I’m back after a break - literally. I broke my wrist in early September and had trouble typing well. The bone’s healed but I also tore a tendons or two and they’re not healed yet so the process continues. When the break happened I decided to take time away and concentrate on meditation and spiritual practice. I thought I was over-focused on ideas and the challenges in the world.
Now I’m more sure of that. During the “break,” I read and listened to teachers, meditated, and also did interactive dyad meditation practice.
But lately an old question has been showing up.
How do we bridge the gap between high-minded spiritual practices and showing up in the world with our gifts? Traditional spiritual teachers, especially Eastern ones, suggest that focus on worldly issues is just meddling - it makes things worse. That may be true. World affairs seem to be more chaotic, rather than less the more we try and fix them. In my view the Covid response is an example of this.
The world is made up of intensely polarized issues and also of a higher and deeper togetherness and unity. How do we move from the polarized perspectives to the higher unity?
Yet it’s a deep intuition that our unique voice and contribution are important and mean something. And we want to offer them too. It’s when our personal gifts and the world’s need comes into an alignment that things come alive. What else are gifts and needs for if not to find each other? In any case, we can’t help but be involved in the world’s issues since even talking things over with friends causes change.
The question remains: How do we move from the polarized stuckness toward the higher unity. The world is made up of intensely polarized issues and also of a higher and deeper togetherness and unity. In a word I think the answer is personal spiritual practice based on the intuition that there’s really something of benefit beyond all the strife. Without the practice we’re drawn into the battles because we take the world’s definition of what’s important. I’ll be writing more about this in this space.
As to the practicalities of moving beyond the polarizations, the issue that I’m often called to is the polarization and stuckness between women and men. I like this issue because it’s personal and not abstract. Everyone has skin in the game so to speak. I’ve also been talking about it and exploring it for a long time so it’s a natural for me.
I’m writing a book that shows the details of the social impassed between women and men and what might be the way through and I’ll be sharing some of that here in this space. I would love to hear feedback, ideas and comments from readers, who’ll help it connect and be more real.
I’ll be writing from the men’s experience and the men’s side of the polarization because it’s what I know. My deepest intuition though is that men’s stuff and women’s stuff are completely related; they’re the same thing looked at in different ways. Gifts and needs are looking for each other and the meeting is what’s wanted. Men and women have gifts for each other and need each other.
But in the social sphere and often individually, we’re polarized.
Getting past this polarization is structurally the same as transcending any other negatively felt polarization: Israel-Hamas, Democrat-Republican, right wing-left. I’ll use men and women as a way to approach the polarization question but the structure for each is the same, a conditioned leaning to a side we feel we belong to.
I’ll be writing about spiritual practice and other issues too but often about the man-woman polarity for the next months. I’ll approach it from the men’s experience more but it’s about men and women equally and all are welcome.
I certainly agree that men and women have gifts for each other. I have a problem, though, with the "needing each other" part. And I think it is this part that causes some of the polarization of which you speak.
I'd like us to get past "need," to "want." How wonderful it would be to be wanted for who I am, and for me to want him in my life in the same way..
In my mother's generation, men and women did "need"" each other. They had particular roles, but, at least in part because of this "need," (read desperation, usually financial, on the woman's part....I won't speak to men's "needs," as I'm not a man) there was abuse, at least in my household, and it was far from rare in the world around me. She eventually did (with us kids), but it was difficult to escape without finances.
For obvious reasons, my generation does not "need" a man in the same way. Myself, I want a man to show up, in confidence of his role as partner, confidant , companion, lover, but again it breaks down. Perhaps because he is not "needed," insecurities cause drama, which I have no interest in, accept where what comes up is used as a tool for us both to grow.
I want a man... I don't need him... And I want to be wanted, not needed as his supply.
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to your thoughts on the subjects.