I’m interested in a new social story for women and men together, a new game plan. There’s a confusion in the social field around us. What would be possible to bring more harmony and grace between us? This is part of a larger project, some thoughts for today.
First something basic: Despite our best efforts, men and women are often unhappy with each other or the other sex and the kids are often struggling. Of course there are many wonderful exceptions but in the public or social field, there’s often discord. The opposite of discord is resonance which means that objects or bodies vibrating together and coming into balance. Adding a term we’ll need: The place where resonance takes place, the relational space, is called “the field,” whether we’re talking magnetic field or relational.
I’m going to bring in women in a bit but first I’m going to talk about men.
Consider a field of two lovers resonating powerfully together physically, emotionally, spiritually. That’s an example of a strong field!
But for a moment consider the field of all the men. What is the quality of that field? For me I’d say it’s thin, isolated, weak, incoherent. The men don’t feel connected or related to each other. Not feeling related, the men often feel disconnected, isolated or empty.
And then they feel the need to be fixed. And there’s people out there who try to fix them, even an industry. And often that helps, at least a little bit.
To some extent we can patch up men and put them back into the fray - fix them - or at least keep them going. But here’s the thing I’ve noticed: If men are strongly connected to each other, they don’t need to be fixed. They don’t need to be fixed and they don’t even want to be fixed. They’re good already.
There are many ramifications to this.
Picture a horizontal line with I Need Fixing on the left and I’m Strongly Connected on the right. The closer a man is to one side the farther he is from the other. The more he’s connected to other men emotionally or in happy recognition of their company, the less he feels a need to be fixed. In addition to being connected to the men of the present, if he feels a connection to his ancestors and the ancestral strength of men, he’s stronger yet. He’s stronger, more solid and looking forward to the future with these men.
So that raises a question. If we’re speaking of men feeling connected and resourceful, why work on the individual man when we could support or resonate with the entire field of men so that everyone starts to feel the coherence? Wouldn’t that help all by itself?
For example, invite the men to stand with the other men, strengthening the field. Have the young guys come into resonance with the mature men and be welcomed. Include the old men, the elders and awaken their biological resonance with the desire to be in the field as old men. Have them all make room to welcome the boys.
It takes all of that to make the men strong and resonant enough to meet the women well.
Now as in the past, the direction that helps is for men to stand with the men, to resonate with the others, to take pride in being a man, even great pride. This pride is justified.
It’s also for women to stand with the women and take pride in being a woman. Even great pride. This pride is justified too.
But notice this:
If there’s a field of strong men in resonance and also a field of strong women in resonance, the men and women start to resonate, with keen interest in each other. But they don’t become identical. They don’t become half men and half women. They become a complementarity, two poles. And both poles are stronger because of the other.
Vive la difference!
The very fact that we often don’t see this is a manifestation of a depleted resonance. As I see it, at present the field of men is relatively weak and incoherent and and the field of women is weak and coherent too.
There are many reasons for the lack of coherence in the field and they go back a long way. We all have a part in them and it’s important to understand them together. I’ll leave that complex issue off the table for this post but will come back to it shortly. Today I want to emphasize that the possibility for restoration of the higher resonance is there and it’s we can do it.
The coherence of women and men used to be obvious to people. They knew it and felt it because, relative to today, they were living a more resonant social field. The lack of clarity between the sexes shows up in the kids who don’t feel the resonance strongly or clearly. It’s often not strong in their family and may well be denied explicitly or implicitly in school, in the news, and the ubiquitous media that surrounds them.
A marching band or a floor full or dancing couples are examples of a resonant social field. One out-of-step marcher throws the whole troop off. One dancer not in step confuses the partner and they fall into disarray. We’re creatures of social resonance - which is another way of saying belonging, which is another way of saying it’s of prime importance.
Each time the resonance in the field deepens a notch, the people in it feel a shift toward safety and security. They breathe more easily. We’re creatures of the field and responsive to it. We’ve lived in it for millions of years. The relational field is our home.
We can strike the bell of resonance of good men and good woman in respectful communion. It’s beautiful when this happens and I want to see more of it. Perhaps we could do more of this together.
When we resonate together, we resonate a bell of something higher than ourselves - the greater wholeness that we’re part of. We become aware that there are higher resonances, higher frequencies. We see that we’re embedded in these higher resonances and it’s there our higher truths reside. No effort or indoctrination is required for this. Those higher frequencies are already there and as we move away from our isolation, they become more available.
I imagine it will take resonant groups of women, resonant groups of men, and groups where the two of us come together to stand together in the face of the emerging future. It’s a time of change like no other and I do believe it’s possible.
Dear Reader, Thank you for reading and considering these matters with me.
Some ways to go deeper: Men who would like to stand with the men, send me an email or a comment and I’ll include you in online exploration. For women or men, help your part in your connection with your son. I consult on men’s issues with parents (whatever you age), becoming an elder, dealing with the effects of too-close or absent mother, coming of age and more.
Leave a comment on any part of this ( it helps the resonance :)) or email me personally.
Andrew
ps I initiated pay-subscribe to my writing last post and subsequently learned that my free subscribers were unable to comment. Till I straighten that out I’ve knocked the pay option out entirely. Comments are welcome.
Dear Andrew, I am of the notion that it is obvious that men, and women are very different biologically, but spiritually we are identical.
So where does the division between men and women come from?
I doubt it comes from our different biological makeup, and we are spiritually identical,so it can't be that.
So that leaves only our thinking, or put another way, the stories we make up about each other, our stories being a consequence of our thinking.
So what is wrong with having a story?
Simple answer is nothing! So long as we see that we have a story, and that the story does not have us.
So it all comes down to awareness that we think, that we have this fantastic gift of making up stories, and seeing that we do not have to get lost in them.
Seeing that we do not have to get lost in our stories "thinking" is the key to being in relationship with life "spirit".
It allows us to be in relationship with ourselves, and others, both men, and women.
It allows us to shed our fears, and be at peace with being vulnerable, or put another way just being authentic human beings.
Kind regards Eamonn Leonard.
Beautifully expressed, Andrew. Just like Bert Hellinger saw it. And I also see it like that in my workshops and my individual work. The confusion is huge in our modern society, and we need to find a new language for the masculine and the feminine. I hope your ponderings are being read wide and far.