Men as wounded - women as balm

I wonder how many men will die today because they can’t be real…authentic….present, to themselves or anyone else…vulnerable…fragile. How many men will die because they are unwilling or unable to cry…ask for help…let go…surrender to themselves…break free of their history…live their life in a meaningful way?

Having spent the last week awash in compelling conversations, I am mindful of my commitment to work primarily with women through to the end of 2009. It is not that men are unwelcome – it is more that they choose not to show up. It is not that I do not find them worthy – it is that they do not find themselves worthy. Fear often stops them from discovering who they are: fear that they are not what they try to pretend to be and equally fearful that they are. It is not an easy place for them to stand.

When I read Ray’s blog entry of March 22nd, I felt great hope. I thought of a world filled with men who were willing to ‘go deep’ into themselves…into their own lives…and do so without hiding. I imagined a world where these men become the fathers who guide their young sons to do the same, teaching not by telling but by becoming it themselves. I thought of a world filled with men and women willing to see and be seen, hear and be heard, invite and be welcomed.

I wondered about the world we’ve created and what else we might create. Just how many generations thick IS the way of the so-called dominant male? For how many decades have men been teaching their sons not to cry, not to feel, not to let go, using whatever form of physical and/or emotional aggression that got the job done? For how long have men brutalized their sons in the name of discipline and ‘teaching him to be a man’ without once stopping to consider: what am I creating here? What have I become from these same things in my own life from so long ago? Do I even like who I am? To know these things, we must all ‘go deep’ and remember….even when we don’t want to.

As I write, these thoughts rumble through:
* We can’t give what we haven’t got. I cannot teach my children to be who I myself am not. It all begins with me.

* We can’t change the world unless and until we change ourselves. As I change myself, and you change yourself, etc. our global community becomes a reflection of all those changes. That’s the order in which it occurs. So, to think that I can will or wish the world to change while I insist on being the same, is a fools’ game.

* The link between the generation that I am and the next one to come (or between the NOW and the FUTURE) is called parenting. How I ‘parent’ (meaning influence the world view of) the children in my presence (mine or anyone else’s) will determine who they become. And who they become will determine MY future.

The world is in desperate need of being changed. Not the world we live ON (the planet) but the world we live FROM (the inventions of our own making) which have deeply wounded the planet. We cannot change the planet, we can only change how we live on the planet. We do not own this space – we are just camping out. Gaia has already demonstrated that she will take care of herself, even if it means that many of us will die as she does so. She has been here far longer than any of us can even imagine – and she will be here long after we have disappeared as a species.

If we want to change the world, the one we are responsible for is the one we live FROM that profoundly damages the one we live ON. To change the world, we must become the change we seek. Then, in so doing, we have something different from how it has been to offer the next generation that they might shape that world differently.

Thank you, Ray. In your words, I see hope. I see the pathway for men to awaken to themselves and cease mindlessly forming lives that do not feed the soul. I see the invitation for men not just to teach their young sons but to learn from their young sons how to remember the young son they once were – and free themselves.

Women can neither free nor save men from themselves. Nor can they devote their lives to being the soothing balm that is spread on their festering wounds. That is something that men must do for themselves.

Women can only awaken to their own potential, and move on.

Breathing is good…..