Healing Rites of Passage

I have been on a quest as of late, to discover -for myself- an understanding of ‘Divine Feminine’ and ‘Divine Masculine’.

The Quest started with my search for the Divine Feminine and how I could connect with it more, since I have been experiencing left sided physical issues. The left side is energetically aligned with Feminine energy. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve been aligned with the Feminine for some time now, so what the fish is going on???

Back Story

I was not raised to honor the Feminine, much less think there was anything Divine about it. I was taught that my menstrual cycle was a curse, that women assist men and that my body is something to hide from men’s attention. I learned to dismiss my femininity. I learned to not say anything when someone made me uncomfortable or touched me inappropriately. I learned I did not have a right to say no. I learned to turn the other cheek and look away.

What I learned best is that masculine = acceptance.

Not too much though, because then you swing over into being rejected again because you are ‘too masculine’.

Masculine is not bad, its just not Feminine – and to operate effectively we need a balance. As a young child I had loved going down to my father’s service station. I was only two or three, but I have snippets of memory that show up whenever I smell the inside of an auto repair shop today. I also shared a dream with my best friend to be the first female players on the Chicago Cubs National League Baseball team. This was not denying our femininity, it was expressing our unique combination of masculine and feminine energies.

However, when your masculine energy is encouraged and your feminine energy is shamed, you learn to emphasize the masculine.

As I look back, I recognize all the ways I was instinctively drawn to the Divine Feminine. Everything from thriving at a woman’s college, to exploring the feminine deities of several religions. Growing up, I absolutely adored and was fascinated by my aunts and their friends who were nuns.

Instinctively, I was searching for something to fill the void I felt operating with an excess of masculine energy. It’s no surprise that I married someone who also negated my femininity. Someone who did not appreciate my yin qualities. Someone who called me needy because I wanted quality time. Someone who denied the best parts of me and I denied them too.

On my journey I have intuitively found my way to the Divine Feminine. Starting with my love of Mother Mary right through to my obsession with Quan Yin, Kali and Green Tara. I appreciate my body for all it provides. I love that it served its purpose in cradling my beloved daughter. I love that it knows what to do better than I know what it should do. I love that it has unique curves and nuances. I love how amazing it is.

All that though I kept rather hidden in my private life.

Real women act like men

I was taught that to be successful, a woman must behave like a man, dress like a man and most of all think like a man. I was taught that men would appreciate this and respect me for it. Thus I opted for Logic over Intuition, Rationalization over Feelings and Empirical Evidence over Internal Guidance to name just a few.

So, while I was instinctively drawn to the Feminine, I was externally trained towards the Masculine and it was an imbalanced affair. This is how those ailments afflicting my left side took hold.

In short I was trying to be something I wasn’t.

Oh, in case you were wondering…contrary to what I was taught, no man ever respected me for this.

The Quest

So now we come to the present day Quest. In an effort to rectify this left-sided dis-order, I set out on an adventure to explore the Divine Feminine and see if I could find my missing piece.

In my Rolfing experience the practitioner mentioned the possibility of right sided imbalance causing the left sided pain. As I did my research it became clear that metaphysically this could be the case as well.

While my childhood was filled with improper training contributing to this, my marriage of two decades only cemented the fate of my left-side. While married, I was essentially single carrying the load of both parents, mother and father.

In my profession, I also continued the dual role as I worked in a field populated by women, yet ruled by men. While healthcare and social service workers are predominantly female, the positions of power are almost exclusively male. I found myself constantly minding how I might communicate issues, with masculine verbiage, to my superiors in order to achieve harmonious resolution and existence.

So, I decided to dig deep. And in digging deep I realized that I truly did not have a clear idea of what ‘Divine Feminine and Masculine’ was.

Enter the disclaimer.

What I am about to share with you is purely personal. This is my interpretation. My understanding. Mine and mine alone. I have read everything from blog posts, to books, to oracle cards; then I meditated on what I’d learned. I had visualization journeys around it as well. I let it all sit and marinate until I could form some sort of organizational chart around it. Whether or not I am able to communicate this idea via the written word remains to be seen, but I am going to give it a go.

It could also be that this is not new to anyone but me and I’m the last one on the bus, so to speak. If that’s the case, then that’s ok by me, but I will be disappointed that you didn’t share it with me as soon as you found out.

Defining the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine

We recognize there are two distinct energies in our Universe; Masculine and Feminine. This duality concept of Feminine and Masculine is akin to the Taoist philosophy of Yin and Yang. While there may have been lifetimes or Universes in which the Feminine reigned supreme, in our recorded history on this Earth the Masculine has had an ever encroaching reign of power.

First let me share with you some examples of Feminine and Masculine energy.

The Divine Feminine vs The Divine Masculine 

• Feelings vs Rationalize
• Intuition vs Logic
• Thinking vs Action
• Receiving vs Producing
• Emotional Body vs Physical Body
• Internal Guidance vs Empirical Evidence
• Meditation vs Physical Activity
• Creation vs Adventure
• Nurturing vs Guarding
• Playful vs Protecting
• Nature vs Industry
• Moon vs Sun

If you are like most people you will read that and find yourself on both sides of the list. That’s because everyone (and every thing) has a balance of Masculine and Feminine Energies. Imbalances do exist, however. You will find some people are heavily down one side or the other. Let me point out that this list is not a breakdown of female and male characteristics. Every human being has a unique recipe of masculine and feminine energies in their make up and it is not related to gender in the least.

Each person’s make up is as unique as their fingerprint and it is only when it becomes pathological (severe imbalance) that we need be concerned. Pathological can be what I call straight ticket, down one side or the other, or a mix of pathological from both sides, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Simply put, you are imbalanced if it is not serving you.

We all have aspects of each one of these characteristics, this is not an ‘all or nothing’ kind of list. Its a matter of  which ones are more prominent than the others. The more self-actualized we become and further along on our Spiritual evolution journey the more we will hit right in the middle of the two characteristics, striking a solid balance. This optimal balance is Divine.

Divine is the highest expression of Source we can achieve through our personalities here on Earth.

If Divine is optimum, then Pathological is the antithesis. It is a complete imbalance of Feminine or Masculine energies. On the spectrum it sits at the furthest point away from the Highest Version of your Self. On our journeys we will find ourselves at multiple points on the spectrum at any given time. As we raise our awareness, our vibration rises and this is evidenced in our behaviors.

The Feminine Spectrum: Divine / Pathological

• Gentle / Afraid
• Authentic / People Pleasing
• Introspective / Isolated
• Guidance / Passivity

The Masculine Spectrum: Divine / Pathological

• Honor / Greed
• Diplomacy / Conflict
• Leadership / Aggression
• Adventurous / Reckless

Putting It Together

It is important to emphasize that every person, every situation, every life lesson, every single encounter with another human being has elements of Feminine and Masculine energy and may occur at any point on the spectrum. If you truly wanted to examine yourself you could plot your qualities on a Cartesian plane (four quadrant graph).

As you can see, the Divine Feminine and Masculine energies work in complement not in competition. Complement here, would be Divine Feminine and Competition would be Divine Masculine. Competition is not categorically an undesirable trait. Competition in games might be desirable, competition in a partnership would not be.

This is the Divine Partnership.

What I’ve Learned

My quest has offered me a new paradigm of relatedness when it comes to understanding our Spiritual Journey here on Earth. I learned that my left sided issues are a result of avoiding the Divine Masculine action that makes me uncomfortable by opting for a more comfortable Feminine one. For instance, I employ Diplomacy (Divine Masculine) well in an effort to avert Conflict (Pathological Masculine), but occasionally conflict happens and when it does, instead of remaining in Diplomacy (Divine Masculine), I tend to switch to Passivity or being Afraid (Pathological Feminine) instead of standing in Guidance or Gentleness (Divine Feminine).

Does that make sense?

The theory being, if Conflict (a pathological Masculine) arises despite employing the Divine Masculine quality of Diplomacy, then a Divine Feminine quality (not a pathological Feminine) would be required. Hence, the strain on my left side. Another example would be if I were employing a Divine Feminine quality instead of the appropriate Divine Masculine quality. Say a situation requires me to employ Leadership, but I am not comfortable with that so I opt to employ Guidance instead. The optimal setting is a nice balance of all Divine, not one Divine over another. One should be comfortable in one’s Divine skin, as it were.

As I went further down this rabbit hole, I came to a new understanding of the Expression of Source in our lives. Source is “All That Is” and has no duality, therefore the Divine is the fullest expression of Source on Earth with its duality being the Divine Mother and the Divine Father. That the Divine Feminine/Masculine is the Divine Mother/Father. *It’s important to note this is the energy of Divine Mother and Divine Father, and not the Earthly gender roles* From there the devolution of the expression of Source on Earth splits into just plain Feminine and Masculine (this is sort of the neutral point – as much Source as Ego), then to Female and Male (a smidge more Ego than Source), to Matriarchy and Patriarchy (much less Source and more Ego – gender bias power structure), with the least evolved being Hierarchy (the least amount of Source to the greatest amount of Ego – arbitrary bias power structure). This is not to say that the amount of Source in you is less, but that less of It is showing. (Think of it like a dimmer switch.)

So, Now What?

Now, I have knowledge and understanding of that knowledge and can get to work really balancing out my expression of the Divine Mother and the Divine Father. I can see clearly now how this has led to my imbalances and I look forward to applying this new understanding in my self-healing.

I also look forward to sharing my results with you at a later date!

I love you.

~Jade