The Nature of Female Power

Drawing Eros In

The direction of male energy is up and out; that of female energy down and in. When we stand upright, the sky above, with its pattern of sun, moon, planets, stars, is different for each of us at every moment. If we were to rise straight up through our spines, we would set out on a course of exploration unique to each of us. If, however, we follow the same alignment downward, we all arrive at the same place: center earth. Thus, the up or male direction is one of individuation; the female or down one of universality.

Which is why, as population increases and space on the surface runs out, we must focus on the Feminine to unify our world. The Feminine is both Source of Life, and End of Life ('end' as in 'conclusion', but also as in 'purpose'). Our individual lifetimes are a journey. Our oneness with each other is the home we started from, and to which we all return.

We have all at some time seen the image of Ouroboros - the snake swallowing its tail. When I was young I was puzzled by an adage I read in a book of philosophy: 'This is why men perish; they do not know how to join the beginning to the end.'. To work consciously with the Female Power is to learn to do so. It is also to come to understand the cycle of becommings which is the Soul. It requires us to follow the direction of the Feminine - inward. Into self-understanding. But also into active use of Female Power, which combines Creation, Nurturance and Destruction as actively chosen principles. This is the 'Triple Goddess' - also defined as Maiden, Mother, Crone (or Future, Present, Past) - which preceded the Male forms of triple divinity. The Crone, or Destructive Goddess, is the great recycling system of the Universe - she 'eats form' like maggots eat a body, or a recycling plant melts down old cars, to forge new and fresh possibilities. In our society Maiden and Mother receive their due, while the Crone is feared. To 'join the beginning to the end' is to know the Crone.

There are organic ways in which life promotes the 'return within'. Cycles of night replacing day, the winter season, dark of the moon, surrender to sexual, emotional or artistic union. The call of service or devotion which allows us to give our separation into something greater. At present, however, I want to introduce a conscious method of working with the Inner Power. A focused meditation of pulling our world into us. It is a truism of spiritual experience that everything we meet in the world is an outer expression of ourselves, a reflection of our own internal patterns. What I see in mate, family, political leaders, the movies I watch or world events I pay attention to, all reflect my own internal drama. As I of course reflect the world around me. But as we grow in consciousness, we learn that the place of power is inside, not out. As an illustration, try arm wrestling with someone you know to be stronger. You cannot win. Unless you arrange the match such that the other's arm is extended, while yours is held close to your body. Now you have the leverage to prevail. The closer we hold our world to ourselves, the more we consciously pull it in, the more power we have to affect that world. That is the Female Power.

I once had a client work with me who was concerned about his ability, as a young father, to protect and provide for his family. I asked him to call in front of him what he was most afraid of. A Jew, he saw in his mind's eye a Nazi Stormtrooper. I suggested, instead of fighting the Nazi, to pull him closer. The image turned to an 'Evil Witch' (the Feminine always lies inside the Masculine). He began to fight the witch, and 'threw her out of the universe'. Sweating and tired, he felt powerful. But a week later the witch was back, peering from the edge of the cosmos (his), threatening to return. We repeated the exercise, asking him not to fight the witch, but to pull her in. She became confused, then younger and younger, finally a baby in his heart. He took her through himself 'down to the Mother'. The threat and the issue behind it did not recur.

Another adage floating around the universities in my twenties was 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny'. Development of the individual foetus repeats development of life on earth, from one-celled organism through all the phyla (insect, fish, bird, amphibian, mammal) which have led to the human. What happens with species experience also happens with our individual stories. We surrender them in exact inverse sequence to their acquisition, in order to meet with deeper purpose. We 'die' in order to birth something else. And yet it is possible to remain awake in the journey in, to experience our becoming one with the primal power from which we first emerged. This is the evolutionary path of the soul. Physically, we pull energy to the base of the spine (our tail) and then further into the Source from which we have emerged; metaphysically we pull the energy into our fundamental story (our tale) and return to the greater story of which we are a part.

In actively working with Female Power, we pull whatever reality needs transforming into ourselves, but also through ourselves to the Source or Center (personal center, earth center, universal center). In doing so we collapse the form of external circumstance in reverse order to that in which they were created. We are back then at 'the Creation', in the 'first moment', and can pull out of ourselves new circumstances and events. How consciously we participate in creating the 'new world' varies with many factors, but our attachment to old forms and responses is dissolved by the exercise, leaving us different. And, finding us different, the world behaves differently toward us. And begins to reshape itself according to our better ideas and ideals (see the previous Message on Female Power and 'Virtual Reality').

Just as the primal power of the female requires that the male feed her with his sperm, and then further feed his family with the deer he shoots in the forest or the paycheck he brings from the office, so Female Mystery and Eros require the Spiritual Sky be drawn into Matter (the Mother) for purposes of Creation. Acting collectively as the Feminine, it is up to us to draw the present world in, and transform it.

In pulling the world in, we are not engaged in some narcissistic act of separation, nor an egoic desire to control, but in a return to original unity. The 'spiritual path' eventually produces the insight that we are all One Being, having separated into points of focus or perspectives in order to know ourself. Whatever comes to our attention is an integral part of who we are. The Crone, or Destructive Feminine, teaches that in order to 'pray for' the world, to nurture, love it, create new possibilities (including children), we must also 'prey on' the world. Pull it in and turn it into us. What makes such 'preying' ethical or unethical depends on the depth of our intention to service, and with it our willingness to give ourselve over into what is being created. 'Preying' without 'praying' is spiritual death; but 'praying' without 'preying' is impotent. Here lie keys to resolution of our current dilemmas - personal and worldwide.