In the Light of the Feminine – WALKING WITH GOD, part 4/5

WALKING WITH GOD

(part 4 of 5)

In the Light of the Feminine

Though I knew all the women who would be attending this ceremony there was a hint of anxiety as I traveled to the temple- I was the only male who would be journeying with them. There were 5 participants and our guides Dr Z and Dr X. In the writhing circle of raw emotional truth I would be the lone representative of my gender.

In some ways this felt like a personal challenge.

It was a new protocol this time, one that grew organically from past experiences.
Previously, we would arrive on a Saturday, spend a few hours in discussion and preparation, then move into ceremony with both medicines in a single evening. Many of us have voiced regret, even gentle opposition, in recent ceremonies when it came time to move from one part of the evening to the next. The healing communion of heart medicine is so lovely and healing that abandoning it for any reason, even to partake in something magical, feels like a small tragedy.

This weekend would be a three day experience instead of two; less hurried, more relaxed, with time in between medicine journeys to settle and socialise. Friday evening we would journey with heart medicine (MDMA), and Saturday evening we would venture into our inner realms with visionary medicine (mushrooms). Sunday we would come together as always to share, integrate, and hold each other’s hurts and victories in sacred community.

The new schedule was not without its challenges; beginning in the later afternoon on a Friday means battling massive rush hour traffic and a line at the ferry that can be backed up for several hours. Some of us decided the stress wasn’t worth it and arrived on the island around noon.

I took the day off from work, as did K and AR. AR knew of a wildlife preserve close by and we decided to spend an hour or so among the trees and birds (and a plethora of slugs as it turned out) before ceremony.

It had been about a week since Gaia and I had talked and she revealed her lack of romantic connection. I told myself I was ok with it, and I mostly was…at least consciously. Yet as the two women and I walked through the woods I noticed some of the old patterns trying to assert themselves, something that hadn’t happened before with women from our tribe. I noticed I was walking quickly and assertively, not entirely out of character for me as I’m a fast-talking and fast-walking transplant from the East Coast, but I became aware that I was doing so to try to present an image of myself as fit and competent.

I was posturing like a male bird in season, preening and puffing my feathers out in a display of virility. This made me somewhat uncomfortable but I tried to allow it to happen and become aware of what process in me needed to act this way.

We finished our walk and headed to the temple. B had already arrived but AF had gotten caught up in the maelstrom of Friday traffic in the Seattle metro area. Though we didn’t officially begin ceremony we circled in the temple and Dr Z asked if we’d like to do a few role-playing exercises.

Physical expression of this type has always been scary for me. My body shame and inhibitions against authenticity have made this a frustrating aspect of my work with Dr Z. He has consistently tried to get me to loosen my invisible bonds and stretch my wings, with little success so far.

Somehow, and entirely in contrast to my mental state earlier in the woods, I did let go and opened my metaphorical wings to catch the rising thermals. I was running and deliberately tumbling to the ground in a dramatic and unrestrained way, tumbling ass over tea kettle for the sheer delight of it. Several of the women were laughing but I felt them laughing with me and not at me.

This was life force moving through me. This was the freedom my recent work and experiences have gained me.

Dr Z’s description of life force does not fully encompass the concept for me. In addition to it being ‘that part of us that always attempts to act on our own behalf and get our needs met’ I see it as the energy of our authenticity.  Young children are entirely in touch with their life force when they play and imagine, acting without self-consciousness or regard for how others may perceive them. They simply are what they are in that moment. As I was throwing myself to the floor I felt as free and unencumbered as a child.

AF arrived and we moved into ceremony. After we received the heart medicine Dr Z began with a long, guided meditation. While I lay quietly I noticed that the stories from earlier wanted to come back with a vengeance.

You are ugly and unworthy. You didn’t deserve her. You are unlovable. You are gross.

My guts squirmed and coiled in and around themselves, nausea and formication writhing through my viscera. The old voices, the old story of shame, coming back with a vengeance.

I’ve come so far, is this still my reality? Am I still this wounded and limited by my past? The only way to find out is to turn toward the voices, to ask them what they need to be satisfied, how they are trying to protect me. Avoiding and ignoring these thoughts only save the inevitable conversation for later.

The only way out is through.

With the medicine working on us in full force, Dr Z invited us to sit up and, if we were called to do so, to engage with the others. I immediately sat up and turned to my left where K was sitting and asked if she would speak with me.

She witnessed for me as I talked about all these feelings, how the old voices were trying to reframe my experiences with Gaia into something negative and dark. In this moment she represented all the women I had ever been with or felt inadequate around; my old relationships hung invisibly in the air like spectres requiring an ancient and eldritch ritual to pass on to the next world. As I confessed my inner shame it dissipated into nothingness, losing its power and influence; dark spirits can not survive in the sun.     

I looked into K’s eyes and told her that I trusted Gaia, that I felt she had been honest with me, that I refused to believe the story of self-hatred any longer; and in saying so it became my truth. A great weight was lifted from my soul.

I felt freedom within me, an opening of previously closed doors, and realised my relationship with the feminine had changed.

K and I continued to talk for some time. We discussed how we live in a society where touch, something psychological science has shown to be deeply important to the health of the psyche, is so heavily restricted that many of us live in a state of constant “touch hunger.”¹ Though neither of us clearly remember the lead up to the question, she asked me how touch showed up in my early life.

Still today, many people flinch if the person returning their change accidentally brushes their hand. Generally speaking, the fear of touch is much greater in men. Touch is seen as soft and effeminate, and many men are keen to appear macho or at least masculine. With women, they worry that their touch will be interpreted as a sexual advance. With other men, they fear that it will raise questions about their sexuality, or that it will feel awkward, or that it will be rejected, or that they might enjoy it a little too much. With children, with many schools now operating a strict no-touch policy, they fear that it might raise suspicions of paedophilia. So with the exception of handshakes and the occasional awkward ‘man hug’, men must forego touch, especially warm, intimate touch, simply to reassure everyone, and perhaps also themselves, that they are decent, manly men.²

Through most of my life touch has been anathema. Boys don’t touch boys and you only touch girls when you are together and being intimate with each other. Touch was also a gateway to shame for me, even with romantic partners.

Who would ever want to touch me? Who would ever want me to touch them?

Yet there was an older memory that came up in response to K’s question. When I was very small my mother would hold me and lightly rub my cheeks. I don’t recall much beyond the light brush of fingertips on my face and the how I felt in those moments: safe, secure, loved, a fundamental surety that I belonged and was wanted.

K asked if she could offer that to me, if she could rub my cheek and see if I could reconnect with that feeling. There was the briefest flash of hesitation, the old fear of showing vulnerability and being ridiculed for it, but I swatted the thought aside as I would an annoying insect. I accepted her offer and lay back next to her.

She began to stroke my cheek and I chuckled to myself- it’s a very different feeling to have your cheek stroked when you’re growing out a beard. The perfectly soft sensation of a light touch on a bare cheek can’t be replicated through the grit and roughness of facial hair; yet it was lovely nonetheless. I closed my eyes and lost myself in trust.

Soon the others came over and after a while I was surrounded by four women each laying their hands upon me, every one of them become an aspect of the divine feminine., As they touched me they offered care and compassion through their gentle hands. Somewhere deep in my mind the now tiny voice of self-consciousness and shame was cajoling me to reject this. Despite how vehement the sophistic expostulations of my past were, they were nearly out of earshot in this place…a mere whisper from across a wide valley barely noticed above the quiet rustle of leaves on a breezy day.

I let go and accepted the gifts of these women. I trusted them and myself to be who we claimed to be, to give and receive according to our authentic wishes and not the proscriptive dictates of a fearful society that teaches us to be ashamed of our true selves. I was unselfconscious and fearless.

This was a sacred rite of passage: I was shedding the shackles and limitations that had been placed on my relationships with women. The mask fell and shattered, its days of usefulness long past.

I realised now the importance of my being the only man in this circle, of being able to commune with women without the overlay of sexual tension, toxic masculinity, and shame I’d felt with every other woman in my life. I gazed deeply in the feminine energy and saw the wonder and beauty inside.

In the feminine is the maternal, the caregiver, and the nurturing and deeply loving partner. The feminine is strong and vibrant, powerful in its ability love and fierce in its defence.

AF seemed to understand what was happening for me, at one point she said how wonderful it was to be in a place like this and to be able to touch a man without being sexualised. In her few words I heard the pain and struggle of all women who have been the subject of the shallow and lascivious male; those men – no, boys – who have never come to see women for their true worth but only as a physical conquests to be won and then discarded.

—

My father modelled toxic masculinity for me. To him, and thus to me for a long time, women were seen in the context of how they could meet my needs, desirable not for the content of their hearts and minds but solely for what they could offer. He took my natural attraction to women and made it an unhealthy, selfish, and callow thing. I had been yet another unremarkable man, the descendent of countless generations of other men who grew up in a patriarchal world and looked at women as resources rather than people.

While this was his truth, it was never mine. This was just a story he taught to me. Deep in me there has always been a need for more, for a deeper connection and appreciation of women. Those needs had been buried under decades of trauma and training but now they were moving and changing, flowing with life force as I shed the old lies.

In the weeks since the circle I have felt the shift in these thoughts and desires continue and accelerate. This shift had already started but the experience of being embraced by the sacredness of these beautiful women brought the process fully into my awareness.

I’m no longer that small man who thinks only with his libido or greed and not his heart. For the first time I am able to be in the presence of women without that tension of needing to be macho or manly or clever…all shadows of the need to be desired.

I am learning how to be a man instead of a wounded boy.

 

 

References

1 Field, T. (2010). Touch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review. Developmental Review, 30(4), 367-383.

2 Burton, N. (2017). Touch Hunger: The breaking of a taboo. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201706/touch-hunger