We are meditating on the role played by young men in light of the recent election. For this reason I have written a Letter to my Brothers and now a Letter to my Sisters, which I continue here.
If women truly love the men in their lives, they will want to assist men in their own liberation. Similarly, healthy men who love women are not threatened by the gains women have made thanks to the women’s movement but want to see fairness, equality and liberation succeed.
Women have a role—as wives, lovers, friends, mothers, sisters, grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters, co-workers and more—to assist the liberation of their brothers. Detoxing a pseudo or sick or diseased masculinity is everybody’s business.
Furthermore, if it is true that every woman carries a masculine side in their soul just as every man carries a feminine side to his soul, then women are directly implicated in the struggle to clean up our understanding of the masculine. Women themselves may be carrying around a toxic masculinity in their minds and imaginations to the extent that they have uncritically lived in a matrix for thousands of years that distorts what masculine energy can and might be.
Just because men carry more testosterone does not mean that only men overreact with reptilian brains or an “I vs. You,” “Win/Lose,” “let’s make war” mentality, or even a dominator instead of partnership perspective. Plenty of women are cheering on Trump’s patriarchal ideology after all. Women are fully capable of toxic behavior also. To clean up their sense of the healthy masculine is important. It allows their healthy feminine to flourish and to achieve great things.
“Father Sky” and a new cosmology, so much a part of the good news of our time, can excite both women and men, girls and boys. It awakens heart and soul to look beyond the local and see our lives as individuals, as families, as communities in the broader context of an amazing fourteen-billion-year journey that has brought us this far.
The archetype of the “Green Man,” is ideal for an age when mother earth is suffering so much from global warming, rising seas, the destruction of rainforests and millions of species. Our diseased planet affects the health of our own bodies and minds and souls. So much beauty is being lost. The Green Man archetype and the goddess were consorts the last time a grass roots renaissance occurred in the West, that is, in the twelfth century. Can that happen again?
The return of the “spiritual warrior” (not the same as soldier), wherein both men and women develop their inner strength and courage and willingness to stand up for values that matter at this time in history, is another necessary masculine archetype for our times.
A new sense of “intergenerational wisdom” is possible whereby young men and women and elders can profit from improved communication and listening to one another. This carries deep implications for women in their role as grandmothers and elders to both granddaughters and grandsons, and in encouraging the eldership of the men in their lives.
Thus it is that a pespective on the Hidden Spirituality of Men resonates with women as well as men. We are in this together. Together we rise or fall, resurrect or fail, survive or thrive, act or submit to despair, heal or carry toxins around with us wherever we go.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Christian Mystics.
And Fox, Original Blessing.
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond.
And Fox, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times
And Fox, Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages.
Banner image: “A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance.” Photo by Josh Howard on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
As a woman, can you agree that men’s liberation is important to both the women and men in your life? As a man, can you agree to the same? If so, what is stopping us?
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
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.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.” –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.
Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.
The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages
The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.
2 thoughts on “A Word To My Sisters, continued”
Let us all be the ‘wonder of wonders’ in Jesus the Christ, the Lord of All. If we are and we all are, to manifest the ‘All-in-All’ of in us, let’s cast aside all of the limiting labels that we put upon ourselves and others. I, you, we, are the sky; are the wind; are the earth; are blue, green, red, yellow, grey, white and black; are the mother, father, son and daughter; are the sun, moon and stars; are the male and the female, both masculine and feminine; are everything and everyone and more than we can conceive. Why don’t we just leave it at that? ‘Life’ is infinitely larger than the small ‘life’ we paint of ourselves.
It is our duty, mission and birthright to live large, and experientially live ‘Life’ in grace, awe and wonder. What would be achieved if all of us that live in and ‘of the world’, are able to see, hear, live and experience ‘not of the world’ Life in the here and now? Regardless of what direction the temporal ‘of the world’ happenings are taking, we are at the doorstep of the Lord’s Realm. Are we to step in or let the abundant Life pass us by? – BB.
Yes! Becoming aware/conscious/integrating Our inner and outer feminine~masculine spiritual energies of Our Unique Eternal Souls is Our spiritual journeys toward Being~Becoming Our LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS with-in All of ongoing evolving COSMIC CREATION in All Spiritual Realms/Dimensions in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….