In keeping with yesterday’s topic, I would like to share a few ideas that Matthew Fox expounds in his book The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine. The theme of gender has exploded since 2008, when the book was released. Yet, as with all true wisdom, one finds in it intuitions that have not aged at all.
The book itself is organized around ten metaphors or archetypes of healthy masculinity. Ideally, the recovery of such healthier points of reference will help the toxic notions of masculinity that are ruling the day to get quieter and quieter. By the way, this is Hildegard of Bingen’s strategy as well: not fighting bad habits straight on, but introducing and fostering good habits on a daily basis.
Matthew finds the archetype of Father Sky in many cultures. It need not be seen as a Christian idea, and even less as a modern idea. In fact, the modern West has reduced for a while the notion of God the Father to a cold deity who oiled the machine of the universe every once in a while (Deism), and then abandoned the notion of a cosmic God altogether.
Father Sky needs not to be seen either as a distant and cold figure, nor as an oppressive one. I would argue that these two images are projections of our experience of fathers in patriarchal cultures.
Matthew instead offers several interesting examples of how, for most of human history and in nearly every culture, the sky has been considered an abode for the Divine. We can recover such an image in a healthy way, by opening up again to the depth and vastness of the cosmos. What we call “Father Sky” is both the blue horizon and the very air we breathe — the lifeblood of our lungs. What is outside, the sky, through our breath we bring inside in the most intimate way.
Recently I preached this revolutionary yet archaic notion of God at a wedding, resulting in many people being astonished and interested and moved to tears. It takes time to wrap one’s head around this notion, but the emotional effects are immediate.
Moreover, nothing about this prevents one from calling God “Mother” as well. It is not by any means a return of the patriarchal God under a new name. Rather, the whole of divinity is represented by the sacred marriage (hieros gamos) of Father Sky and Mother Earth.
The second archetype of healthy masculinity is that of the Green Man. This is essentially a man who has shed the patriarchal modern consciousness. He relates to nature, finding the essence of nature within our own nature. For some reason, the 12th century in Europe was a time in which this archetype found several outlets.
In the image from the 12th century church of St. Faith found in the banner of this DM, you can see the theme of Christ as the vine played out in the lower register, while in the upper register Christ plays out as Cosmic Man surrounded by two archangels. It is a variation on the conjunction between Green Man and Father Sky.
The Green Man acknowledges the power of his own sexuality, but not to serve his own ego or that of his tribe or his nation. His rich sexuality does not draw attention to itself but embodies the ongoing sexual and creative energy of the universe. I have met several men in the last thirty years who try to embody this archetype, not always successfully in my opinion, but this is just an indication of how hard it is to change patriarchal culture from within.
Just as Father Sky and Mother Earth should be seen as symbolically married, Matthew says that also the Green Man has a symbolic mate in the Black Madonna. When the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine nurture and sustain one another, a new era might truly emerge. In no way, however, should this be seen as a glorification of heterosexuality over homosexuality. Literalism is not our game here. As I insist in the presentation of the 2027 pilgrimage, these two gendered poles are archetypal forces present in each person, independently of their sexual orientation.
Re-reading this book for me is very helpful as I begin to prepare spiritually for such a 2027 pilgrimage, which is structured even physically around the femininity-masculinity polarity. The first part will happen within the sacred precincts of the sanctuary of the Black Madonna of Oropa — the dark womb of the Mother — and the second part will be focused on the Abbey of St. Michel — aiming at the highest heavens (see DM Sept.16).
Banner Image: Upper section of the 12th c. portal of the church of St. Faith (Cavagnolo, Italy) representing vines, grapes, and Christ in heaven. Photo by Gianluigi Gugliermetto, used with permission.
Queries for Contemplation
What moves, excites, perplexes, or bothers you in the first two archetypes of healthy masculinity, Father Sky and Green Man, as presented by Fox?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
Alessandra Belloni, foreword by Matthew Fox, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
4 thoughts on “Father Sky and Green Man”
Any anthropocentric projection of humanoid features and struggles on the divine bothers me and I fully agree with this quote attributed to Voltaire: “If God created us in his image, we surely returned the favor.”
In his chapter on Hinduism in “The World’s Religions,” Huston Smith illustrates the sinful nature of such projections when he quotes the following invocation by village priests at the opening of some temple ceremonies:
“O Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations:
Thou art everywhere, but I worship you here;
Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms;
Thou needest no praise, yet I offer you these prayers and salutations;
Lord, forgive these three sins that are due to my human limitations.”
When I see the mountain, I love the mountain, when fog hides the mountain, I love the fog and I still love the mountain, and with Meister Eckhart, I pray to God to make me free of images of God.
It’s good to be reminded of the healthy masculine archetypes/energies Father Sky and Green Man, as well as the eight others covered in Matthew’s book, “The Hidden Spirituality of Men, Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine,” within All of living creation, including men and women, on Our spiritual journeys towards becoming aware/conscious of Our Wholeness/Hieros Gamos/Sacred Marriage/Diverse Oneness of the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine Energies of Our SOURCE CREATOR of DIVINE LOVE in All of Evolving Sacred Co-Creation Cosmos, including All physical/non-physical spiritual dimensions/Beings…, in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….
I was not raised in any religious tradition. Since I was a child, I’ve believed that truths could be found just by looking around and experiencing the world I live in. I never felt the need to look outside myself and what I could sense in my body, mind, and heart. I mean, didn’t all religions start that way?
This is why the earth/sky, Green Man/Black Madonna archetypes resonate so deeply within me now. Before I had language to describe such things, it was obvious to me that the sun and sky worked directly with the earth to birth us into life. No sun, no life. No earth, no life. At least not here.
Interestingly, I am personally seeing a surge in green man energy around me, even as the manosphere and toxic masculinity seem to be everywhere. The green man is pushing back, and wants to emerge stronger than ever! Likewise with the Black Madonna — she is everywhere I look now and getting stronger.
I take this as a very hopeful sign that these primordial forces will bring us to a state of balance we’ve never really known. Or at least nudge us in that direction. That’s how they are working inside me, and I suspect more broadly as well.
As I write this I see on my horizon a layer of trees, teeming with life, sandwiched between the earth and the blue sky. Right there is ample evidence of the fruit of the marriage between Father Sky and Mother Earth — abundant life!!
PS Greg – thank you for your kind words yesterday! ❤️
The works of Matthew Fox have happily corrected numerous errors in Western ecclesiastical theology and sprituality. Too much perfectionistic morality, and so we must be reminded of the infinitely gracious forgiveness of the “Father” (or *abba*) to whom Jesus prayed on his cross. Too much emphasis of the dualistically harsh separation of sheep and goats in the “Last Judgment” and we can’t imagine a God like the landowner (characterized in Matthew’s chapter 20, vv. 1-16) who rewards the laborers who started near the end of the day but whom he paid a full day’s wage. This is the image of a surpassingly munificent God (one well worth worshipping and serving) as in “[God] is gracious and merciful, . . . [God] is good to all [people] and compassionate toward all [God’s] works.” (Psalm 145, vv. 8-9)