasionally gives way to an interaction within the diversity of species. The videos reminded me of the Isaiah prophecies “The lion will lay down with the lamb” 11:6 and “The wolf will graze with the lamb” 65:25. So far I haven’t seen a video of a snake embracing its prey. Perhaps this says something about our ‘reptilian brain’.
And Gwen, I’m looking forward to the time when the “The wolf will graze with the lamb and the elephant will lay down with the tiger…”
Patriarchy must die!
Only when men allow their minds to drop down into their hearts will they discover the wisdom and nurture of their divine feminine identity in Divine LOVE (God). Herein lay the key to climate damage, social unrest and more. }:- a.m.
What a beautiful dream and message, Matthew. As I think about where we are as a species–one that has not yet learned to grow in ways that merge the sacred masculine and divine feminine, I am reminded of something my pastor at First Christian Church of Orange (Disciples of Christ) once said from the pulpit. “When we look for the missing link between the ape and the human, maybe it is us.”
Michele, I attended the same church at one time, and was a fellow United Church of Christ minister with Rev. Mike Holland…
Beautiful dream Matthew! Can’t wait to finish your book, “The Hidden Spirituality of Men,” which I enthusiastically recommend to my ‘spiritual brothers’. My fortunate problem is that you’ve written so many good books, that I have trouble keeping up with them. I’m sure you’ve been told that a Jungian interpretation of your dream is that you’re integrating the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine in your own soul (witch is true) and all of Creation is celebrating! God bless and thank you again from all your ‘spiritual brothers and sisters’ for your life contributions to our spiritual journeys!!!
I Truly believe we all receive a major dream in our life from our sleep time, that wakens us for the rest of it. I can confess to that. And more than likely it will include an other than human species to bridge the gap we’ve created in the web of all life. Thank you Matthew for “ hounding” the daylights out of our capitalistic overshoot.
So glad our lifetimes coincided. Be well.
Annette, when you speak of major dreams , I am also reminded of the “Big Dream” that Matthew recorded in the beginning of his book, THE COMING OF THE COSMIC CHRIST–“Your Mother is Dying…” Check it out !