“Father Sky” is an ancient archetype for naming the Sacred Masculine or the Divine Masculine. It is found among indigenous peoples such as Natives of South America who have a saying: “To be human one must make room in one’s heart for the wonders of the universe.” And it is found among many religions including the people of the Bible, Jews, Christians and Muslims.
But the modern era shut down “Father Sky,”–indeed it left the term practically meaningless when we were told the Sky was dead, inert and a cold machine. It therefore left the male heart bereft and potentially more violent, for men had no place to invest their sky-sized hearts and souls, feelings of outrage and feelings of joy and beauty.
D. H. Lawrence sensed this when he wrote:
What a catastrophe, what a maiming of life when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox! This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table.
What happens when cosmology is replaced by psychology? When cosmic connections are displaced by shopping malls and television trivia? The heart shrivels. Men’s souls shrink. And untold violence goes through their heads.
It was not always this way. Nor does it always have to be this way because today’s post-modern cosmology opens the sky up again to amazing goings on, and in the process invites men and women to rediscover the Sacred Masculine.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 3f.
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A painted sky of wonder. Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
Have you made room yet in your heart for the wonders of the universe? What follows from that? If not, what can assist you to do so? Has Hubble telescope helped? Might the Webb telescope assist you?
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
21 thoughts on “How Father Sky Opens the Door of the Heart to the Sacred Masculine”
As an empathic person, the opening expansion of making room in the heart, a heart that senses the collective heart of humanity, is sometimes for me personally rather painful. Sometimes, during engaging with these DMs, like yesterday for example, in referencing the movie Don’t Look Up, which I watched, even though I know it was a satire, brought me to tears and feelings of deep sadness. I had difficulty letting this go and letting this be, and was left quite disturbed by the experience.
So my question is, as an empath, how do I continue to keep my heart open and move through what I sense… to let this go and let this be, in order to expand my heart further to experience the awe and wonder yet to follow from this? How do I positively, and creatively transform the energy I’m experiencing within this opening expansion of my heart, to the awe and wonder, without getting stuck in the Via Negativa?
Jeanette, The short answer is to move from the Via Negativa on to the Via Transformativa. Meister Eckhart said that the seeds we plant in contemplation, are reaped in a harvest of action. The only thing that will move us out of the Via Negativa is acts of justice-making…
I often think I have absolutely no wisdom to pass on to others or to myself, but I do believe that you are asking a very good question, Jeanette. So, ignore my response if it is not helpful. I hope others have more wisdom to offer. In the past, I often asked myself the same question; and the answer I got from one therapist was that at times I need to protect my heart, to put some boundaries in place. I have learned to do so, and I don’t really know if that is to my detriment or my benefit. It does seem to make it easier to navigate the world. I am a “four” (the Romantic or the Individualist) on the Enneagram. I have become aware that my pattern is to interpret the world through my feelings. That can make me more vulnerable than I would like. The path of a “four” is to learn the virtue of equilibrium, which means being balanced and allowing oneself to be engaged with one’s emotions without being swept away or overwhelmed by them and recognizing that what is here in the present moment is sufficient.”* I am only speaking from my own experience, but somehow understanding my pattern and my goal (the four’s virtue) helps me to accept the present moment. It also helps to be a playwright and poet and express myself through my writings, as you do in yours.
*from https://www.enneagram.is/enneagram-type-4
Michelle, thank you for your helpful comment. I have started to learn how to set healthy boundaries for myself, taking the sacred space that I need to process… and my spiritual journaling has also helped me learn to do this in a more balanced way, as opposed to being overwhelmed by what I’m sensing, feeling and intuiting. As an empath, it’s difficult at times to spiritually discern what’s mine and what is another’s emotional energy, or that of the collective… since we are all interconnected in one heartedness. I found the words within your comment, “what is here in the present is sufficient,” to be a helpful reminder that the Holy Spirit can help me with learning to transform this energy through the Sacred Heart of Divine Love, trusting that the archetype of the Universal Mother is compassionate and merciful with me in these moments, helping to alleviate all that I feel within my own heart, that of others and the collective. I appreciate your honest, vulnerable and generously supportive comments.
Just one more comment, if you please. Yesterday I made reference to the return of the prodigal son. In this painting by Rembrandt, in the upper right corner, hidden within the shadows, that most people never see, is the image of a woman, observing and holding space for the encounter of the son and the father. In my previous comment posted today, this for myself, represents the Sacred heart of the Divine Feminine archetype, as an empath, as one whom assists in someway, the expansion of the Sacred heart of the Divine Masculine to release what needs to be let go of, in order to embrace and receive the healing, transformative unconditional loving acceptance of the father. I just wanted to share this image, so that you would understand where I am coming from, and how challenging opening and expanding the heart can be for an empathic person.
The prodigal son realized that he had impoverished himself by wasting his inheritance much as today the toxic masculine is being forced to realize the consequences of his lifestyle that has polluted the natural world on which he depends for life itself. Mother/Wisdom was waiting in the shadows for this moment.
There have been many warnings along the way, like D. H. Lawrence after WWI writing the Fantasia of the Unconscious in which he warns: “We’ve got to rip the old veil of a vision across, and find what the heart really believes in, after all: and what the heart really wants for the next future. And we’ve got to put it down in terms of belief and of knowledge. And then go forward again, to fulfillment in life and art.” Matthew brings this all together in his DM today. His introduction of D. H. Lawrence reminds me of how radically astonished I was when reading his book as a very young undergraduate in the 1960s.
Jeanette, Thank you for being so open with us…
Absolutely brilliant DM today, Matthew! Thank you!
For me the strongest experience of the wonders of the universe is when I’m looking at something that washed up from the ocean and I cannot identify it, sometimes not even whether it’s animal or plant. I can hardly believe or comprehend what I’m looking at and yet there it is. Such moments somehow generate joy and excitement of a very deep kind, it can move me to tears, and I feel like I bumped into someone and we briefly locked eyes and it was the cosmos itself!
I often think I have absolutely no wisdom to pass on to others or to myself, but I do believe that you are asking a very good question, Jeanette. So, ignore my response if it is not helpful. I hope others have more wisdom to offer. In the past, I often asked myself the same question; and the answer I got from one therapist was that at times I need to protect my heart, to put some boundaries in place. I have learned to do so, and I don’t really know if that is to my detriment or my benefit. It does seem to make it easier to navigate the world. I am a “four” (the Romantic or the Individualist) on the Enneagram. I have become aware that my pattern is to interpret the world through my feelings. That can make me more vulnerable than I would like. The path of a “four” is to learn the virtue of equilibrium, which means being balanced and allowing oneself to be engaged with one’s emotions without being swept away or overwhelmed by them and recognizing that what is here in the present moment is sufficient.”* I am only speaking from my own experience, but somehow understanding my pattern and my goal (the four’s virtue) helps me to accept the present moment. It also helps to be a playwright and poet and express myself through my writings, as you do in yours.
*from https://www.enneagram.is/enneagram-type-4
The other night, Neil DeGrasse Tyson was talking on TV about the James Webb Space Telescope and he referred to the sky as “the cosmic cathedral.” Perhaps if we use this turn of phrase whenever we gaze at the night sky, it will remind us of our place in the universe and how, entering this space and gazing up, we would do well to nightly stand in awe.
Michele, Thank you. I like the whole idea of “The cosmic cathedral!” And maybe Matthew could be the Bishop of that Cathedral!
Sounds good to me Richard. 🙂
We believe the illusion that we’ve woven for ourselves. We think ourselves separate, independent, self-supreme. When the spell is broken and the walls fall, the universe welcomes us home. And then we find even more. This is the truth of every atom, every trace of energy, near and infinite.
Awe is waiting for you in every moment.
A dear old friend who has since walked on once called me a “warrior”. Before I could interrupt and say I did not have the makings of a “warrior”, he explained that he meant in the sacred sense of “en Christo”. I was humbled in agreement and still am, in gratitude as well. }:- a.m.
I appreciate the wisdom that is being shared in this circle and a special shout out to that poem shared two days ago that had a “Wow” response and then a “double Wow” response. I can’t respond regularly because, well, the dm is not my only job and preparing the dm takes a lot of time already. But I want to respond to (not answer) the question about what to do with the hurting heart and empathatic heart. I like Joanna Macy’s teaching that “when the heart breaks, the whole universe can flow through.” A heart break is not necessarily a negative thing–painful and disturbing–but not necessarily negative. It opens us up, it is another way to grow a larger heart (just as joy is). But it is a very vulnerable time and we need support and listeners along the path. We all have to have our hearts broken as we face extinction and this can grow our hearts and minds and eject us from the anthropocentrism and narcissism (Pope Francis’s word) that is killing us all. From the VN comes the VC and VT. From the dark night comes the new dawn. For grief practice, I recommend a drum, beat it 15 minutes per day and let whatever sounds from our 3rd chakra come out that want to come out. Grace flows when grief is given the attention it requires and that practice from shamanic times is a medicine for honoring grief.
Mathew. Thank you so much for your comments, with regards to my question today, especially your words from Joanna Macy’s teachings, “When the heart breaks the whole universe flows through,” and that this although painful and disturbing at times, is not necessarily a negative thing, but rather a way of the heart expanding, opening even further. I will also heed your advice about drumming through this energy in motion. Your wise comments make me less afraid to remain vulnerably open in heart to whatever I am experiencing, encountering and intuiting as an empath.
Thank you for your wisdom and compassion.
Beautiful meditation Matthew! Recently I’ve been reviewing the evolutionary spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin with the help of the writings and videos of Ilia Delio and her website, Christogenesis.org
You also had some good meditations on Teilhard in your archives of past videos which I’m sure your readers will also enjoy reviewing.
Blessings for the New Year!
Damian, thank you for the words you place on the opening page of your website. It beautifully and simply explains the path to replacing the concept of a punitive god with what can happen when we make the choice to embrace the God that must be considering the gorgeous universe that God created. Your words:
“The spiritual journey is dying to the old, wounded, false self in order to be spiritually healed and transformed into our True Self, Loving communion-in-God,
with Faith in God’s Living/Loving Presence
in grace and Divine Spirit
of Love/Light/Life/Peace…”
Thank you, Matthew, for your caring, thoughtfulness, and respect for all of us. That’s Love in action.
Life is the expression of the devine. It is experential conciousness. The material world is dualitistic. The yin and yang, in the ancient chinese symbol of life, demonstrates this dualism; with the seed of each blending into the other. Utilize any interpretaion of this symbol, lightness vs. darkness, love vs. hate, good vs. bad. The light, love and good lifts the spirit and the darkness, hate and bad tempers the soul. In order for the material world we live in to exist, you need the dualism of opposites in order for your human senses to function. Without darkness you wouldn’t experience light, Without hate you wouldn’t experience love. Without bad you wouldn’t experience good. In order to experience nothing but the positive you have to become totally enlightened and feel nothing but God. About the best most of us can do is experience partial enlightenment periodically and a touch of God. Our enlightment is a spritual evolution a transformation. Hopefully holding our awareness within the moment will eventually get us and humanity to the oneness and wholeness within the spirit of God.