THERE IS ABSOLUTELY no doubt that in this last century the impact of patriarchal energy on the human species has been one atrocity followed by another. Nor can there be any doubt that the patriarchy must be brought to an end.
However, it must be remembered that the patriarchy is a very immature, retarded form of the masculine which is both a derivative of and a reaction to an overdeveloped matriarchy. That men (and sometimes women) must seek their identity in the world by asserting ever-widening circles of dominance over other men, women, children, the poor, the weak, the crippled, even nature itself, is symptomatic of how little men know of their inner selves, how little men are able to find the ground of their being within their own inner experience, and how little esteem and validity men experience in the presence of the matriarchy.
Our culture is afflicted with both the horrors of a vastly underdeveloped masculinity and the illnesses of an over¬developed matriarchy. Matriarchy and patriarchy are linked in a collusive dance of domination and death.
The effects of the overdeveloped matriarchy are as follows:
• Everything that is important is deemed to have happened in the nuclear family and, in particular, in the relationship between the mother and the child.
• It is thought that the most important inner experiences that human beings can have are emotions.
• The ultimate values in living are considered belonging, membership, safety, and comfort.
When we are too influenced by the matriarchy, the ad¬venture of human life becomes defined by and confined to the mother/child relationship, feelings, and the safety of belonging. In this state we are pleasantly and degradingly domesticated.
It is perhaps safe to say that no human culture has experienced on the collective level the influence of full-blown mature masculinity. So we can only speculate what that might look like. But speculate we must! For the solution to the horrors of the patriarchy is not a return to the already over-influential matriarchy; instead, men (and women) must do the very hard work of discovering the authentic roots of masculinity within their own experience, not as a derivative of, or a reaction to, anything external, including other men. Despite the immense popularity currently enjoyed by men's workshops, this hard work unfortunately must most often be solitary. It is particularly here that the Buddhist saying comes to mind, “There is a time on the journey when we must never belong to anything again.”
Let us speculate with full-blown healthy masculinity, i.e., "good fathering," that we might come to know that the meaning of our lives was to be found not just in the mother/ child relationship, not just in the nuclear family, but also in the extended family, in the multiple generations of which we are products, in our connection to the whole human species and to the creation, and most especially to the cosmos itself, With good fathering, we would be taught that not only are feelings important, but so are truth and integrity. We would know that there are things in life worth risking every¬thing for, no matter how bad it feels; the meaning of my life is not confined by the psychological or emotional boundaries of my own ego experience.
Finally, we would come to know that more than in be¬longing, our destiny has to do with the fact that the cosmos expects something from each of us, and that faithfulness to that expectation will, of necessity, jeopardize all our belongings, even at the same time affording us the deepest ecstatic joy and fulfillment. The meaning of life would shift from safe belonging to faithful — if risky — service. Being a man means knowing how not to die a meaningless death.
Good fathering, maleness, would make the energies of fertility, penetration, insemination, decisiveness, boundaries, and protection overtly available to a people, nay, a species, sorely in need of such manliness.
Being Priest to One Another by Michael Dwinell – ISBN: 089243872X
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