We Need a New Men's Movement

How many more shootings - like the one in Orlando this past week - will have to happen before we realize, as a culture, that we need a new "men's movement"? Search the internet - or Instagram or Facebook - and marvel at the number of "goddess spirituality" groups there are. Women are really getting in touch with their own sacred feminine. Then do a similar search for "god spirituality" or "recovering the sacred masculine" and how many groups do you find? Hardly any, by comparison.
Some would argue that much of our traditional religion and spirituality is ALL about the masculine. I disagree. Rather, most of the male imagery inherent in religion deals only with the SHALLOW and OPPRESSIVE roles that society (including our mothers) has foisted upon men. It has almost NOTHING to do with the Sacred Masculine.
Here I recall a class in which I had the students read a manuscript of mine that contains two chapters on "The Search for the Sacred Feminine." One male student raised his hand and asked: "What about the search for the Sacred MASCULINE? It seems we've hardly begun in THAT endeavor!"
Only when we men begin to get in touch with our inner lives, admit to our feelings of powerlessness and shame and our destructive attempts to deny these, and at the same time explore the spiritual riches of the non-patriarchal Sacred Masculine, will our society begin to experience healing. And only then will our culture of rape and violence begin to be transformed into something that is life-affirming for people of ALL genders.
Some will ask: "Why have a MEN'S Movement"? We are all simply human beings with the same needs and desires!" There is of course some wisdom to this point. However, it is important to remember that women had a Women's Movement for thirty or forty years and learned during that time to uncover a deeper dimension of freedom and selfhood. We need something similar for men. As Ken Wilber is so fond of saying, we have to distinguish and integrate our various energies before we can transcend them into something higher or deeper. We men have not yet discovered and integrated the sacred dimension of our masculinity. Only when we do will we be able - like women - to move into a dimension that transcends (and includes) both masculinity and femininity.
Photo: Ghost Ranch, NM
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