The "Death Current" and Pure Feminine Energy

Back in March, when I'd first tried connecting to the energy of the virus, I'd felt a very strong, dark current moving within it. At the time, I could only describe it as a "death current." I didn't know what it meant, but I'll admit I was a little unnerved. After working through my initial fear, I realized this destructive current wasn't bad, evil or even wrong. In fact, it felt like pure feminine energy. After the initial shock of that wore off, it occurred to me that if masculine energy contained the essence of light, expansion and order, then feminine energy (as it's natural, balancing force), would have to contain the essence of darkness and contraction. Where masculine energy creates structure and order, feminine energy moves in chaos. If masculine energy builds, then feminine energy must contain the power to destroy. The challenge for me in meeting this pure feminine current was in not judging destruction, darkness, chaos or even death as bad or wrong. I knew that was a tall order, but I also sensed it was possible to hold this pure, feminine current safely within my own energy field. For years, I've been feeling the slow rising of feminine energy in the collective. I've thought of it as nurturing, restoring, relational, and receptive. And it is all of those things. I knew it was about movement, about the void space of the womb, and about non-linear ways of being, but I hadn't really thought of it as dark or destructive. Facing that pure, feminine, destructive current, I understood just how deep and creative, feminine energy really is. I understood that to wield it, I'd have to overcome my own fears of death, destruction and chaos. I'd have to embrace change, endings and the unknown. I also understood exactly why feminine energy had been so villainized by the patriarchy throughout history. Our world is a masculine world. Our structures are built upon masculine principles. There's little room in ordered, structured ways of being to yield to such a chaotic force. Yielding itself is a feminine principle. And because feminine energy is about wholeness, there's no way to dissect it and access only the nurturing, restoring, relational energies, while rejecting the destructive, chaotic ones. It moves as one, and the beauty and magic of it are only accessible when we're willing to embrace its wholeness. Without it, we can build an amazing, technologically advanced world, that's also completely bereft of rest, stillness, softness and true relating. We can get a lot of things done, and still feel utterly empty inside. Science, with its gift for separating out smaller and smaller parts for study, has brought us far. We understand each system of the body, down to the function of individual organs and even cells. We understand matter, down to the smallest particles. We've uncovered many of the ordered rules for how things work. And yet, you can see how very little we actually understand, when something as small as a virus can lay waste to all our ordered systems. We understand much, but we still lack the knowledge of wholeness. Understanding wholeness is a feminine principle. In trying to understand what feminine and masculine energy in balance looks and feels like, I've been thinking a lot about the yin-yang symbol. In the symbol, white represents the masculine energy of life, light, order and expansion. Black represents the feminine energy of death, void, chaos and contraction. These two energies exist in balance with each other, in a swirling dance, creating and destroying life as we know it. Masculine energy brings spring and summer to life. Feminine energies bring transformation and the darkness of winter. Each without the other makes no sense at all, which is why each half of the symbol contains a hint of it's opposite. Within the white half of the symbol, there is a small, black circle. Through every masculine effort at order, there exists some chaos or darkness. Within every masculine effort to dissect, there exists the feminine desire to nurture and make whole. You can see these principles at play in the huge, bureaucratic structures of our society. Built almost entirely on masculine ways of doing things, they fall far short of serving the ideals they are designed to serve. They lack the balancing feminine principle - the black half of the symbol. Very little consideration is given to what makes a person whole. Hospitals are stark places, dedicated entirely to rigorously tested scientific principles. The walls are undecorated. No soft music plays. Nothing in the design speaks to the soul. The warmth of feminine energy is completely absent. The small, black circle of feminine energy expressing within this masculine system presents as chaos....the chaos of finding the right specialist, of navigating the insurance system, etc. Now that feminine energy is rising in the collective, I expect we're going to experience more of the dark side of the yin-yang symbol. Certainly, we are in a time of chaos, death and destruction. People are dying. Economies are being destroyed. Systems have been overwhelmed to the point of collapse. But in the dark swirl, there is also a spot of light, suggesting that within the chaos, there's a deeper order. Within the darkness, there is the seed of some future light. The balancing force of chaotic, destructive feminine energy has risen to meet the out-of-balance masculine energy we've structured our lives and our world around. On the verge of destroying our environment, feminine energy has risen as a balancing force. There's reason to hope and trust. I believe there's light within this darkness. So what does it mean to hold masculine and feminine energies in balance? I think that's something we're all trying to figure out right now. We feel the feminine energies rising within us, bringing up all that's been denied or kept in shadow - the fears, the grief, the inconvenient truths we've been burying in the name of progress, stability and forward motion. For me, I feel this rising within me like a pendulum swinging. One day, I'll feel a strong masculine current. I'll clean my closets. I'll work in the yard. I'll get lots of things done. And there's a familiar comfort to that driving way of being. Other days, I'll find it difficult to leave my couch. Time will slip by. I'll feel things I can't explain. It's uncomfortable, and I don't like it. And then there are days when I glimpse what it might be like if these two forces of activity and receptivity were not only balanced but working together. I actively create something, with room for subtle currents and inner cues to direct my course. I see that the times of rest might be equally important to the times of activity, not as a necessary pause before we can get on with it, but as something valuable in itself. Sometimes, I even witness amazing, magical things taking place in those quiet times, though my masculine brain can't quantify or name them. For me, much of this has been playing out in my garden. At the start of quarantine, I decided to use this time to expand my existing vegetable garden. I had a very masculine plan in place. I drew it on graph paper, measured everything, ordered my materials and started digging. And then the weather turned and turned again, upending my well-ordered plans. Materials didn't come when expected - a beautiful, feminine, chaotic event that forced me to rest when my body very much needed it. In that time of forced and grumbling rest, I saw other, less-linear ways of going about my project. Instead of doing all of step 1, and then all of step 2, I found myself jumping to step 3 in one part of the garden, then step 1 in another. As it stands now, a quarter of my garden has new cedar fencing, another quarter has cedar posts and a single rail. The other half still has the old, white pickets and chicken wire so my hens can be a part of the project. A piece of the old shed still stands, and there are tools everywhere. My garden is in the midst of a feminine overhaul. In other words, it's a complete and utter chaotic mess! But if I look with soft eyes and a broader view, I can see the garden taking shape. The walkway leading to the garden (which I intended to do last) ending up being done first, and there are daffodils lining it now - a bright spot of pure beauty every time I look out my back window. The entire garden is like a slowly-forming being, with a fully-formed limb here and a cluster of undifferentiated cells there. It reminds me of a video I saw once of how an egg and sperm magically become a human baby. For much of that process, chaos reigns. If you didn't know how it was going to end, it would be difficult to trust that the initial cluster of cells would ever evolve into a human being. But that's how feminine energy works. Life is birthed in chaos. At the heart of the dark swirl of the yin-yang sign is life, like a white seed within a dark womb space. I believe we're in the feminine, dark swirl right now. It has risen to balance what has long-since outgrown its healthy usefulness. A destructive current is necessary when unbalanced ways, separative thinking and overgrown systems need pruning. We can fight it, but no good will come from that. Better to yield, but in a fierce way, for feminine energy is fierce. Dive into what life is bringing you. Don't turn from what's uncomfortable. Embrace it, and surrender to it fiercely, with all your heart, and all your hope. I'd like to leave you with a poem that was in my head when I woke up yesterday. I'd been talking to some friends the night before about change, when and how to surrender to it, when to fight, how to find continuity in a changing world, and how to find light and goodness in all the heaviness. Somehow all the ideas came together overnight in the dark, feminine space of sleep. The poem was there, almost in its entirety, the second I opened my eyes. After I wrote it down, I knew it was a guidepost for me on how to navigate all this change. I hope you enjoy it. Sending you lots of love.

DOORWAYS In life, there are doorways we all must pass through, Points in time where one way of being gives way to another, Some are obvious – the birth of a child, the death of a parent, Life changes, and we are thrust into a new landscape. There is space for celebration, or for mourning, or for both, For change stirs the deepest parts of us, Like a spoon thrust into a pot that’s been simmering and must be stirred, And we say, “Ah change, I will do my best to meet you, even though I may not like this,” Or we say, “Yes, I have finally achieved what I’ve been longing for.” But what if every moment were a doorway? What if each breath was an opportunity to let go and open into? Then you could witness what was changing or moving, dying or birthing within you, With your own breath as a constant guide in a discontinuous journey. And if you trusted life enough, If you knew in your bones that life is love, And that movement through life is a dance of love, Then your breath could be the gentle wind that opens the door, It could be the sound that sweetly calls you to the next moment. It could carry you like a cloud on a breeze, Where you would become, move, change - yes - but never lose the truth of who you are, For what is most true within you can never be lost. It can only be revealed. If this were how you lived, then life would be like a kaleidoscope, And you would be a part of it, dancing through each moment, Changing as the leaves, As the tides, As the seasons. Breathe in, and open the door before you. Breathe out, and pass through it. Dance gently or fiercely, as you wish, Knowing in the next breath, another door will open, And more of who you are will be revealed. Breathe in, and open the door before you. Breathe out, and pass through it. Breathe in, and open the door before you. Breathe out, and pass through it. Perhaps you are the doorway, and it is life that passes through you.