Embracing the Masculine and Tending Wounds of Division

Reflections on spirals of healing between the masculine and feminine as it plays out through Mother and child, men and women, and within family dynamics.

On a beautiful Spring day my children and I were in our garden and they were happily digging away. They came upon a massive rock in the ground and asked if we could pull it out, and I told him “no it’s a bit too heavy.” Then my Son responded with, “we need a man to help us?”

If anyone would have asked me that question years ago I would have quickly answered, “no, we don’t need a man for anything.” What I couldn’t see at the time was that it was my most wounded and tender parts that wanted to say this. The parts that did need help, could have used the support or protection of a man, and often didn’t have it there. The parts that have been hurt by men and known men to cause others great harm.

As a genius way to mask my pain I chose the route of condemning nearly all men. I remember going to an event as a young woman where someone was selling bags that said, “it’s okay to hate men”, and they felt refreshing to see, to know that others also think men are the problem. Life is funny too in that as soon as we really start to see something, be it true or not, it seems to show up everywhere keeping that point of view perfectly in place. And when we really believe something, whether we’re conscious of it or not, we often don’t let in the things that contradict that belief.

In my take on reality at that time it was men who were the problem. Men were waging the wars. Men were *mostly* running the governments. Men attacked. Men were destructive. And if men could just change and be better then by God the world would probably be a better place. This is partially true, a half picture.

When I was in my early 20’s my Oma (Grandmother) was witnessing the patterns I was playing and out and one day she looked at me and said, “I think you’re punishing all men for your Father.” I instantly denied it, but Grandma’s have a sense for these things.

No doubt I was in an unconscious revenge cycle with men, with the masculine as a whole.

Years later I started “waking up”, diving into the inner work and tending some of those wounds I was carrying, ultimately just scratching the surface. Then at age 27 our children were conceived and shortly after I learned I was carrying a boy (months later I came to know I was also carrying a girl). All of a sudden all the beliefs I held about men were staring me straight in the face. What would I pass down to my Son if I didn’t genuinely respect men. If I didn’t trust the goodness in men. If I believed men were “the problem”. Physically when I became pregnant this showed up as pain in my right hip. The right side of the body representing the masculine and our paternal lineage and the hips and psoas muscle being a place we often store trauma. Our body in its genius will always bring to us what we need to see, tend, and alchemize.

As cycles turn in the ways they do, I know almost exactly what would happen if I raised my Son with these beliefs still holding strong roots within my being, because I was raised with a Dad who held them as well. He didn’t genuinely respect women. Didn’t trust the goodness in Women. Saw women as “the problem”, along with some other colorful words. I can’t speak fully to how my Father was raised, or how his Mother was raised, but from what I can gather this pattern was long and winding.

Disrespect. Distrust. Seeing the other as the problem, the faulty one. These are roots of a war that play out between the Men and the Women. These are the hurts that play out in families and relationships. They continue and spread seeds of division through the beliefs we hold, with our without awareness, of one another.

I wanted something better for my Son, my Daughter, myself, our family, and the larger world that we all ripple out to.

So I decided to call a truce.

A truce - an agreement to end the fighting (both inwards and outwards)

In this truce we don’t deny the pain that has been caused, which for some, and certainly collectively, has been massive, for denying what we’ve seen and experienced doesn’t serve the process of mending. In this truce we end the battle, so we can step back, let the dust settle and begin tending to all that’s there.

Here we can begin the work.

The healing work.

The forgiveness work.

The work of looking a little deeper.

The work of feeling.

The work of owning what’s ours and getting clear on what’s not.

The Motherwork, the Daughterwork, the Lineagework.

And that’s the short of the long version.

Nothing and no one brings our patterns to the surface as perfectly as our children do. Romantic partners come in a close second. 

So when my Son asked if we needed the help of a man, four years into this relationship-to-the-masculine-work, my most genuine and true answer was “yes.”

Yes, we need men

Yes, we appreciate men

Yes, men create goodness in the world

Yes, we need men

I believe many of us hold a collective prayer for the healing of the masculine and feminine, which can unfold in a thousand ways. One of the ways I’ve been witnessing it unfold, what feels like one of the most vital happenings, is within the dynamic of parent child. It’s in the subtle or not so subtle words we choose and actions we make. It’s in the underlying messages we send our children, the ways we tend our Son's softness or diminish it, the ways we tend to and teach them about their bodies. The beliefs we carry and enact as Women and Mothers help to shape the beliefs our children will likely move through the world with, both our Sons and Daughters, and beliefs are some deep work to uncover and even more challenging to shift. Of course this is equally true for the Fathers and Men, but here I am as Mother and Woman so this is what I will speak to.

I am infinitely grateful to raise a Daughter in this time of Earth, where she can look any direction within our community and see strong examples of embodied Women living with their art and in full expression. Honoring their blood, connecting with their nature, birthing in sovereignty.

It’s my holy hope and prayer in action that our Sons know this too. That our world continues to fill with men who know their worthiness. Men who live in embodied integrity. Men who know they are loved and valued within their communities.

So may we reflect beauty back to our boys

May we hold them in the light of integrity and worthiness

May we embrace their tenderness as they grow in their strength

May we weave a web of love that honors their fullness and ours equally

Through our thoughts

Through our words

Through our way of being