The third archetype that Matthew presents in his book The Hidden Spirituality of Men is that of Icarus, the son of Daedalus. This Greek myth serves to discuss the father-son relationship, which is so relevant to men’s healthy growing up, and yet is so often fraught with pain and miscommunication.
Putting on wings is itself an archetypal image and it is a powerful one for mysticism, Matthew writes. But when Icarus tries to reach the sun, is he a reckless youth who does not listen to his father’s wisdom, or is Daedalus to blame for his inability to communicate well with his son?
Perhaps both things are true. Essentially, this archetype serves as a warning. Healthy masculinity today depends on the restoration of good intergenerational communication. This is true at large, but is especially true between different generations of men.
The fourth archetype, that of hunters-gatherers, has to do with those character traits developed in the earlier phases of humanity, but much less appreciated in modernity and which need to come back and be honored again. Among these are keen intelligence, our powers of observation and relating to plants and animals, to the land and to the sky; a sense of egalitarianism and democracy, as opposed to bureaucracy and hierarchy; and a sense of community, family, and extended family.
Hunting means so many things, symbolically speaking, and leads Matthew naturally into his fifth archetype, that of the spiritual warrior. I believe that we have spoken quite often about this archetype in these meditations, as it is so much needed in the present context.
Some readers have challenged the connection of the warrior archetype to war. Our response has been essentially that the energy of rage must be channeled, not suppressed. In Matthew’s understanding, the spiritual warrior embodies nobility, generosity, and creativity for the community’s sake. It is an antidote to war rather than support for it.
The exploration of male sexuality is the topic of the sixth chapter. The archetypal image at work here it that of the phallus. There is a numinous dimension to it which has practically disappeared from today’s talk about sex and sexuality. In sexuality, Matthew writes, the powers of intimacy, intensity, and immensity all come together. Thus sexuality is a mystical experience.
The recovery of male sexuality is, of course, intended in a counter-patriarchal sense, and includes honoring sexual diversity. The exploration of the sacredness of sexuality is quite intense in this chapter, and takes its cue from Matthew’s conviction that the forgetfulness of sexual mysticism which played out in modernity was connected to the dulling of cosmic awareness (see the Father Sky archetype in the September 18 DM) which happened at the same time.
Naturally, the honoring of sexuality, together with the honoring of the connection with nature that emerges both in the Green Man archetype (see September 18 DM) and the hunter-gatherers archetype brings us to honoring the body as such. The seventh archetypal image is that of the human body not just as a mechanism or dull matter — which are strange and wrong modern ideas — but as both animal and cosmic.
It seems to me that focusing on the body as such — as distinct from sexuality — is an important choice. All religions talk about our bodies as temples. Yet where the spirit vs. matter dualism has taken roots, the body is ignored and mistreated. Treating our bodies well — including exercise, diet, and tenderness — is a spiritual endeavor in a society which devalues them.
Banner image: Bushmen hunting for porcupine, cropped. Photo by David Barrie. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
If you are a man, how do you perceive these ideas in relation to your own self? If you are not a man, can you transpose them for yourself?
Related Reading by Matthew Fox
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart
A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
Audiobook (Digital): The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
.jpg ){kind=link}
3 thoughts on “More Masculine Archetypes”
Both male and female energies are parts of our Wholeness/True Heart Selves/Eternal Souls, each of Us in Our Own Unique Ways, human~Divine images and manifestations of Our Source Co-Creator’s Loving Diverse Oneness in Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Evolving Cosmos, including All physical/non-physical spiritual dimensions/Beings, in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….
Pardon my quick statement about part of my comment yesterday about our systems keeping us afraid. I would suggest looking hard at the systems we all live under, including healthcare, military, food, politics, technology, education, economics, religion etc… and imagine experiencing these things as a minority, an immigrant, a young adult just getting started, an elderly sick person, a third world nation, etc. There is much to fear, and I suspect it’s intentional.
For today –
I’ve struggled in my life to relate and integrate all of the archetypes mentioned. This is the first time in my life when I feel like I’ve got a handle on them all at the same time. I’m still learning and growing and going deeper but with a much stronger foundation.
I just happen to have finished the book last night so it’s interesting that it’s being discussed here now. It’s been a slow read for me – there’s so much to integrate, I’ve been taking my time.
I can’t help but think how much the modern world keeps us artificially separated from all this wisdom. I mean I spent 37 years sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day – made it hard to do much else. I could have made different choices, but I was pursuing money. All the other things I was drawn to didn’t pay much. I tried some of them, but I had a family to support. Now that I’m retired, there’s more space for all this.
As I read this DM on masculine archetypes, the usual expression “our bodies,” used twice in the last paragraph, struck me as rooted in dissociation between our true selves and “our bodies.” Contrary to this cultural tendency, Graf Dückheim’s teachings stress the fundamental difference between “having a body [Körper]” and “being a body [Leib].” Spontaneous and often vehement objection to this distinction arises from centuries of western religious contempt for “the flesh” topped by Descartes catastrophic contempt for matter. It defies imagination that a religion venerating a divine incarnation would so systematically demean the human body without recognizing it as ground zero of spiritual life. There are exceptions, of course, like Teilhard de Chardin who, in The Heart of Matter, wrote in his majuscule-studded style: “The Diaphany of the Divine at the heart of a glowing Universe, as I have experienced it through contact with the Earth — the Divine radiating from the depths of a blazing Matter.”
Thank you for these inspiring daily reflections.