Witchvox Article

Author: Xinea
Posted: February 7th. 2010
Times Viewed: 1,236

"Female-Male polarities in terms of Universal energy is a very powerful magick all it's own."-Lynn V. Andrews

Generally speaking men/male aspects and women/female aspect are very different, and everyone knows basically how and why. My friends and I joke about it all the time, how the men's version of church is the sports bar, their holy communion is beer and cheeseburgers. And it's all good, because 'girl's night out' is as sacred holiday as any Sabbat. It's my opinion that those aspects of our lives are equally important.

To bond with those of like mind is as indispensable to us as linking with the Deities/Elements...but to be honest we tend to have an 'us vs. them' mentality when it comes to the sexes. It's usually not intentional; it's integrated into our psyche early on. It's one of the first things we are taught, or at least I was.

Girls wear pink, boys wear blue and they are meant to be very separated. But as I grew up I realized that concept is tired and well, a lie. Our society is besieged upon us a boatload of labels to quickly and effectively place us all in nice little categories and leave us there. But as our society has changed and expanded it's moldy views on men and women (finally!) have been updated. We realize that everything is not quite so easily defined. That's a good thing that means there's room for creative growth and adaption and actually learning more about others and ourselves.

But it's also my belief that with all things that we are, and are sacred to us, we have to be a mix of them, intertwined to achieve balance. This is especially true in all things magical. If you do not have balance you won't have results you are looking to achieve, or be a happy contented person for that matter.

Polarities are necessary to have symmetry and I think everyone can agree that both female and male qualities have positive and negative attributes. Please note that I'm not saying all women are female energy and not all men are male energy. Everyone is a complex amalgamation, and though most people lean more towards one energy than the other that doesn't make it good or bad. Each of us is a unique individual and that is always a positive (no matter what other more narrow-minded dogmas may protest.) It's my goal here to take these two energies and look at each of them, grasp them, to better perceive people. For in that, I can be the healer I aim to be.

My Spirit Guides are quick to tell me that 'All beings are souls, with a mix of ALL, and all beings are sacred.' It's commonly accepted in the 'pagan community' that we all have had past lives in which we were both male and female. So if we have been both, and are a mix of both, why such division? Seems silly to me, but still there is a lot of "tsk, tsk" in society about gender roles and bias and even in the cozy networks of Paganism there are the whispers of gender issues.

Now I know there are groups devoted to all women and all men exclusively for their gender to study and learn. Some women plainly do not feel comfortable around men in the magickal setting and visa versa. That's OK. I am certainly not attacking that, I applaud those groups so long as their intentions are one of growth and not just being 'haters' of one type or another, and that goes both ways. However, it is my belief that if your circle/group wishes to bring peace between women and men, then the circle must contain both genders.

My goal here is to understand the concepts myself, and be a catalyst for understanding. I think it's very important for all of us to know who we are (beyond reading our natal charts) so that we can be grounded balanced people, and through that all heal each other. I know that sounds very 60's hippie (and though I'm not old enough to fit in that era, I do have the mentality.) But in all fairness, if that is not our collective goal for humanity, than why are we here?

"Understanding the basic polarities of humanity can help you in many ways you never imagined, and bring in it's own spiritual truths that will add layers of wisdom into your consciousness." This is the promise of the Spirit Guides, and so I plunge deeper into humanity's polarities to comprehend it all. I can't be much of a light-healer if I don't completely and entirely 'get people.' My first stop is to look at the consummate definition of all things female/male the Taoist yin-yang. I think everyone has a general idea of what this symbol is about but I had much to learn about this concept, like most everything in Eastern-thought it goes much deeper than I had imagined. Suffice it to say that I could write at least ten articles, and I still would barely scratch the surface of all the meaning behind this neat little symbol.

The yin-yang is an easy idea to observe, as we tend to over-simplify things, but its conceptual meanings are hard to define, and that is putting it mildly. There are many definitions, but I will only mention three:

' (1) “yinyang” as the coherent fabric of nature and mind, exhibited in all existence, (2) yinyang as jiao (interaction) between the waxing and waning of the cosmic and human realms, and (3) yinyang as a process of harmonization ensuring a constant, dynamic balance of all things. As the Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) claims, "Yin in its highest form is freezing while yang in its highest form is boiling. The chilliness comes from heaven while the warmness comes from the earth. The interaction of these two establishes he (harmony) , so it gives birth to things. Yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos.' -Robin R. Wang (For more information on yinyang I highly suggest reading the references as it is very detailed and fascinating.)

From this, we can see clearly that the male/female polarities are mirrored in the Universe and with many things we are as much blueprints of the cosmos as is any part of nature. I don't know about anyone else, but that is of great comfort to me. Perhaps it's the modern world but I think I'm not alone in that many people feel cut off from nature and it takes a great amount of effort to actually feel whole in nature again. Never mind the fact that most everyone in the 'Pagan world' would feel more at home in the woods than the mall, but if we are honest, we also tend to feel more lost in nature as well. Who among us would not have our neat little gadgets with us when we go on a nature hike? That's not bad, it is the modern world. And it's not that we don't love nature, but because as humanity as a whole has progressed we have separated ourselves from that which we came from, Mother Earth. To bring together all parts of ourselves, accept and align ourselves more with nature, we achieve that sacrosanct equilibrium.

In the negative aspects of division between male-female polarities we see a vast difference in the two realms in terms of fighting that leads to a place of cognitive and spiritual slumber. This is displayed by the following:

"In ancient times women were known as the most fierce fighters because of this platform of fear. If he were male he would kill you because he has marked his domain. There is something in the male that is in the very root of his being; he will go to war for what he claims as his property. This extends to the domain of ideas as well. He will destroy even himself for an idea.

A woman will survive to be able to protect a belief structure that usually houses her family whether it is a family of ideas or children. So her basis for war usually is born of fear deep in the primal part of herself. War, like an idea of a belief system, is a man's greatest addiction and his greatest vulnerability. A warring human likes to live on the sheer edge of life and death. Such a state can almost be sacred because it involves living intensely in the now. There's only one problem, that kind of now, the source of it, is illusion, illusion produced by addiction. Because it all is born from addiction and it has one collective purpose, which is to keep you psychically asleep." -Lynn V. Andrews

It's my belief that in modern times we are not so separated between male/female and when we interact we don't necessarily follow this directly. Still, we all have this conflict within us and we must choose individually how we will act, or suffer the consequences of being 'psychically asleep.'

I challenge everyone to have an open-mind and embrace all that we are. Through that concept, we can grow individually and collectively into light beings we are meant to be and heal all.

Footnotes:
References:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/yinyang/
Crystal Woman-Lynn V. Andrews

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Xinea

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