All I want is a hot bath. But first...the floors need vacuuming today, clothes need set out for the morning, and the sink of dishes needs tending. Then, and only then, can I relax. It'll have been earned.
I’m on the second day of my cycle and the cramps are still in full force. I feel chubby as if my leggings don’t fit. At the gym, I’ll do extra crunches to try to get my stomach to be flatter, and I’ll add an extra half-mile on the treadmill to fight the bloat. Then I can feel ok in my body again.
I want to be published somewhere new. I’ll set my alarm for 5:30 instead of 6, have an extra cup of coffee, and crank out a new page to have something to edit and pitch on my lunch break.
This is what I am now, as lovingly as possible, calling the masculine path of feminine flow. Moments of ease, rest, or creativity that are pre-emptively forged by masculine efforts to earn them, or control their outcome. Experiences in which the entire point is to feel softness, executed or prefaced by rigidity. As someone obsessed with her sensitive, feeling-self, ("divine feminine essence"), I must be aware of these hyper-tendencies to reach the feminine through the masculine. While it is still possible to access the divine feminine this way, it more often than not defeats the purpose, or at least ends right back where started: so exhausted by the masculine, the doing, that the need arises again for the feminine, the being.
For those new to these concepts, divine masculine and divine feminine are not gender-based. Throughout many lineages and ideologies, the two exist intertwined in a myriad of forms, natural and the other-worldly. One example: the moon is the feminine, and its counterpoint the sun is the masculine. In Spanish, manzana (apple) is feminine, while platano (banana) is masculine. The feminine and masculine are dichotomous at times yet equal. Opposite ends of the same spectrum, one cannot exist without the other.
We all have within us both sides of this spectrum in this divine equation. On the masculine side is our drive, discipline, organization, logic, and security. The feminine is our artistry, receptivity, warmth, and intuition. Each side shines in different experiences and environments, and both are vital to the whole. They can also work in tandem with each other, as in the case of the courage to be vulnerable. The masculine within us creates a sense of stability and safety, while the feminine is the expression of emotions within this safe space.
However, in a society still plagued by hustle mindsets, metrics, and comparisons (thank you, social media), I too often find my masculine charging the way as if clearing a path through the brush, for my feminine to finally unleash. This doesn’t sound inherently bad, but a bath predicated ('earned') by relentlessly cleaning my entire house leaves me exhausted rather than rested.
How is the balance struck in a still male-dominated world? Through the radical act of allowance. By forgoing the self-imposed pressure to first accomplish and earn luxuries like peace and quiet, and instead leading with the feminine. The feminine is a wild and unruly force, fiery and untamed; allowing her to choose indulgence - a nap in the middle of the day, chocolate for breakfast, to drop everything and forget the to-do’s in order to sit down cry, paint, feel. If there is an imbalance in allowing the feminine to express, and there is a dominance of masculine in our daily lives, the feminine needs to be freed without predication of effort. She needs the liberty to exist simply because she is worthy. Because she wants to. Not because it's 'her turn'. Inherently, as the state of receiving and creating, she must be free to be and not by the sake of a keeper. The masculine may be her protector, but he is not her ruler.
My partner recently asked how he might be more supportive of honoring this expression. Unfortunately for him, I have had to lead from my masculine every day before him. I kept the bills and budgets and was the one to make sure the front door was locked at night. I forgot my ability to receive and to be taken care of. Such is the byproduct of a world in which women are afforded the chance to score the C-suite corner office, but at what cost? Such behavior won’t fly in this partnership, with his commitment to living from his own divine masculine. He is protective, and romantic, and finds his peace in the spaces and places in which my divine feminine comes out; long hugs that slow down time, when holding me while we sleep, watching me lotion my body after a shower and while rubbing my feet after a long day. It’s in the moments my defenses come down and he’s able to be the safe container for us when my softness can be his source of solace. The feminine is nourished through release, being uninhibited, and energy flowing into it. The masculine is nourished through the opposite: by structure, strength, effort, and energy flowing out of it. At work, my masculine shines. At home, my femininity is finally liberated from the tight constraints of deadlines and sales numbers.
What I urge of you is a long and honest examination of the two qualities within yourself, and an attuning to hear which is crying to be let out more often - without justification and earning. Once you have felt into that, then ask where one side might be ushering in the other, or where you might be using one to gain access to the other. And finally, can you allow yourself to release whichever side your soul needs, without the other being its keeper?
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