"HOLDING THE MEN-FEET TO THE SACRED FIRE: CHERISHING THE FEMININE"

This is the name of the piece that wants to be -- and will be -- written and shared. But not until next week.

We are leaving shortly for the journey from Los Angeles to Big Sur where I will spend the next several days frolicking naked in the ancient soul forest and soaking all night long in the healing waters of the hot tubs cantilevered into the majestic cliffs over-looking the Pacifica Ocean. Soaking in those waters under a shooting star-spattered velvet night sky is (one of) my most exquisite pleasures and ravishings on Earth. Oh, and there is not a blessed peep of cell reception at magical Esalen...so all the Messenger / comment things will have to respectfully dangle in the "unresponded to" winds until I return.

But what wants to be made contact with for me in this moment is that "disrupting" the concept of the "emotionally unavailable* man (which Alison Armstrong illuminated for me) is only half the story. It is not for a hot second providing an excuse for The Men Friends to *not* show up in their glorious, potent, heart-opened PRESENCE for a woman/the Feminine.

For the sake of ALL of our healing and (quite literally) for the future of our world, I believe it is NECESSARY and URGENT and LIFE-AFFIRMING for men/the Masculine to be both able and willing to witness and 'hold space for' "the Feminine storm".

(Credit: "the feminine storm" is a David Deida expression.)

To my heart and my in-this-moment thoughts, LEARNING TO (aka: remembrance) TRULY CHERISH WOMEN / THE FEMININE IS THE KEY to unlocking and healing personal/archetypal/Gaian/galactic feminine pain.

Counter to much thought, I believe that this must start with the Masculine; specifically, it must start with men. (Well, it must start with OURSELVES, but in light of our embedded context as men and women upon the planet...)

And YES, it is also vitally important for the Feminine/woman to *reciprocate* (to *reciprocate* is very specific word choice on my part) with the capacity to BE a clear energetic channel of stabilized, regulated. *conscious* receiving -- which is a completely different energetic than mothering or "coddling" a man (which is killing him, ps.)

The question then becomes what does it look like for a man/the Masculine to be "emotionally available" for women / the Feminine? And if this is indeed needed, how might this be taught, modeled and/or learned?

Let me be perfectly clear that it is not the job AT ALL OR EVER for a woman/ the Feminine to "teach", way-show, illuminate, educate, etc., a man/the Masculine on how to do/be this mythologized "emotionally available" person -- or any version of such.

IF a woman in her full sovereignty and Feminine expression CHOOSES *and* has the resources (resources, which btw, are provided most often through channels of privilege) TO DO SO, then this is her *individual* choice.

For *me*, these are the questions, entanglements, and shadows that I personally choose to spelunk around inside of.

I choose to *attempt* to illuminate, challenge, look under the hood, and poke my little fingers into the archetypal hornet's nest knowing full well that I will likely be stung. And, equally if not more importantly as my heart-felt willingness, I have the resources to invest my time + my wildly imperfect thinking / exploration because of *the privilege afforded to me by our radically distorted culture*. This is a topic too large to fully honor in this moment, but it feels important to at least name this truth, this *reality*.

So, to that end, I am thinking of gathering a few resources (videos, teachers) to share early next week so that we can rock out on ways that we can together look at this complex subject of Masculine Emotional Availability -- which in its essence, is secret code for Masculine Attunement and Presence. (And speaking of secret codes, "rock out" is a total euphemism for 'wipe out, put special potions on the hornet stings, tiptoe, spitball, throw spaghetti against the wall, fall down and dust myself off' to see what might be want to be known as the dust clears.)

A final note: Being emotionally available / unavailable is not at all confined to Feminine/Masculine energetic polarities or woman/man gender embodiments.

Its a potential and human capacity for shadow or light that is alive in ALL of us....its just that the narrative + societal conditioning has been more pervasively and insidiously focused on mens'/the masculine's wound surrounding "emotional unavailability" -- which, of course, both women and men pay the high cost of in our inner lives and relationships.

A final final note, (pinky swear )

This might be the semi-awkward way I do things for a little while....open to receive / write The Thing that comes through me all raw and fiery.... and then slow my roll, read the comments + private messages and allow myself out loud + visibly to make contact with a wider aperture that is *also* Truth.

While I am deeply and utterly appreciative of all the support, the teachings and places that I truthfully, would prefer to turn away from are the places where I know I need to turn towards, and open INTO.

I am getting schooled on the regular and am so appreciative of ALL the conversation that my writing / hornet's nest poking / spelunking instigates.

Where there is smoke, there's fire....and this is the stomping grounds of shadow.

We are all ALL things (credit: Marci Lock ).

There are hunkered-down fractal aspects of me that carry the exact misandry/misogyny and oppressor-archetype templates (what Jung calls animus-possession) that I illuminate. There are times that I am quite literally throwing stones against my own glass house that *I live inside of*...and it is in those moments that I take a deep breath and turn towards the poison inside of me, trusting that contained within it, is also the medicine.
The original post on facebook can be found here