Secrets To A Balanced Life - Part II

Part II – Exploring Balance Between Our Feminine-Masculine Self

The Lovers, 1923 - Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” ~ Susan Sontag (1933-2004)

Observe for a moment the painting, The Lovers, by Pablo Picasso. I specifically chose this for Part II of Secrets To A Balanced Life as a visually revealing example of the combined feminine-masculine aspects that reside within us all. When we look at the woman, we can see that she emanates a solidity and strength. The curves of her body and her grounded posture reveal her outer strength – nothing fragile about her. Her face not only emanates a beauty and gentleness, her eyes seem to also speak of the force of inner strength and intelligence. The woman of course, is not just feminine, she carries aspects of masculine qualities that we could say, appear to balance her out quite well!

Now gaze upon the man in the painting. Look at how gently and lovingly he looks upon the woman. He reveals a strong male presence, and he also openly expresses his nurturing and tender qualities as he looks upon his lover and gently cups her hand. His face emanates an abiding compassion as well as the strength of his convictions. The man is not just masculine; he also contains those feminine aspects that seem to equally balance him out. Surprising?

Was Picasso thinking of rendering a clear illustration of balance within the combined feminine-masculine powers that reside in both men and women in The Lovers? If so, he succeeded brilliantly.

In Part I – Exploring Balance Between Our Spiritual-Physical Self, I asked, “If we were to explore the concept of balance for humanity, what would it contain?” I said striving for balance is a constant evolving dance between the duel, yet matching combinations of the feminine-masculine and the spiritual-physical. When we think of balance, we can examine these four aspects as the blueprints to our personal roadmap for how we shape ourselves – referring to the two combinations as the ‘four pillars.” When something is out of balance within the four pillars of humanity, that friction culminates in forms of inequality.

It also bears repeating that living a balanced life is an evolving process. There’s no destination of perfection or perpetual state of bliss and the process isn’t the same for each individual. Within the concept of balance we must include the vast richness of diversity.

So, whether we’re physically a woman or a man, we are born with the combined gifts of both the feminine and masculine powers. I continually observe and experience the truth that every one of us play out behaviors through belief systems and behaviors through the pure nature of who we are as the basis for which our lessons in life are derived, guided by the choices we make.

I’ve come to know life always leads us to ultimately discovering love and the true essence of who we really are. We mainly discover this greater truth after we’ve gone bumping and brawling around in the dark of our own ignorance and fears. How else do we learn our deepest lessons?

Let’s explore the feminine-masculine path combination.

Feminine-Masculine

Within the feminine, we find the powers of nurturing, intuition and heart, giving/sharing and the creative energies where visions and the powers of creative imagination are gestated and birthed from the dark or unseen place within our spiritual/intuitive mind.

Within the masculine, we find the powers of internal strength in assertiveness or fire of will power, the intellect and rational/logical mind, and the obvious external physical strength and power.

Nature has always been considered an expression of the Divine. Since antiquity, our ancestors have understood the symbolic expressions of the feminine and masculine powers in nature. One cannot exist exclusively without the other. The earth, known as Gaia or Great Mother is the symbol of fertile soil where all of nature’s diversity is birthed and grown. The sun is also known as Sol and Grandfather Sun. Without the heat and light from this great star, all the diverse potential could not transform from the soil.

The masculine essence has no greater worth than the feminine essence. Opposites as we regard them to be, they are equals in necessity in every conceivable way.

We refer to the Divine as united aspects of the highest feminine-masculine powers when we refer to this combination as god-goddess energies, called by many names the world over.

In the struggle for power over others on earth, humanity’s great error was to force a belief system that the Divine was primarily masculine – reducing and limiting this mysterious Source to suite our purposes.

Separating the feminine-masculine combination into categories of weaker or stronger or limiting their boundaries into categories of black and white, we create damage and chaos in nature and the nature of who we are. The true harmony of nature thrives only in the fluid combined space of infinite vibrant color where all of creation is free to continue building in the most joyful and wondrous fashion.

We see imbalances in the world in the excess masculine use of will, rationale, and physical aggressiveness in wars for money-power, and under the illusion that aggression is a positive form of masculinity and acceptable power, having lost the aspect of compassion, the intuitive-heart self, true service and sharing with others.

We see the imbalances of the feminine in continued suppression through forms of imposed and self-created servitude – nurturing or serving others exclusively, having given up and lost the aspect of personal power, assertive free will, and strength of personal identity.

3 Levels of Power

Here again is the method for discovering where imbalances originate – a tool to maximize awareness and take responsibility for creating and monitoring our own balance. This is a method of interpreting our life situations through the 3 Levels of Power as created by Carolyn Myss, spiritual teacher and medical intuitive. I refer to them as the three levels of conscious awareness.

The 3 Levels are:

1. Tribal Power – Lowest level of power – The follower who follows the group who makes the choices for us based on their experiences, rules, and beliefs.
2. Individual Power – High level of power – Our personal beliefs, judgments that come from experience, but also the place we turn inward for personal inquiry about what we believe.
3. Symbolic Power – Highest level of power – Where we step outside of ourselves and look at situations from an overall transcendent point of view. We observe and ask what the situation represents in the higher spiritual order of things for the highest good.

Looking Within For Answers

Once we understand the 3 Levels of Power and filter a situation through each level to determine where it originates or what level of power it represents to us, we continue by applying the tool of personal inquiry – asking ourselves questions to uncover truths and determine right actions we desire to take to heal and empower the feminine-masculine imbalance. For example:

What belief system(s) do we live “under” that split our feminine-masculine aspects into weaker and stronger, or good and evil?

How do our current belief systems work for or against us in creating our true heart’s desire in the world?

Which aspects of the combined feminine-masculine powers are out of balance? Which one is most dominant? Which one is weak? Describe what the imbalances are.

How can we positively strengthen the feminine or masculine aspects within us now?

What fears (worry, anxiety, superstitions, prejudice, hate) block us from actively creating balance?


Resources:
Anatomy of the Spirit – CD or Book by Carolyn Myss
Seeing in the Dark: Myths and Stories to Reclaim the Buried, Knowing Woman – CD by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
A Pathway To Union: The Marriage of the Feminine (Heart) and the Masculine (Mind) in the Twenty-First Century – Book by Ariana Khent
Three Levels of Power and How to Use Them – CD by Carolyn Myss

Affirmation for this month – Balance of Feminine-Masculine Nature
Today I call forth my positive feminine creative, intuitive, and nurturing aspects and my masculine intellectual, assertive, and strong aspects equally, to help me create this day in balance and harmony.

Live in beauty and be well - Triza Schultz

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