A few months ago the wonderful “warrior in transition” Jeff Brown posted a blog called “Apologies to the Divine Feminine” on the pain that had been caused by his lack of awareness of the Divine Feminine, the feminine within himself, and the beauty of feminine values. http://soulshaping.com/?p=782 This powerful piece struck a chord with men and women around the world and went “viral”. Then, with Jeff’s help, popular self-awareness teachers Gay Hendricks and Arjuna Ardagh created a youtube video called “Dear Woman”, honoring feminine “energies” and apologizing for the global destruction caused by the “unconscious masculine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_uRIMUBnvw Although they’ve received thousands of positive comment, the comments show there has also been a vicious backlash coming from a large number of men.
Within all this the Divine Feminine herself and Jeff’s original call to her seems to have gotten a bit lost. Here’s my attempt to bring the focus back to her – and to remind us that while the first step in healing the suffering we see around us is in honoring the Divine Feminine, ultimately, it is in bringing the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine we hold within into harmony and balance.
The Divine Feminine Graciously Accepts Your Apology
The Divine Feminine graciously accepts your apology.
And she has asked my sisters and me to accept this apology on her behalf. She also asked us to invite you to take this opportunity to delve just a little deeper into her. When you do, she says, you might be surprised to discover that you never needed to apologize to her in the first place.
She wants you to know that the idea of apologizing to the Divine and asking for forgiveness is based on an image of a God who exists somewhere above and beyond us; a God who sits in judgment and passes out punishment for our misdeeds; a God who, in short, looks much more like a stern, harsh father. The Divine Feminine couldn’t be more different. She wants simply to sit in our hearts and love us no matter what…
As this compassionate cosmic force, she – just like the Divine Masculine – is an expression of the One, the Absolute that many call God – a divinity that is beyond knowing and certainly beyond gender. She reminds us that we all hold both these Divine Masculine and Feminine aspects of the One within. We also all hold inner masculine and feminine natures within – inner natures that reflect our inherent divinity to a greater or, often, lesser degree.
Sadly, we often express this distorted – some would say unconscious – inner masculine/feminine in our actions. This means that, while apologizing to the Divine Feminine may not strictly be necessary, there may well be women in your life you need to apologize to. But those are apologies you need to make face to face. If I had hurt you badly – and I may well have – I can’t imagine that my making a blanket apology to the Divine Masculine would make you feel one bit better. The same is true for me. This tells me there are real, heart-felt apologies we both still need to make….
And if by any chance you are a man – or a woman – who is directly responsible for any of those horrific misdeeds you list in your apologies and manifestos – the massacre, the plunder, the ruin, the rape – the Divine Feminine wants you to know that she rains mercy on your soul, but that she is also unrelenting: You must find a way to make amends, no matter what this means or what it requires of you….
Of course I know it’s unlikely that you are someone who has actually perpetrated those atrocities. And yet you’ve come to understand that, even though you are not directly responsible, a distortion of the inner masculine is. You can see that a society based on domination has twisted the natural longing of the inner masculine to protect, to provide, to be valiant, and to be rational and has honored instead aggression, competition, acquisition and a denial of the heart.
That you recognize this and feel the need to apologize for it is one of the most hopeful signs to ever grace the human race – it is a sign that a true transformation of consciousness is occurring….
This is especially true because you’ve begun to sense that unless you pay your highest tribute to the feminine values – compassion, cooperation, communion, relationship, and interconnection – the wars and wanton destruction of the your Mother Earth will continue….
But my sisters and I know this will be very difficult for you. From the time you were a toddler you have been taught to think that showing the feminine side of your being meant that you were showing weakness. And on some deep, primal level showing weakness terrifies you and makes you feel as exposed and defenseless as a downed animal of prey…
But the Divine Feminine is here to tell you that the secret to adopting feminine values without feeling weak and vulnerable is to understand that the feminine side of your being has – just like the women in your life – never been weak and that, in fact, it is the feminine side of your being that is and always has been the source of your true power.
The Divine Feminine is telling you to cast off the outmoded idea that the feminine is passive. The feminine is not now and never has been passive! Receptive, yes. Passive, no. She laughs when you don’t believe this, and tells you to look for a moment at the myths, legends, and sacred texts that tell her story: She is the creatrix of the universe; she is the Great Mother who carries the Earth in her womb and gives birth to the sun, the moon, and the stars; she is Mother Nature who thunders, storms, erupts, and roars…
Had you known this great secret through the ages, she says, you would never have felt so weak that you were forced to prove your strength; you would never have felt so empty that you were forced to grasp what wasn’t yours; you would never have felt so vulnerable that you had to prove your power by enslaving those weaker than you or using your brute strength against my sisters and me.
Now that you know you hold the power of the Divine Feminine within you, she says, you need never again feel threatened by her power or by the power of the women in your life. You will be able to feel the love you hold in your heart; you’ll be able to show it; you’ll be able to express your pain and to weep your tears; you’ll be able to let down your walls and let the women you love in.
But she warns you that the knowing that will lead to these deep emotional rewards has to begin with your opening yourself to your emotions – perhaps for the first time since you were a child. You will have to allow yourself to feel your connection to her, to sense her in your body, to experience her as the life force that pulses through you and connects us all.
She knows there is a kind of sweet irony in this: to attain the key that will fully open up your heart, you first have to crack it open yourself. But this is essential – for the words of your pledges and your commitments to honor her have absolutely no meaning to her if they are not backed by sincere emotion…
And then, of course, by action – action that would perhaps be most meaningful to her if it involved easing the suffering of her daughters. For, she says, feminine values can never truly flourish in a world where so many women are in despair: left without food to feed their children or themselves, taken as prizes in war, sold into sexual slavery, genitally mutilated, and – in some ways most damaging to the soul – denied the right to educate themselves and better their lot.
Through all this the Divine Feminine is clearly telling us it is time to set aside our differences. It is time for us to honor, ultimately, the Absolute, to honor all the ways the divinity manifests in the world – in men and women, in the masculine and feminine energies within, and in the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine. In doing this, she says, we will finally become truly balanced beings – beings who are able to call on logic, reason, and rational, linear thought when needed and able to open ourselves to intuition, emotion, and divine inspiration whenever we wish. And with these great gifts find a way to save ourselves from self-destruction and to end our world’s seemingly insurmountable woes.
By Teri Degler
Award-winning author Teri Degler has written ten books including The Fiery Muse: Creativity and the Spiritual Quest (Random House, Canada) and The Divine Feminine Fire: Creativity and Your Yearning to Express Your Self (Dreamriver Press, USA) – recently an amazon.ca # 1 Bestseller in two spiritual categories.
And she has asked my sisters and me to accept this apology on her behalf. She also asked us to invite you to take this opportunity to delve just a little deeper into her. When you do, she says, you might be surprised to discover that you never needed to apologize to her in the first place.
She wants you to know that the idea of apologizing to the Divine and asking for forgiveness is based on an image of a God who exists somewhere above and beyond us; a God who sits in judgment and passes out punishment for our misdeeds; a God who, in short, looks much more like a stern, harsh father. The Divine Feminine couldn’t be more different. She wants simply to sit in our hearts and love us no matter what…
As this compassionate cosmic force, she – just like the Divine Masculine – is an expression of the One, the Absolute that many call God – a divinity that is beyond knowing and certainly beyond gender. She reminds us that we all hold both these Divine Masculine and Feminine aspects of the One within. We also all hold inner masculine and feminine natures within – inner natures that reflect our inherent divinity to a greater or, often, lesser degree.
Sadly, we often express this distorted – some would say unconscious – inner masculine/feminine in our actions. This means that, while apologizing to the Divine Feminine may not strictly be necessary, there may well be women in your life you need to apologize to. But those are apologies you need to make face to face. If I had hurt you badly – and I may well have – I can’t imagine that my making a blanket apology to the Divine Masculine would make you feel one bit better. The same is true for me. This tells me there are real, heart-felt apologies we both still need to make….
And if by any chance you are a man – or a woman – who is directly responsible for any of those horrific misdeeds you list in your apologies and manifestos – the massacre, the plunder, the ruin, the rape – the Divine Feminine wants you to know that she rains mercy on your soul, but that she is also unrelenting: You must find a way to make amends, no matter what this means or what it requires of you….
Of course I know it’s unlikely that you are someone who has actually perpetrated those atrocities. And yet you’ve come to understand that, even though you are not directly responsible, a distortion of the inner masculine is. You can see that a society based on domination has twisted the natural longing of the inner masculine to protect, to provide, to be valiant, and to be rational and has honored instead aggression, competition, acquisition and a denial of the heart.
That you recognize this and feel the need to apologize for it is one of the most hopeful signs to ever grace the human race – it is a sign that a true transformation of consciousness is occurring….
This is especially true because you’ve begun to sense that unless you pay your highest tribute to the feminine values – compassion, cooperation, communion, relationship, and interconnection – the wars and wanton destruction of the your Mother Earth will continue….
But my sisters and I know this will be very difficult for you. From the time you were a toddler you have been taught to think that showing the feminine side of your being meant that you were showing weakness. And on some deep, primal level showing weakness terrifies you and makes you feel as exposed and defenseless as a downed animal of prey…
But the Divine Feminine is here to tell you that the secret to adopting feminine values without feeling weak and vulnerable is to understand that the feminine side of your being has – just like the women in your life – never been weak and that, in fact, it is the feminine side of your being that is and always has been the source of your true power.
The Divine Feminine is telling you to cast off the outmoded idea that the feminine is passive. The feminine is not now and never has been passive! Receptive, yes. Passive, no. She laughs when you don’t believe this, and tells you to look for a moment at the myths, legends, and sacred texts that tell her story: She is the creatrix of the universe; she is the Great Mother who carries the Earth in her womb and gives birth to the sun, the moon, and the stars; she is Mother Nature who thunders, storms, erupts, and roars…
Had you known this great secret through the ages, she says, you would never have felt so weak that you were forced to prove your strength; you would never have felt so empty that you were forced to grasp what wasn’t yours; you would never have felt so vulnerable that you had to prove your power by enslaving those weaker than you or using your brute strength against my sisters and me.
Now that you know you hold the power of the Divine Feminine within you, she says, you need never again feel threatened by her power or by the power of the women in your life. You will be able to feel the love you hold in your heart; you’ll be able to show it; you’ll be able to express your pain and to weep your tears; you’ll be able to let down your walls and let the women you love in.
But she warns you that the knowing that will lead to these deep emotional rewards has to begin with your opening yourself to your emotions – perhaps for the first time since you were a child. You will have to allow yourself to feel your connection to her, to sense her in your body, to experience her as the life force that pulses through you and connects us all.
She knows there is a kind of sweet irony in this: to attain the key that will fully open up your heart, you first have to crack it open yourself. But this is essential – for the words of your pledges and your commitments to honor her have absolutely no meaning to her if they are not backed by sincere emotion…
And then, of course, by action – action that would perhaps be most meaningful to her if it involved easing the suffering of her daughters. For, she says, feminine values can never truly flourish in a world where so many women are in despair: left without food to feed their children or themselves, taken as prizes in war, sold into sexual slavery, genitally mutilated, and – in some ways most damaging to the soul – denied the right to educate themselves and better their lot.
Through all this the Divine Feminine is clearly telling us it is time to set aside our differences. It is time for us to honor, ultimately, the Absolute, to honor all the ways the divinity manifests in the world – in men and women, in the masculine and feminine energies within, and in the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine. In doing this, she says, we will finally become truly balanced beings – beings who are able to call on logic, reason, and rational, linear thought when needed and able to open ourselves to intuition, emotion, and divine inspiration whenever we wish. And with these great gifts find a way to save ourselves from self-destruction and to end our world’s seemingly insurmountable woes.
By Teri Degler
Award-winning author Teri Degler has written ten books including The Fiery Muse: Creativity and the Spiritual Quest (Random House, Canada) and The Divine Feminine Fire: Creativity and Your Yearning to Express Your Self (Dreamriver Press, USA) – recently an amazon.ca # 1 Bestseller in two spiritual categories.