Dear Sisters,
In reflecting on the recent election, one significant issue is the role men played in electing a president more on the side of the Antichrist than the Christ archetype. Thus I have written three letters to men on the return of the healthy masculine.
I believe women have a stake—a huge stake—in men recovering their “hidden spirituality” or the sacred masculine.
After all, women are mothers to boys and friends, lovers and spouses to men. You are sisters, grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters and co-workers with men. Women would probably like men even more if men were fuller into their spiritual potential.
Spirituality is about working out of our depths and not out of our superficial selves–which is one reason the spirituality of men is often hidden, the depths of most things are hidden. It takes some digging to get to our depths. As Meister Eckhart, put it, “the ground of the soul is dark.” To understand the men in your lives and encourage the best in them you would be smart to encourage them to develop their spirituality.
The awakening of women that society has been undergoing for forty years, the return of the goddess in her many and varied forms, the entrance of women into places of influence and power from science to politics, academia to medicine, media to theology and religious ministry, has characterized the cultural progress of our time. Of course the backlash is fierce and is now ensconced anew in much of MAGA politics.
More than ever we need to criticize the models and metaphors in which we train our boys to be men. What serves a healthy earth, for example? And healthy relationships? And effective rites of passage? How do we provide a reawakening of art and values and community? And a more fair economic system and a more participatory political system?
The “sacred marriage” celebrated in mythology and archetypal psychology is about the coming together of the feminine and masculine energies of us all. Taoists call this the Yin/Yang, Jungians call it Anima/Animus and contemporary author Daniel H. Pink calls it “a whole new mind” and a new synthesis between the left and right hemispheres of our brains.
The masculine/feminine dialectic affects how we see the world and see the energies, different but complementary, of masculine and feminine interacting.
Toxic views of masculinity have prevailed in so many cultures since Patriarchy and Domination replaced Partnership as a cultural norm (language from Riane Eisler). Just as the slave master suffered a toxic soul from the system of slavery (though was well rewarded for it and thus often oblivious of the price he was exacting on others as well as himself), so men during the patriarchal period have paid a great price for their hegemony. Being on top 24/7 is bad for the soul.
As one woman wrote me, “I did not know until I read your book how much men have suffered from Patriarchy.” Men and women and Mother Earth have suffered greatly.
To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men.
And Fox, Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, Christian Mystics.
Banner Image: “I am not afraid of equality…” Young man stands in support during
Women’s March 2018, Vancouver, Canada. Photo by Sally Buck on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Dorothee Soelle believes that “mysticism comes closest to overcoming the hierarchical masculine concept of God.” She talks about the “mystical certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God.” Do you agree? What follows from that?
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
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.
5 thoughts on “The Hidden Spirituality of Men: A Word to My Sisters”
“Let The Facts Speak for Themselves”
Based on exit polls.
We need to stop putting the blame on men for voting Trump into power and stop believing that ‘good’ mothering changes men’s perspective on masculinity as we want to define it. 44% of men not voting for Trump is significant. 52% of ‘white women’ voted for Trump. Of those ‘white women’ voters who are mother’s, how are they influencing their young son’s? Are we judging them?
Let’s use specific and broader information (and there will be other slightly different versions of this) and reframe our arguments and conclusions.
The Trump – Harris Gender Gap
GENDER % HARRIS % TRUMP % Other
MEN 44 54 2
WOMEN 54 44 2
White Women 47 52 1
HispanicWomen 61 37 2
Black Women 92 7 1
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/33408/female-male-us-voters-exit-polls/
Thank you for Amy McPhee Allebest’s deep dive into our fe/male history. S/he was thorough in her overview.
Maybe the support given to females by their male partners is a sign that we are gradually moving away from our patriarchal past to a Partnership model. In recent decades more men have been taking paternity leave from their jobs to look after their infant children.
Kamala Harris had the fulsome support of the President, her husband, her running mate and a significant number of male supporters and voters. In other fora women scholars, scientists, politicians, journalists, doctors, electricians, carpenters are fully respected and supported by their male colleagues. I recall that Marie Curie’s husband Pierre refused the Nobel Prize until his wife and partner was included. They are said to have had a marriage of true minds. Alexis Navalny and his wife Yulia have been partners in their mission to unseat Putin’s patriarchal plutonium chokehold on Russia and Europe.
Yes! Intuitively and faithfully, I’ve always been drawn to the mystics and our mystical spiritual traditions in human history and most genuine religious traditions. Their expressions of the LOVING One Source Creator (Mother~Father God), with feminine~masculine creative spiritual energies, continues to manifest, co-create (Cosmic Consciousness) and evolve our Unique Eternal Souls (humanity) and with-in All of the physical and non-physical spiritual dimensions of Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Graceful essential abundance in Our LOVING Diverse Oneness Evolving COSMOS… in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
I agree with all our writers, as with the scientist featured in the video. I believe we are blessed providentially to witness the growing presence of people with mixed sexuality and of people in homosexual relationships. It’s as if we’re seeing the spectrum for the first time, although reality has always been a spectrum. Ms. Allebest’s formulation of ancient societies as cooperative alliances, at productive peace, instead of dominions of one gender over another, with the consequent wars for greater supremacy over groups, nations and larger territories, under imperialism–I have to conclude that limited societies at peace are superior to aggrandizement by dominions under either sex. Historically, we know that men have been far more destructive than any women rulers I know of. It’s clearly time for sanity, humility and cooperation, with a future of healing and reparation soon impending.
Yes, I personally can agree. As to what is stopping “us”, I would suggest the matrix of our society. To break away takes either tremendous courage or financial stability. For it to happen collectively will take something that is outside of ourselves. Humanity needs to be shocked before we can rebuild in a more enlightened way. The appearance of extraterrestrials demonstrates something greater than ourselves, just as crop circles have done. Former US Air Force officer Robert Salas recently testified during a congressional hearing that alien craft disrupted their nuclear facilities. He says, “To me, that says they were sending us a message about nuclear weapons.” He further believes the extraterrestrial visitors to be a “pacifist species”. Humanity, and our spirituality, needs to take this extraterrestrial concept far more seriously. It answers a lot of questions about who we are in the cosmos and our greater purpose.