Harmonizing Masculine and Feminine Principles

How do these inner forces work together inside of us, regardless of gender? Integrating these principles could heal your life - and the world. An excerpt from a recent talk.

Apr 14, 2024

Hello dear readers:

Recently, I discussed how the inner male and inner female dynamics work within each of us, regardless of gender. This talk was embedded in a longer audio on the astrological sign of Libra as a polarity archetype. I received feedback that the masculine/feminine dynamics portion was “evergreen” and important as a standalone written piece. So, I extracted the transcript to share with you below. It is slightly edited for flow yet stands as originally illumined and delivered. If you’d like to listen to the original audio, you’ll find links at the bottom of the transcript.

Your comments are welcome, and may these insights bring harmony on all levels.

I invite you to share and repost this piece as it could be very helpful to others.

With love and gratitude,

Erin

Transcript excerpt from a recent talk by Erin Reese.

We are preparing the ground right now with the balancing or the harmonizing of the inner masculine and the inner feminine.

We need to get right with ourselves on how those two forces operate within ourselves, no matter what gender we are.

Each of us carries an inner male and an inner female. We can also say the anima or the animus, or the yin and the yang. These parts of ourselves are extremely sensitive and if we don't pay close attention they will give us a lot of trouble. So we want to pay attention.

If we're not doing the deeper listening, we're going to see acting out in terms of martyrdom, victim mentality, and passive aggression, as well as problems in our health, whether that's mental or physical or spiritual health. In this case the best defense is a good offense. By that I mean, pay attention now and you'll avoid a lot of problems in self and other later.

We need to understand the masculine and the feminine and balance. This is about the yin (lunar) and the yang (solar) naturally coming into play. Remember that what I'm speaking about is not always about balance being perfect. It just needs to be in harmony. It’s not necessarily 50-50. It can be that something is 99% male and 1% female in one moment in time. But that 1% of the particular modality is so exquisitely placed, so important and vital and powerful that it balances out the other modality. Each modality has its own role and potency and purpose to balance the other personally and collectively.

So again, it's not always 50-50. It's about being in harmony.

It's about being in resonance in these parts of ourselves.

This is not about gender.

This is not about changing our gender.

This is not about ignoring gender.

This is not about being agender.

This is about the modalities moving in our lives.

More often than not, when we have distress in our everyday life it is because these modalities are not in harmony. This shows up a lot in business. I talk to my husband about this often. He is a business person, and I say to him that business is purely emotional. Now, I know that might seem strange to some of you who think that it's really a mental masculine world when you're thinking about business. But what's driving business? What's driving advertising? The answer is, emotional reactivity and emotional needs. When things aren't going well or we're getting resistance… when things are not flowing in business… a person or the people in the organization likely have emotional needs that are not being attended to by themselves, for themselves first and foremost. They are not being met. The same thing goes for politics, obviously. So, if we are looking to see the changes in the world that would make us happy, we need to first start looking at what is out of balance within ourselves. This is not a new theme for almost everyone reading this.

So, let's bring it down to the personal level first. When there is distress, when you are feeling upset, first off the inner masculine and the inner feminine need to be acknowledged. First we must acknowledge that we have those inside of ourselves. (We also have the inner child, we also have the inner parents, the inner mama and the inner papa. But let's just for the sake of this conversation break it down to the inner masculine and the inner feminine.)

First we are looking at the feminine and then we will be looking at the masculine.

If there is distress, we want to look and see who is hurting inside of ourselves. Which aspect of ourself is calling out for help? What is needed? We must do this work internally.

Looking within, addressing the inner level is the more feminine approach in itself.

Going within, taking the time to be receptive, to allow, to be more passive, not in a negative way, but in an allowing and patient way…That already is the feminine.

What I'm trying to tell you right now is that we want the feminine principle to lead the way.

This is counterintuitive to what you might think.

You might think that the masculine action principle is coming first, but what I'm here to explain to you is that the masculine springs forth after the feminine is acknowledged. She is the way-shower in each of us no matter what our gender. So take that internal receptive reflective time, asking ourselves:

How well are we noticing first if something is off?

Much of the time when something is off, it is actually not even our own personal “stuff.” It could be the collective; it might belong to others in our life – our family members, our partners. It could be that something is off at home or in our neighborhood. Or maybe (if you're super sensitive and empathic) it might be the collective. But oftentimes on the individual level there is a part of ourself that is being neglected.

So the feminine message of becoming aware of what is off delivers the news to the masculine so that he can execute upon that.

Let’s take a look at some examples of deeper listening to the feminine parts of self, e.g. the heart, the body, the gut instinct, the intuition:

We realize a trip needs to be canceled. We don't have enough resources for it financially or otherwise or energetically.
We come to realize that a job or project is just not working out.
We realize that a partnership has run its course.
We realize that a friendship has become superficial and we've outgrown it.
We've realized that a family member has actually become a crazy maker in our life and we need to practice some detachment.

Some more examples of doing the deeper listening and honoring the feminine (These have to do with needs): “When I admit it to myself…”

I admit that I really need to get a pet.
I need a dog.
I really need a cat.
I need to go to the grocery store for food, for good food.
I need to go to a cultural event, a museum, a movie, a concert, a music festival.
I need, my soul needs to take a trip.
I need to go to Paris, to the Louvre.
I need to go to a forest.
I need to go to the desert to be in nature.
I need the sea.
I need the wind.
I need a hiking trail.
I need to be alone.
I need to be close.
I need to be physical.

Are you getting the picture?

Listening like a mother would to her child is a way of us honoring the feminine within ourselves, honoring our needs. So we start with the basics, no matter our gender.

We start with the mothering, the intuitive part of self. The feeling part of self, the emotional nature. Listening to the body, to the earth. Noticing what's going on in the Nature around us or the animals around us.

The feminine works with the senses – the five senses, the six senses. She pays attention to our inner child – that part of us that needs a lot of holding and self-care and witnessing and loving.

She also pays attention to the heart, to the emotional body.

So one of the first things that we need to do is slow down enough to pay attention to what's happening in our five senses, our six senses. We can inquire:

What are we smelling in our environment?
What are we hearing?
What are the energies that are running through our body?
How is our hunger level?
How is our gut feeling right now?
What does the air smell like and feel like?
What do the birds sound like?

These are practices of tuning in.

This is yin, lunar, receptive.

This is honoring the feminine. First! And then, boom! No matter what gender you are, the masculine principle can execute or act upon the information that the feminine has supplied and that we have allowed ourselves to be aware of.

And then, boom! The masculine yang principle comes in! The martial energy, the solar principle.

He acts as a response to the feminine part of us (which is very grounded, rooted, centered, and listening). The martial and solar energy come in and take action.

This is where we stand up for ourselves. We stand tall; we activate our inner father, our inner papa, our animus.

And if we don't take action, if we don't take a stand, if we don't stand with our staff or our sword and act, this is where an underdeveloped yang energy principle can be very problematic for men and women.

Part of the problem with generally debunking the patriarchy and operating with subtle or blatant masculine bashing is that the masculine has become self-castrated in both men and women where the consciousness is fearful and is hung up in being passive.

This is not going to help anyone.

The most important thing is that the masculine takes action as a response to what the feminine has supplied from the neck down.

We are not going to heal as a collective from an unhealthy patriarchy by continually beating down the masculine and berating men and the masculine inside of ourselves. We are not going to heal as a collective by giving them the message again and again that they are a representation of the cruel patriarchy and that they must kowtow to the female or that we have to return to a matriarchy.

No, that's not the response. It is more about balance, harmony and proper listening.

And of course at the same time a man or a woman who is cut off and disconnected from listening to their inner feminine is also a big mess, for he or she has no access to their true guidance system.

For now, let’s return to the woman who is staying stunted who hasn't contacted this inner yang principle of action; or the man who isn't in contact with his own inner father and instead continues to act out in distorted ways (no contact with feminine guidance), or project outward onto other authority figures either through resentful passivity or rebellion. Those who haven't activated this inner yang principle continue to stay stagnant and stuck; they remain victimized. The energy starts to become quite putrid and unhealthy, when what we really want is the energy to move at the perfect time.

What is healthy in self-actualization is to move away from projecting our inner masculine or feminine or our animus and anima outward. We want to move away from projection and move into an alliance or a marriage between the inner male and inner female. A person needs to rally their courage, their inner strength, their agency, their yang principle – and get a move on at the perfect time.

One of the best analogies that I use in terms of understanding receptivity, waiting, and passive period, followed by perfect action and timing in present time, is to think of a great blue heron. The great blue heron is one of my favorite birds. A great blue heron often stands and hunts in shallow water. It’s standing in a stream or perhaps an inlet by a bay. It’s wading along. Perhaps one foot is raised and it’s standing in total stillness, like a statue.

He or she could be standing there for hours. The heron is not moving; he's just watching the stream, watching the water. He’s totally in his feminine, he's in his presence of mind. He’s listening. All senses are completely alert, listening and feeling the water, smelling the air and watching.

And then a small fish nears – a minnow or small trout passes by – and then BAM! The Mars Action Principle is activated! His bill goes straight down into the water and in that one second - gulp - he grabs the little fish. It is absolute satisfaction and perfect execution of the masculine action principle in that particular moment. It is perfect timing because of the receptivity and waiting.

So, no matter which gender you are, you can ask yourself how in-balance or out of balance with these two principles you are.

If we're not listening, we're going to have a really rough ride. This is our time to do the footwork. Do you need to slow down and listen more? Or do you need to (no pun intended) grow a pair and start taking more action and standing up for yourself?

Remember, even if it seems like the masculine is in charge and leading and out front, it's the feminine who is really large and in charge. She’s always the real leader, the source of the information that fuels and directs the masculine. She is behind the scenes in each and every one of us, whereas the masculine is what we see externalized.

If you need an obvious example of how this is designed symbolically in the human body, think of the internalization of the female yoni and the externalization of the masculine phallus.

This masculine and feminine, this male and female, these two are consorts in life.

They are meant to act together in concert.

This realization and actualization in ourselves individually is the difficult and necessary work. It is the learning and the integration and implementation that we need to do personally, and that we have actually lost in our collective split mind and our polarized greater culture.

It is meant to be re-membered and re-realized in ourselves individually. It must be realized in ourselves before the culture will realize it externally and before the culture can be healed. It’s not about just smashing the patriarchy, nor is it about returning to only a matriarchy. As one friend of mine who is from the former Eastern Europe Soviet bloc explained to me, if we only focus on the mothering principle then we just have a return to communism.

So it isn’t about a patriarchy; it isn't about a matriarchy. It is about something new that is evolving within us, as us, as an internal realization and an externalized self-expression; this is something healthy that we must realize for ourselves.

It is also not an asexual situation. It's not a neutered person or a castrated person or castrated society and it's definitely not about a castrated male. Let's stop the male bashing and let's stop trying to make women have to behave like men.

It is about an alchemical unfolding of truth, a deeper realization. A magic that we first need to realize within ourselves. There is an individual and a collective mystery about it. It is going to look differently for each of us. That's how alchemy works. That's why we can't know how this is going to look externally. We will know it when it appears. The most important point is to stay focused on the inner work and continue to ask ourselves when discomfort arises: where are we out of balance? Are we in good relationship with our inner papa, our inner mother? Are we in good relationship with our anima, our animus?

And how will we know when we've got it “right”? We will know it because it will feel right. We will be in serenity; we will be in harmony within ourselves. And, it won't make much of a difference how that's expressed in terms of gender or even outward expression of that particular style.

It may not even be in perfect balance or ratio, but internally it will have a resonance, a feel and a sense and a deeper ring of harmony and ease and flow.