Epilogue To The Masculine Era
By
Daniel Raphael, Ph.D. ~ 1992
These are exciting times for the world. The
character, feeling, and the mood of the
world are changing. For perspective, imagine
that you are on a small boat at sea. You see
and feel the waves, even the big rollers, as
you are tossed about in your little dinghy.
Yet, the mighty and far more powerful
influence of the moon and sun go unnoticed.
Your boat raises and lowers with
imperceptible movement. You are unaware of
the awesome changes in elevation that are
going on around you. What is occurring in
the world on the spiritual plane is nearly
the same.
The author is only a clanging buoy and this
article is only a wind vane swinging to the
influence of new, fresh spiritual winds that
waft through this planet. There are many
parallels between the growth and maturity of
an individual's spirituality and that of
this planet's civilizations. For
individuals, there are ups and downs,
setbacks and advances, growth and decay,
decadence, and aspiring spirituality. It is
not much different for civilizations. The
hope for both is that each would mature at
all levels over the years, decades,
centuries, and millennia and come to develop
and express their inherent potential.
Eventually, consciously.
Going back in time thousands of years, man
walked away from his Earth Mother to make
his own home, his own life, choosing his
occupations according to his needs. This was
the beginning of The Masculine Era. The
"time of man," not woman,…but that would
change.
It was been the chore of man to wrest a
living from Mother Earth, not by living in
the trees but by felling the trees to make
lumber to build shelters. It has taken the
brute force of men to conquer the physical
world, and hurl his population over the
planet by the force and power of his
physical body and by his assertive,
aggressive will.
Billions of us are now witnessing and often
personally experiencing the external and
internal turmoil that grips individuals and
cultures as The Masculine Era comes to an
end. The turmoil is personal and cultural
because it involves a loss of identity and a
way of doing business that has been familiar
to the world since the beginnings of
civilization. Man, individually and as a
class, is becoming aware that he is in
transition in the world. But he, as yet, has
not figured out to what extent this
transition will affect him. Like drunken
brawlers, man continues to compete in the
world at the expense of the planet,
crippling and maiming bystanders as he
wrestles a living from the Earth. He is
about to pull the actual roof of the world
down upon himself.
What is next? Years of transition from the
dominating influence of the masculine to the
persuasive and persistently assertive
influence of the feminine. The transition
years will give way to The Feminine Era.
The transition years began with the Feminist
Movement in the 1960's. It has made
tremendous changes in social consciousness,
values, and personal behaviors. How did this
occur? Quite simply by individuals changing
their concept about "the place" of women in
the world. Slowly men and women are
realizing that there are no polarized
positions of "him and her,” but of "us."
Women must become more assertive to replace
the competitive, driving need for power and
authority of men. There must develop an
assertive consciousness of the feminine in
all individuals. The power and mystique of
the feminine and masculine already exist in
each of us often as an undeveloped
potential, which if used would make each of
us more whole and complete as a person.
The feminine character and perspective will
be necessary for the management of
businesses, nations, and the world. Those
men who continue to maintain the bravado of
the macho male and do not grasp and use
their own inherent feminine qualities may
easily find that they are being left out of
the play of civilization, the business of
governing, and commerce. Brash masculine
behavior, whether by males or females, will
soon be obviously unproductive, even
counter-productive. Competition that is
pandemic, the sin quo non of "real men,”
will be replaced with cooperation and
coordination, so that there will be no
losers - all winners - in most situations.
"Man" and "woman" are used rather loosely in
this Epilogue. There are millions of females
behaving as males in man's world. Women who
ride the career ladder of public office and
business frequently "out man" their male
peers. Men often call these women "ball
busters," castrating females whose behavior
would be reluctantly condoned if it were
done by another male - considered as part of
the competitive action that surrounds his
seemingly instinctual need to vie for power,
dominance, and control.
We are entering a time in the development of
our civilization where it is time for woman
to tame and conquer the unruly nature of
civilization with its unruly societies,
governments, businesses, and value systems.
In the early millennia, the world was like a
wild horse that needed to be broken by a
physically strong person - man. Now, it is
ready to be trained by a physically weaker,
but determined woman to till the soil.
In these transition years, we are in the
midst of evolving from the barbarously
primitive state of rugged individualism to
the appreciation that the power of evolved
individualism and personal spirituality has
to effect change in the world. The evolved
individual is a latent potential that can
only be energized and actualized through the
efforts of communities of individuals coming
from functional families. There, the
individual can express his and her potential
- proactively cooperating and coordinating
their efforts in communities of individuals.
She is already good at the skills of
cooperating and coordinating, and knows that
in order to become more she and he must
share more of herself with others. And in
doing so, she will redefine "civilization."
As with love, she knows that when power is
shared (not given away) she becomes more
powerful.
This is unfamiliar ground for most who have
ruled in The Masculine Era, yet ironically
is ground that has been worked by some of
the most profoundly effective leaders in
history. Men who wish to excel in this new
era must strive to take on the best traits
of the feminine, which come so easily and
naturally to women. She provides a model for
social balance that only men of exception
have been able to emulate.
The transition years will give way to "the
age of woman,” The Feminine Era. Now that
man with his strong body and aggressive
nature has tamed the frontiers and conquered
the mountains, rivers, and seas, it is his
turn to watch and learn from his helpmate.
She has stood by, not idly, not patiently,
but expectantly as a woman in pregnancy
knows there is much to look ward to, much at
stake, and a new life to come. She nurtures
not only herself, but also the one to come.
The Feminine Era has been brought forth as
such, from men and women.
Feminine aspects of our civilization,
technologies, and cultures that already
exist will remain. Those aspects of our
civilization that carry the qualities of the
feminine to create, care for, nourish, and
tend will grow in influence in these
transition years. We are beginning to see
some of the results that this renaissance
period is bringing into our world. For
example, we can already see when we combine
the best effects of the masculine with the
effect of the feminine, that farming in
gentle and nurturing ways is able to thrive
and replace punitive ways of producing
abundance from the earth. Sharing
traditional roles is becoming much more
common, also. Today, couples, who are
parents for the first time, have to explain
to the other what they mean when they say
they are going to "the nursery,” for a
nursery is also a greenhouse, a garden, and
conservatory, as well as a room for infants,
daycare center, playroom, and kindergarten.
There is plenty of room for both men and
women to tend our planet and its children in
productive, creative, and prospering ways.
The
spirituality of the world is changing by
taking on feminine qualities with its
inherent co-creative functions. In The
Feminine Era women and men can become
co-creators with other individuals, and
ultimately understand and use their
co-creative energies to bring a co-creative
world age into existence; to ultimately
become co-creators of the world with the
Spiritual Guardians of our planet.
How will this change take place? It is
already occurring - the threads of the
future being woven inextricably into the
fabric of today. If only more of us could
see these threads, we would see how the
future is being produced from the weavers of
today.
We are all weavers! The threads are the
choices we make every day as to how we will
live and what we want of our tomorrows. We
needn't be surprised with the quality of
fabric that the future delivers! It depends
upon how well we are able to express our
innate, combined
feminine-masculine-spiritual natures.
Ego-centeredness is selfish and me-oriented
while loving, co-creativeness considers all
as the center.
Ignorance of choice is often a protective
barrier to the consequences that follow.
Civilization is ignorant of consequences
made by individuals who have the power of
decision for making choices. Individuals
make choices but are ignorant of the
consequences of their contribution to their
civilization and world. The individual’s
lifetime perspective is too brief to
overcome their short-sightedness. This
circle of ignorance can only be broken when
individuals appreciate their self-worth and
the significance of their actions over a
lifetime of small decisions.
Now that millions of us are aware of the
consequences, it is past time to amend our
destructive ways and get on with the
business of nurturing, caring for, and
cherishing our planetary home. It will be
woman who will teach this to man. The sooner
each man accepts the feminine side of
himself, the less suffering he will
experience in the Feminine Era.
Slowly, men and women are realizing, too, as
they did as children, that there are no
polarized positions of man and woman, but a
common "us,” just as there are no polarized
positions between "us" and The Creator, but
a common spiritual co-creative oneness. We
gain more personal power and control of our
world when we accept the combined feminine
and masculine sides of our self. And this
combined personal power is multiplied when
we accept the combined power of our
personal, unique spiritual nature with the
spiritual presence of The Creator, in each
of us. In the decades and centuries ahead,
the combined aspects of our masculine and
feminine sides will become part of the
expression of the best character and
influence of both woman and man working in
close harmony in the home, in governance, in
business, and in play.
Each of us has the same intimacy of our own
personal spirit with The Creator as we have
the same intimacy of the feminine and
masculine aspects of our personalities.
There is no separation between either our
masculine and feminine nature or our
spiritual nature and The Creator, unless we
say there is. There is no escape from this
connection, and can only be transformed by
breaking the circle of ignorance that there
is separation between us, individually, and
all else.
This is a connection of oneness in all
planes. The intimate connection between the
body of the individual and the body of the
earth is almost imperceptible. We are
intimately connected to our material planet,
for our bodies have their material origins
from the nutrients of the soil and plants.
Our bodies replicate the mineral content of
the earth -- our blood replicates the water
of the oceans. It remains for us to
appreciate this intimacy and develop new
theologies and beliefs about The Creator and
Mother Earth that reflect this oneness, and
see that there is no separation from either.
When we understand this oneness, we will be
able to express our lives in ways that
promote completion and wholeness in our
relationships with The Creator, ourselves,
our families and mates, and our planet. Then
we will have begun The Era of Family and
Community.
~~~~~~~
Readers are welcome to reproduce this
article. Please retain the name and
addresses of the author, for those who wish
to contact:
Daniel Raphael, Ph.D.
PO Box 3718
Boulder, CO 80307-3718
USA
dr@boulderlifecoach.com
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