Posts Tagged ‘divine masculine’

(Image to come)

I debuted my art show last night, “The Journey of the Masculine through Shadow and Light” at my studio here in Tallahassee.  A part of the installation was a story that I channeled that morning and printed up, placing it underneath the 50 images that comprised this show.  I believe I was guided to make this art and to bring through this story in order to create a book.  However, I want to share The Story with you now. 

“Once upon a time, there was peace. 

The Masculine principle desired to expand its knowing of itself.  It began by making choices; these choices compressed All of Creation, towards the end of the Masculine knowing itself. 

The compressions resulted in the Masculine principle fracturing the world.  Manifestations included the subjugation of nature and the Masculine principle’s partner, the Feminine. 

In coming to know itself, the Masculine revealed the need for balance. 

All of Creation supported, in love, the Masculine’s desire to know itself.  All of Creation was in agreement with the expressions of the out-of-balance world that the Masculine created.  So, when the time came to correct the imbalance, the Feminine stepped in to bring balance. 

The Feminine principle held the space within which the Masculine began to mend the fractures.  The Feminine invoked the powers of balance to assist in the mending.  The return created a stirring in the hearts of humankind, which opened a door to a side of themselves they had forgotten. 

The return of the Feminine created a choice – to continue in the imbalance, or to embrace a new wholeness.  The choice became more and more apparent as the worlds collided; friction, the result of two coming together to become one, was the medium to invoke the choice. 

The friction became so prevalent as to capture All of Creation’s interest.  Spectators and supporters attended the Great Re-Balancing; across the farthest reaches The Story was felt and held.  The love that emanated from All Creation provided an alchemical support which increased the intensity of the friction. 

The increased friction acted like sandpaper, destroying old patterns.  Cleansing and re-ordering became the way of life.  The new wholeness was achieved through the union of the Feminine and the Masculine principles. 

Balance again reigned.”

What was interesting to me was that this channeled story has a happy ending, as if from a larger perspective, all of the pain and suffering that has resulted from the break between the masculine and feminine were just part of the “play”, and that in the end it really is just experience. 

However, the 50 images I was guided to create tell a different story…in graphic detail, I was shown over and over the fracturing and the pain and subjugation mentioned in The Story, yet there was no happy ending in the 50 images.  I was told that the human version of the story is told by the images, and that we’re not at the end yet.

I was so grateful for the considered questions and responses that folks had.   One man whispered quietly to me, “Thank you for not blaming the men for everything.”  It broke my heart, and made me glad I have access to another version of the story.

A flood of work is coming through me, and it seems to be very much in examination of the dynamic between the feminine and the masculine, both within each of us and in the collective whole.  I am beginning to see that part of my soul’s desire on the earth is to bring healing to the masculine through the embodiment of the Sacred Feminine.  I am brought to tears with this knowing. 

all contents copyright Licia Berry, 2010

Colorado Sky, by Peter Berry

April 21, 2010

Memphis Airport

Traveling by plane always makes me so philosophical.  Well, more philosophical.  There is something about being up in the sky that is a mind blower to me, and thus invites my thoughts to wander farther then usual.

When I was maybe 4 years old, I was taken on my first airplane ride to New Jersey to see my Great Grandmother.  What I remember about that ride is looking out at the clouds in absolute wonder and delight.  Having attended a Christian preschool, I announced to my mother that this was where God lived, and I believed it; the magnificence of the clouds in the sky took my breath away even then.  I also thought the clouds would taste great with my coke.

Over the years I have developed a fear of flying.  (My fight to stay on earth and claim my life became more of an attachment…I always do that pendulum swing, it seems.  Explore this reality, go in the opposite direction and experience that reality…you know, just to make sure I cover it all while I’m here.)  I have felt myself pulling away from earth and experienced what little ones must experience when they are pulled away form their mamas at preschool; a true sense of anxiety and panic about being separated from what holds and supports me.   

But the clouds will sometimes distract me in my despair, and I will lose myself in the wonder of them, even if for a few moments. 

I had a new experience just now as I was up in the clouds between Tallahassee and Memphis, my plane changing point.  As I moved up, I made a choice to let go of the earth and trust…and in that moment, I felt a clear sense of Great Father pulling me up into the sky.  Yes, I said pulling me up.  I don’t think the plane could have descended one bit with that magnetic pull going on.

Yes, I realize that there was not a magnet pulling up on the plane.  It was so interesting and wonderful to me to feel this in my body, to feel a sense of what Great Father feels like, and for the sky to be His domain.  It made me remember that some indigenous peoples say “Father Sky and Mother Earth”.  Suddenly that made sense to me.

There was something in that moment that was reminiscent of my childhood, when I was so clear that God lived up in this beautiful blue and white magical place.  I felt a similar sense of wonder and awe, like the door of my heart opened in an old way, and the sky returned to its place there.

Sage- A Tribute to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, collage by Licia Berry, 2009 (click on image for larger view)

Last night in my nightly bedtime guidance sessions, I was guided to visualize myself in right relationship with my power.  This is not the first time I have explored what authentic, rightful power means.  Perhaps it is the central issue I have worked around my whole life.

I’ve resisted the idea of “power” for many years like many others who were not in their power.  I thought power meant being mean, unkind, dominant, just like I observed as a child in my own home or at school when the bullies would exert their will on others.  To me, power was a dirty word.

But in the last few years, as I have aged and come more into my own feelings of acceptance for myself and my unique way of viewing the world, I have felt my understanding of true power change.  I feel authentic power being a core sense of Self with a capital “S”, and living from that place.

What does that look like?  To me, it is walking in the world with confidence and grace, unflappable, loving self and all creation, fearlessly looking inward to traverse the inner landscape and harvest the wisdom, and from that deep well of inner knowing, offering to others what we have learned.   It is inner balance, the ecstatic union of my inner Sacred Feminine and inner Divine Masculine.  It is knowing our place in the connectedness of the Web of Life, feeling our own part of the puzzle as well as our wholeness.  It is a feeling, more than action, I think.  When I feel into it, it feels like claiming my body and the earth, loving my life, being the truth of an inspirited human.

What does power look like to you?

A journal entry from 10-30-09

The little boy I picked up in the labyrinth (http://liciaberry.com/blog/2009/11/10/the-boy-in-the-labyrinth/) is beginning to stir now…he has more life in him, whereas he did not seem to inhabit his body very much before.  I feel he is a personification of my power.  I am healing my power as well as exploring what authentic power looks like for myself.  As I do this, I predict I will see this little boy grow into an actualized man.  And that I will feel comfortable and confident in the world, a genuine soul expressing their authentic power, informed by the Sacred Feminine in her power.

In recent weeks, I have felt such outrage and despair about the plight of women and children who are preyed upon by those who would use their power to dominate them.  So many stories of rape and murder; it is so heinous to me.  I was worried about myself because some modern “spiritual” folk say that anger is a bad thing to feel and it “takes your vibe down”.  I find myself wanting to fight them, which of course means I am fighting a part of myself that wants to gloss over the feelings and pretend everything is okay.  I also don’t want to be one dimensional, the angry feminist who drives folks away by her intensity and ire.

But I chose to trust my body and emotions as a message to me that there was something wrong, and I let it take me down a path.  Trusting, trusting.  As I allowed my anger and expressed it in my writing and conversations, it took me to a new place. 

I saw a purple matrix on a field of black, or a Great Web, and heard “Mending the Web”, over and over, for days and now weeks.  I saw that it would be fairly simple to continue down the angry path, let it fuel itself continuously, and break the web by posting and publishing angry thoughts. 

But then I saw that it is “women’s work” to heal, to mend the breaks in the web that out-of-balance folks cut.  I understood that my original desire in the world was to heal, and that has been the case until I got angrier and harder in my heart, wanting to be acknowledged for being right and for being victimized.  It is such a tricky thing to stay on that tightrope of balanced, righteous anger that needs to be felt and expressed, or falling over into letting it consume you, become who you are.  Letting ourselves be human when we have studied spirituality can be a tricky game to play with ourselves.

As I continued with some trepidation down this path into greater room and understanding, I also saw that women who are empowered (and me) are strong enough to be the big ones, the ones who will take the first step and reach out our hands to do the mending.  Just as many wise and respected feminists have said, it is the women who must lead the coming awareness and shift in consciousness to balance.  Quietly, perhaps in some ways…..but that it is up to us to start the healing of this world. 

Spider Woman, by Susan Seddon Boulet

Then, I saw and heard “healing the masculine”.  Ah, is it not enough to heal ourselves as women, and the damage done to us at the hands of the outrageously immature masculine without (and our internalized fathers and immature masculine within)?  Perhaps we may be called to turn and heal those who have trespassed against us. 

Well, I don’t know how this will work…I sure don’t want to get in a conversation with my father and attempt to “heal” him.  I already know he doesn’t want to do that in ways that I consider healthy for him.  But, maybe by healing my own inner masculine, helping my inner masculine to grow up in a healthy balanced way, with a mature inner feminine to help him, there may be hope.

Family constellation work has shown me that there is no such thing as space and time…that healing can occur for all involved when all the factors are present.  Perhaps if I heal and mature my own inner masculine, my father in some way is released from his own pain, and healing can happen for him (and others).

But first, I must peel back the face I have placed on him, the veneer of goodness, the stories of heroism that I have projected onto him, and believed.  I must see what is underneath.  Better get out the drills, hammers and chisels.  It’s time for the idealized father to die.