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POLARITY & THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD, PART II

Rev. Hans Peter Meyer

• 6 min read

Apprenticeship to Love, Chapter 274, September 14, 2024

  • Today's question: Who blesses you with heartbreak and mystery? And, How do you honour this one?
  • My practice today: to sleep in and be woken by men hammering on rebar at 6:30am. My meditation will have to happen later today...

TODAY'S MEDITATION

Something happens when I am in proximity to what I call the "sacred womb space." But, what happens? I am still in wonder and in awe of this experience. One of the gifts of being so much alone: I am better at not taking for granted the subtle gifts that I now know nourish me. It's been a painful process, coming to know this. A painful process for her more than me.

...

She chooses me. She sacrifices herself for me. She knows herself taken for granted and, feeling the pain of not being seen, not being held, not being cherished she leaves.

And all of this is painful, though I am largely insensitive to it at the time.

And only much later, when I am almost broken, and only saved from breaking by the love and wisdom of my dear wise friend, only then do I begin to surrender to the need to be slow. Only slowed, almost stopped, and desperately wanting to run but held by the wisdom of slow and with nowhere to run, —and this is now; I feel this despair at this moment! And it is intense, how much I want to stop being slow and move quickly from this moment and this heartbreak— only slowed am I beginning to be aware that something new is being born.

I am afraid.

...

Afraid, I turn to the rituals I have found to help me become still. To receive. To allow the birth to continue. To bring the lightning flashes of fear to ground.

...

I listen to many, many women. I've listened to women talking about the stages of birthing a child. From conception through gestation, to the pushing of the child into the world through their bodies, and what comes after. Years of birthing. An umbilical cord that is never cut.

I wonder at this magic. How do I honour it? It's not always beautiful. And the birthing isn't always of children. There is still, for so many women, the sacrifice of being with womb, and being energetically aligned with creation and nourishment and the becoming of the children, the men, the families, communities, the nations they inhabit and embody. All of it requiring sacrifice. The making of untrained and uninitiated men into lovers, husbands, and fathers. Into men worthy of the nourishment that flows from the sacred wombs of the women who love them.

...

It is no accident that Courbet's mid-19th century painting, L'origine de monde, is still controversial. We are hasty as a culture. And especially in a masculine culture that again and again fails to feel and know the magic of the womb space as sacred. Too hasty to take for granted the magic by reducing it to our mostly superficial pleasures and excitements. Too hasty.

It's not wrong to know these superficial pleasures and excitements —indeed, they are one of the early fruits of our coming of age. And it is not wrong to know and enjoy the delights of the male gaze, nor the male impulse to physically penetrate and to claim.

The world we, as masculine-identified men, make is sturdy and necessary. It is our gift to the culture and to the women and children, the young and the old, who may rest and flourish in the safety of our arms.

We —masculine-identified men— need what comes from this rest and this flourishing. She, not only the woman, but the larger feminine energy that she embodies and that also moves within us, is more than a muse. More than an inspiration. SJ attributes to Her the birth of culture, of all that we consider meaningful and worthy of joy, effort, sacrifice. She is the mother energy that births everything. She is the origin of the world.

...

If I know my art, then I am the husbandman to this originating. Not just the father, but the husband: tending, holding, feeling into, aware.

Nothing makes me more aware of my role in this originating of everything that means anything in my life than the pain, the suffering, the mystery, and the greatness of my beloved in this life.

She births me as the man I love. The man worthy of love and trust and joy and heartbreak.

How do I honour her? How am I reverential?

...

I took so much for granted. I was in a hurry to get through the mystery of it.

I was warned. My dear and wise friend, one of the mentors on this crooked path, told me, You need to slow down.

I was deaf. I could not hear what was being said. I was in a hurry to break things. One of the things I broke, finally, was myself. A breaking that was painful and rude and so full of regret and confusion.

It took some time. Then I understood: something beautiful was being born —and there was no stopping it. Being aware would neither stop the birthing nor the pain and sacrifice required of me. All that I could do was to break the momentum that had pushed me here to this breaking, the breaking necessary for my heart to begin to feel this thing that was happening.

...

There is, again, a breaking. I am close to tears this morning. Was last night. And a few days and a week before that. Something is being born, and all I know how to do is the things that break the momentum. The things that slow me. My rituals.

I am close to crying. I don't like this. But it feels true.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS

🌀Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. (Rumi)

🌀Our prayer is that you — as a soul~elder — observe this phenomenon and comprehend it without judging it; that you use this judgment~free observation to discover the (always present) threads of solution without engaging the tangled masses of fear-based emotions; that you use these threads of solution to begin the weave of fabric that embraces the entire flock of life, and erase the collective pain of this strife… (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀The Conscious Warrior takes 100% responsibility for the reality he has created — seeking what needs to be changed in him before blaming others. (John Wineland, Precept 5)

🌀I appreciate you. (My beloved, she who must be seen and held and known by my powerful and unwavering presence)

TODAY’S QUESTIONS

Who blesses you with heartbreak and mystery? And, How do you honour this one?

TODAY'S SUGGESTED SHORT PRACTICE

My practice today: 5am, asanas; pranayama and meditation later in the forest
My suggestions for your practice today, to breathe and feel the confusion of life —the tension, pressure, friction, and stress that makes everything possible— and then allowing this confusion to become more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.
Please read through first, then ...

  • Set two alarms, for times of the day when you have a five-10 minutes to become conscious of who and how you are in this day.
  • When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take a few moments and:
    • Who blesses you with heartbreak and mystery? And, How do you honour this one?
    • Then, follow the short practice here:
      • Stand, or sit, or lay yourself down, and bring your attention to your body.
      • Feel the ground beneath you. Allow the earth to hold you with gravity. Feel how dense and heavy you are. Feel also how lightly you sit or stand or lay on the earth. Feel yourself between the pull of earth's gravity and the subtle but persistent pull of the sun, the stars.
      • Slow your breathing so that it is long and deep into your belly. Slow the inhale to a count of four or six. Slow your exhale to a count of six or eight or ten. Repeat three to five cycles of breathing, going a little slower with each cycle. Continuing to notice yourself held by the earth, raised by the sun and stars and sky above. Feel the subtle tension and pressure and friction and stress that allows you to be and rest and move in this body.
  • When you’re done, take another minute or two, breathing gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly.
  • Notice if your body-mind feels somehow changed. And whether you notice a change or not, be content with yourself, exactly as you are in this moment.
  • Continue with your day until the next alarm sounds, and repeat.

COMING UP


VAGINA —A CONVERSATION FOR MEN, with Fabiola Perez