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Sacred
Feminine &
Sacred Masculine
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The 36 pages in this Sacred Feminine & Sacred Masculine
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Is Balance Obtainable
or is it an Illusion
By MonSnoLeeDra
On a number of sites I visit there
has been much talk of balance and obtainment of it. Balance
viewed against masculine versus feminine energy contained within,
balance of harmony throughout the body, etc. Yet I can't but
wonder is it truly possible to obtain balance or is it but an
illusion that one attempts to achieve?
In some ways one might assume that
this would be an easy question to answer and concept to identify.
Yet, is it truly that simplistic of an answer to obtain? After
much pondering upon the subject I must admit I reach the conclusion
that it is not a simple question to answer or state to achieve.
From a masculine versus feminine
energy perspective I think that much is lost in the modern pursuit
of balance of the forces. We assume, perhaps wrongly, that balance
means all facets are equally recognized and working in harmony
with each other. Yet at times balance is the rising of one trait
to dominate or intensity the needs of another trait. For instance,
at the age of 17 I was on the volunteer fire department for
my home town, we responded to a fire that was located in a cold
storage and packing house. Now this fire was observable for
miles from the scene and was massive. Upon arrival we noticed
the building was near an older home and located in the mouth
of a large ravine that ran up into the surrounding mountains.
Being one of the first units on the scene we dispersed the firefighters
to the hotspots.
I was sent to the back of the building
to fight the fire that had started running up the ravine towards
the mountains. Crossing over the lower hill, we came down behind
the building and the first thing we saw was the siding on the
building running like water down and over a propane tank. Liquid
fire completely covering the tank and spreading outward towards
the ravine, only one thing upon your mind, "What do we
do now?"
Common sense says to run and get
the heck out of there. If it were to have exploded we would
be tossed like rag dolls at best or blown to pieces at worse.
A few wanted to run and get out but that was not what we were
there for. We moved ahead into the ravine putting aside fear
and achieving a different sort of balance. Yet even as we faced
the probable danger of explosion we knew that to run meant that
the fire would race up the valley and into the mountains then
even more would be in danger and consumed in the tempest.
Some would say that was the masculine
dominating and balancing the greater whole. It was a visible
need and our actions had to be forced outward to confront the
obstacles that laid before us. It only took one person overcoming
and balancing to bolster the confidence and drive of the others,
the unity of the group balancing as we faced our fear and dread.
We fought the fire and stopped the
advance up the valley and held the line. For over 24 hours did
we fight that fire and experienced more emotions than one could
really think about at the time. We knew fear when we saw an
unmanned fire hose come flying off the roof of the structure
and wondered about the guys that where up there. A fear a mother
knows when a child is harmed or in
danger. We knew terror when ammonia cans start exploding and
shooting into the air or horizontal into our lines. A fear of
an opponent you can see but have no control over.
Yet even as I recall the event and
the balancing act that went on within it is not the energies
and balancing act I recall but the things we did that day. I
recall we dropped a lake by 8 feet; we pumped over 250,000 gallons
of water into a single room. We ended up at points where we
were in mud to our knees and struggling to move forward but
we did move. Though in retrospect I know I maintained because
throughout the period my feminine energies gave me compassion
and allowed me to be reflective of what needed to be done and
fear for and concern for my fellow firefighters. My masculine
energy allowed me to keep pushing forward and face dangerous
that my mind screamed run away from.
One might think that such an undulating,
twisting and turning scheme would be indicative of an emergency
event but that is also untrue.
As a little league coach I was responsible
for instilling a sense of the game, teaching rule of the game,
sportsmanship during and after the game. All this to children,
both male and female, at a T-ball level and make it fun for
all and a learning experience. Where was balance of feminine
and masculine energy in this one?
Yet balance I did as I shifted from
one facet to the other constantly. One moment pure masculine
as you encourage and fulfill the needs of the young male and
their masculine energy flow, the next moment shifting to the
feminine side of your nature to understand and encourage the
girls equally. Changing from one to the other in mid-cycle and
never truly having a balance yourself it seems. That occurring
on the field in real time as you strive to make it work.
Off the field a constant round of
exchanges, shifts from masculine to feminine as first you confront
the know it all dad only to shift gears to the worry some mother
or even the aggressive mother that wants their child to be the
best. Back and forth you go, feeling and comforting to encouraging
and demanding. Mothering when injured to motivating when they
are down. A psychologist and sociologist all rolled into one
on what is supposed to be a fun game field. With just a touch
of diplomat and medic thrown in for good measure and testing
of your abilities to shift your balancing act.
Yet the constant juggling act continues
in your spiritual life. One moment you strive to understand
the introspective and reflective feminine energy and presence
that touches upon and within you, the next the aggressive outward
projecting energy of the masculine. You strive to understand
why one moment a thing can bring you to tears or pity yet another
raise you to the heights of anger and contempt.
Yet I can only speculate that there
is no true point of balance in the inner spiritual and energy
of me, this human creature that is composed of both male and
female energies. My balance can only be defined against the
objective state that I am aware of both facets and accept that
I do possess both facets. On one hand I must be both mother
and father in my actions and presentation of emotions. I must
also realize that my wife must also be both mother and father
depending upon the circumstances of each occurrence.
I believe that this is the balancing
act we must come to understand and our place upon either side
of the scale upon which we operate at any given point in time.
I should be balanced enough that I can accept my feminine energies
and use them when needed but not be afraid to not use them.
Inversely, the same commitment and usage of masculine energies
or lack thereof is needed if I am to be balanced to the point
I can operate and live within the confines of my world placement.
I do believe that one may abuse one
facet at the expense of the other and the whole pays the price
for the abuse. Yet, the loss is due to seeking a perceived balance
of energies those lessons or makes more important one above
the other and presented in the mundane world of daily life and
even the spiritual.
It is in this pursuit of "Balance"
that I think we actually unbalance ourselves. We, collectively,
seek to understand and even the playing ground and in doing
so may actually unbalance that which we so strongly seek to
balance.
Wynsong:
What
struck me immediately was the use of the word versus... I'm
going to venture my doubts, that masculine versus feminine can
ever be balanced as the word 'versus' for me engenders struggle
for dominance...one or the other... However, I do believe that
masculine and feminine can live together in balance...AND that
that balance would be dynamic in nature, with more masculine
sometimes (like say in the day time) and more feminine sometimes
(say at night)...and I'm just using the solar and lunar energy
as an example. I loved the dance between feminine and masculine
within the parenting examples you used. As I mentioned in the
other thread....I love the Yin/Yang symbol as a diagram of how
masculine and feminine can be merged and flow together and apart
as a whole.
MonSnoLeeDra:
Sorry about the confusion
on "Versus". For me I used it as a form of comparison
and contrast, if I was going to indicate conflict or battle
I would use one of those terms. I do agree that the two can
be harmonious in union but I do not think they can be equal
in presence. In that I mean one will always dominate the other
in certain scenarios or situations. I find the equality of the
two comes from the ability to accept that that which is best
suited will be the one best selected. At times the feminine
would be the best choice and be dominate at that point, whereas
the masculine maybe the more dominate and best choice in other
situations. For me true balance comes when I can move from one
to the other and it is a natural change. When the face that
comes forward is done with no prompting but a natural response.
I think I have achieved balance of the two when I can use either
and not be protective because I chose a feminine energy or masculine
energy.
SandraBear:
Hi
-don't have time to read the whole writings so if I repeat something
please forgive... what I have been learning is that it is more
a harmonizing than a balancing... say a piece of music that
has 2 completely instruments will harmonize to make a melody-
easy to hear and see when out of harmony.. but when it's in
harmony it works well together- neither dominating the other-
but the flute stays a flute and the trumpet a trumpet.. and
so it goes!! Harmony.. lal la la !!
CinnamonMoon:
Excellent points raised,
MonSnoLeeDra, I would have to agree it's not a fifty-fifty split
between the two. The balance we seek is in the understanding
of the two and how we, as individuals are in or out of touch
with those sides of our nature. To be in touch we have to raise
our conscious awareness and seek that understanding, the greater
our understanding the greater our sense of balance. You gave
great examples of that. Finding balance is initiated by intentionally
raising that awareness and many times, especially if we are
just coming to these concepts, it's so easy to slip into that
50/50 perception of what balance means overlooking that balance
could have another meaning to it. The scale here is flexible/mutable
though, it can be weighted at times and equal at others and
is usually in motion when the wind blows…or a situation
arises as in your examples. Different issues call for one or
the other and sometimes both. It is definitely about the awareness
of both though. Thank you for pointing that out, it's so easily
overlooked or mistaken in definition.
I feel if we understand the manifestation
of the feminine and masculine in general we know what to look
for in ourselves, and if we understand how each manifests in
us individually (we are all a little different there) then we
can start to see where balance is present and how we utilize
that. If we have an area of weakness we can either strengthen
it or compensate for it. My masculine side will manifest far
differently from some other women's masculine side, it's still
masculine energy I'm working with though and the same would
apply to a man learning to work with his feminine energies.
I need to understand it from the inside of me out. Do I use
it at all times? Definitely not, but it's there if I need to.
And you're not likely to use your feminine side at all times
either but it's there when it's needed and utilized accordingly.
I loved your examples.
We don't need to be equally balanced
but both do need to be equally valued for balance to be present.
I believe that balance is demonstrated outwardly by the manner
in which we walk with both. Once we understand ourselves we
can better understand how others are using their masculine or
feminine sides too. In this way we learn to work with each other
complimenting through our contributions of cooperation…another
form of balance as indicated by your group of firefighters.
It's a lot like walking between the worlds…our awareness
is in balance between the two, and that's not a 50/50 balance
at all times either, we are human and dwell in the physical
reality, but our awareness keeps us in balance, keeps us tuned
in to both. We have an eye and ear and foot in each dimension
and can shift our presence with either as called for, a shift
that is instant. We can take a woman's perspective here with
the example of a mother doing dishes with an ear tuned into
the welfare of her children in the other room. She knows when
to stop doing dishes and go check on them, she feels it, hears
the shift in the voices or senses a shift in the energy and
goes to tend things. Just a moment before she was probably involved
in the tedium of the dishes and her mind wandering off into
her own journeys or seeking answers to something else on her
mind…but that ear was tuned to the children and she responded
instantly. She kept a
part of her awareness, that masculine
protective part, on the children while she used her feminine
awareness to journey and stay balanced while observing the dishes
she was washing. She could likely be having an overlay vision
along spiritual lines or a conversation with one of her Guides…take
your pick, her awareness was multi-tasking. Was it all equally
balanced, no, it was balanced in harmony with what she was doing
though.
Eagle Singing:
Balance
is interesting indeed. I too often think that people go askew
when defining balance as 50/50 at all times. I agree with all
everyone has said, for I see different ways of expressing the
same. Awareness of masculine and feminine energies at work within
ourselves and as we observe others gives us the opportunity
to shift out of our typical reactionary mode and employ what
is best called for in a circumstance. For example, growing up
and into my adulthood, in most situations where I felt I needed
to do address an issue I typically defaulted to expressing and
utilizing masculine energy. Obviously, that was not always the
best approach. What is better is being aware of what is happening,
the reasons why the situation is as it is, looking into the
other people's positions/issues and then moving through that
situation using the appropriate response. It is fluid, as you've
all said in different ways.
WhiteCrow:
I missed this till today.
Agree 101% with what you said, MonSnoLeeDra.
Watchituga:
I
like emotional balance, to be calm and positive all of the time.
I find this results in neither being dependent upon or demanding
of others. I find that this usually has positive effect on others,
in face to face situations . There seem to be a small proportion
of exceptions, where people have got into the habit of persistently
attributing their own emotions to other people in some way.
It's interesting that this should come up now, because I recently
rechecked my "emotional intelligence" score on a standard
psychological profiling test, following some experience of lack
of emotion and getting pains in the body where emotions should
be following psychiatric "treatment" last year. I
had forgotten about this test in 2004, when I also was forced
to receive such treatment, and on that occasion I had experienced
depression following for the only time in my life. Just prior
to that in 2004, my score had been 100 percentile but on retesting
now it is 99.7 percentile. It is one of the things about mental
health services, the individual emotional balances of staff
seem to get filtered and selected and collated and attributed
to patients instead. So the ones that always look down and depressed
seem to contribute to the view that patients are depressed even
when the patients don't view themselves as and don't seem to
me to be depressed at all. And with me the one that was always
panicking over nothing always stated that I was distressed,
and that went down on records even though most of the staff
and all of the patients held a completely different view from
that. The claim that I was distressed was frequently repeated
by the same person meetings as a justification for drug treatment,
and the increase in pulse rate and other adverse effects from
the drugs were also attributed to "distress" even
though I didn't personally experience any emotional distress
at all, only the extreme physical effects of the drugs.
In reality,
I am always in a state of receptivity and reflection and kind
of daydreaming to a degree, whatever else I'm doing at the same
time, so I'm almost invariably in a calm positive state, although
the specifics of what state I'm in may flex and shift depending
on what I'm dealing with at the time. So I think from my perspective,
balance is probably more about that comfort and positivity and
not being reactive or needing to depend on or change others
on the outside. I think for me it also relates to being open-minded,
and independent minded, and liking to do things my own ways.
Paah Wenchokws:
I have
found that balance is not a set of numbers such as 50/50, to
make opposites whole and therefore balanced. And if someone
has the "need" to incorporate balance as a whole.
Then they will always be in flux and not in harmony. Always
striving for this elusive "balance" I have found that
balance is simply "witnessing".
Druidkat7:
In my recent experiences
with striving to understand and harmonize the Divine Masculine
within my own Feminine expression, I have come to liken the
harmonizing (a good word that someone used to describe the flux!)
with the Infinity sign, or "lemniscate" to get technical
about the term. I see both energies fluxing and flowing around
and around each other, back and forth, ebbing and flowing, rising
and falling like my own breath. I see where I am more "masculine"
in my directness, my gung-ho attitude, and my tendencies to
prefer more actively creative activities over just doing "menial"
chores--even when those creative activities involve sitting
down and making jewelry, painting or practicing music, or other
creative activities that are commonly seen as "feminine."
To be honest, I really and truly see the Divine Masculine and
Divine Feminine mostly as polarities...the whole Yin/Yang thing...everyone's
got a bit of each in the other, and neither aspect is "good"
or "bad." They just ARE. They're a part of the cosmic
flow of things. If allowed to, I believe each of us can learn
to flow from one polarity to another with ease. What complicates
things is societal expectations that one gender "does this,"
while the other gender "should do that." Just my two
cents...
Wynsong:
I'd
add, Kat-7, our own expectations to those that society has placed
on us. Societies hold on my expectation aren't nearly as strong
as the images of who I think I need/want to be. As I let go
of those, I find the flow around the infinity symbol, or the
yin yang circle to be a dynamically smoother in nature. For
those who have only ever seen the yin yang circle in 2 dimensions,
it is actually a sphere. The maximum yin (the largest thickest
part of the dark 'comma' has at its edge the beginning of yang.
If you do tai chi, the maximum yin is the aspect that meets
and just engages the force that
is approaching
it, and allows it to flow towards and around it...but the key
in tai chi is to always be fully centered...so when you have
received as much as you can while centered, the force is deflected
away or allowed to flow past you, and the potential for yang,
or a push begins (the tail of the white comma)...the flow is
around and through the two commas...and then they add the third
dimension. After all the time I've done tai chi, I still haven't
gone beyond the beginning of trying to live in the three dimensions
of the symbol. Yin is the equivalent of what we call feminine
energy here...Yang is the masculine, although they don't use
those terms. Munay
Druidkat7:
Wynsong wrote:
“I'd add, Kat-7, our own expectations to those that society
has placed on us. Societies hold on my expectation aren't nearly
as strong as the images of who I think I need/want to be. As
I let go of those, I find the flow around the infinity symbol,
or the yin yang circle to be a dynamically smoother in nature.
For those who have only ever seen the yin yang circle in 2 dimensions,
it is actually a sphere. The maximum yin (the largest thickest
part of the dark 'comma' has at its edge the beginning of yang.
If you do tai chi, the maximum yin is the aspect that meets
and just engages the force that is approaching it, and allows
it to flow towards and around it...but the key in tai chi is
to always be fully centered...so when you have received as much
as you can while centered, the force is deflected away or allowed
to flow past you, and the potential for yang, or a push begins
(the tail of the white comma)...the flow is around and through
the two commas...and then they add the third dimension. After
all the time I've done tai chi, I still haven't gone beyond
the beginning of trying to live in the three dimensions of the
symbol. Yin is the equivalent of what we call feminine energy
here...Yang is the masculine, although they don't use those
terms. Munay”
I was particularly drawn
to the first part of your reply to my post, Munay, and I think
you're right on. To be honest, though, sometimes it can get
very confusing--at least for me--when it comes to choosing a
mate. I might be going along my usual very bold, brash way and
then encounter a man with a certain "fire" behind
his eyes that speaks a million things about him to my heart
and soul...and suddenly my own boldness goes away and in its
place is this crazy shyness that is VERY girly, and to my mind,
very uncharacteristic of how I perceive myself to be. My ego
just shuts up in the presence of such a man (who is often usually
a true LEADER...not just an "alpha male" but a Leader
with HEART as well as backbone....and then I'm not sure who,
what or how I'm supposed to be. And any exhortation by anyone
else to "just be myself" seems so hollow. Because
a lot of the time, if I'm just acting like myself, I get viewed
as "one of the guys..." or else my energy seems a
bit too much for any dude who might take a more-than-friends
liking to me. So, perhaps, after all that, I'm just not sure
yet what it all really means... Which is why I call myself a
Seeker in the first place.
Wynsong:
I'd
say from my own experience, that there are aspects of yourself,
you don't yet recognize and know how to live, to be certain.
When you meet the aspects of you, you know best in an external
being, it sounds like other aspects of you, that you maybe label
as "girly" show up, and consciously you don't own
those parts yet. It is nice that the Universe sends "Real
Leaders" in
your direction,
so that you can relax your own, and get to know your shadow
Self better. I got to meet my 'girly' shadow self in a different
way, and I would have preferred the journey I see you being
given. Munay
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INDEX
Page 3
(Main Section, Medicine Wheel, Native Languages &
Nations, Symbology)
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INDEX
Page 5
(Sacred Feminine & Masculine, Stones & Minerals)
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Copyright: Cinnamon Moon & River WildFire Moon (Founders.)
2000-date
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