We have spoken of virtue or integrity or the living out of worthy values (virtue, after all is a habit; and vices are too) as being integral to the sacred masculine.
Integral also to the sacred masculine is a welcoming and celebration of the divine feminine and the qualities that go with that. We shall discuss this “sacred marriage” of the divine feminine and sacred masculine in an upcoming DM.
But now we want to focus on the first archetype that bespeaks the sacred masculine and invites us all, men and women alike, on board. I am speaking of Father Sky. Especially since we are in the Epiphany season where the Sky plays such a big role in guiding spiritual seekers called magi to a special birthplace and birth event.
And because humanity recently launched an infrared telescope into the sky that has the potential to look back 13.8 billion years almost to the origins of the universe itself. Father Sky seems to be beckoning us in a special way at this time in history.
A recent film, Don’t Look Up, provides much-needed satire about how dumb and obstinate and preoccupied with trivia and inviting of death and extinction humans can be as they refuse to look up into the sky to see an approaching asteroid that can kill everything on the planet. The power of denial therefore (as in climate denial; or in denial that January 6, 2021 unleashed a potential death-threat to democracy that has been very much coursing through the veins of America’s body politic ever since).
This very much reinforces the insight of Adrienne Rich, that patriarchy teaches “fatalistic self-hatred.” The toxic masculine preaches a fatalistic self-hatred that can easily get projected onto others and certainly onto democracy itself.
To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. xxiii-xxvii, 221-248.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: “Christmas Kings.” Image by geralt on Pixabay.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you feel Father Sky is beckoning us in a new way at this time in history? Why might that be? Might that move men to move beyond ego and narcissism to something larger and more awesome by which to guide our lives?
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
15 thoughts on “The Sacred Masculine & Father Sky”
Matthew’s reference to Francis Bacon, one of the great philosophers…said we are “to torture Mother Earth for her secrets”… reminds me of my 2016 poem: RANT OF A BLEEDING HEART PACIFIST
Little Boy / Fat Man
Gestated and birthed in
bunkered dark hearts
Having forgotten His warning
“Live by the sword, die by the sword”
Marching full forward to
Live by the gun
With grave consistency to
Live by the Bomb
Seeding Mother Earth with landmines
bathing her in agent orange
proliferating toxic concoctions to
torture Her with serial test
blasts bursting in air then
undeterred by dissenters
explode their ordinance in
Her undefiled womb
Pumped up Warriors
blind to wasting devastation
deaf to myriad persistent Peaceniks
stockpiling position papers on the
scrapped ‘Peace Dividend’
Dark money fuela steady mission
creep with arms for every man while
bunker banks offer no Marshall
plan for rubbled cities spawning
dark hooded Avengers with nothing
to lose while Veterans are deployed
for adoption like orphans in
otherwhere wastelands
Democracies degrade in ticking down
time while aging ordinance buried
alive in decaying silos manned by
bored recruits threatens the hinterland
with home/grown blowback
Then unexpected – but no surprise –
Little Boy and Fat Man appear on
myriad virtual screens all flushed
with their Infernal Power
displaying phallic metallic arsenals
fitted with infinite payloads while
nations egg each other on
in a joint MAD mission
>>>>>>
premature ejaculation
<<<<<<
Gang Bang Mother Earth in
Reel / Real Time while the
World holds its breath….
WOW!
I have just edited a “premature ejaculation” to read:
“Pre-Mature E-Jock Elation”
I have Elisabet Sahtouris’s view in mind when she suggests that our species has just reached puberty….
Double WOW! Sadly, the anti-nuclear forces have been diminished over the decades, but a brave few are still at work and being imprisoned for it. The Kings Bay Plowshares include Dorothy Day’s granddaughter and Fr. Berrigan’s widow. https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/
Sometimes, we need to change the archetypal story we tell ourselves, about a particular archetype; in order to return to a more mature relationship with this archetype. This return involves the wonder of something new, coming alive within humanity and our part within the larger story of the all and the everything. This something new, as Mathew has been teaching within these daily meditations is about the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine, and the union with and of this, within the collective consciousness of humanity.
What I see within this is the story of the prodigal son, unfolding within the collective, on a cosmic level… how humanity in particular through the archetype of the unbalanced masculine, has squandered away the inheritance given… and the effects of this upon oneself, others and the all and the everything. However, there remains a hunger, a thirst, for a return home to one’s true origins… a rediscovery of relationship with this archetype of Father Sky and what this new story has to tell.
I am also seeing how the archetypal story of the prodigal son represents the deep desire to be healed.
Jeanette, Good point with the archetypal story of the Prodigal Son…
The replys have given me hope and also a voice. Blessings and gratitude to all.
Such a strange week indeed for our family as we noted the 6th of January infamy coinciding with Epiphany. Our oldest son is a professor of physics and astronomy, also the Director of our university’s planetarium. He’s been narrating The Mystery of Christmas Star for several weeks now. In him as professor and athlete, but also loving husband and father, I see the divine sacred masculine, and I am grateful that I’ve been enabled by LOVE to model the same for my family.
#Gratitude
What gifts you have given and continue to do so!
Thank you Matthew for your profound and needed meditations on reconstructing the Sacred Masculine archetype and thereby trying to heal and co-Create with the Divine Feminine our destructively historic patriarchy and toxic masculinity that continuous to grow in our modern perilous times….
“Don’t Look Up” is a powerful satire, as Matthew says, the result of refusing to see, a perfect example of fatalistic self-hatred that can only end one way. Thank God for Matthew and others who are providing healthy ways of seeing and doing.
I just finished watching Don’t Look Up. I’m left weeping….. my heart is breaking…. why does the prophetic voice invoke the dark night of the soul… in hopes of awakening… yet all I feel is such deep pain and utter sadness. Are you, the prophetic voice aware of what you post and how it effects others, other than perhaps what was intended or hoped for?
I was struck today by Matthew’s emphasis on the “dominator” aspect of patriarchy. Jesus challenged his disciples not to “lord it” over each other but rather to serve each other with love. So I think we are called to love and not lordship!
Michael, Good point!