I have been reading a lot lately about the concepts of masculine and feminine energy. It all sort of goes along with the yin and yang definitions of masculine and feminine. I do not think I need to define the differences for you. The ideas I feel called to address today have more to do with the finger pointing and blame going on in the spiritual communities. Some religions believe in a masculine god and others in a feminine goddess. There is this snobbish assumption that only one is correct and that the other belief is foolish and misguided. Each believes that if everyone would subscribe to their particular vision of power, then all would be right with the world.

There is a lot of talk among the new age communities about a return to feminine energy and a return to feminine leadership. Somehow, it is believed that with women in charge we will somehow clean up all of the world's problems and magically bring civilization back to a place of beauty and harmony living off the land in a peaceful nurturing way. I even read an article recently written by a new age man asking where we women were and when would we be coming back to fix the mess that he feels the men have made of our planet. Wow! What a big responsibility!

My first response to reading this man's well written essay about how men had really screwed things up with their greed and testosterone filled war like natures, was to say "It's not my job to fix your mess! Where do you get off making a mess and then asking when someone else is going to clean up? Why not ask the men when they're going to clean up after themselves?" Once I calmed down though, I got to thinking about the feminine energy and how it works. I rethought my answers and thought that I should say, "Feminine energy by definition is gentle and nurturing, healing and loving. You won't see us come charging in like warriors gone to battle. Our effects will be subtle and beautiful like the breeze blowing the leaves of a tree."

Having stewed over the topic for a few more weeks, I have some more enlightened thoughts to share. Why is it even referred to as masculine or feminine? Have you never seen a female fight to the death to protect her family? Have you never seen a man cry for the magic of seeing his child born? Do you think that women aren't capable of being greedy and selfish? Do you really believe that men aren't capable of being healers? Whatever happened to the belief that both energies lie within all of us? Men didn't create these problems anymore then women did. It takes one to agree to be victimized. If women truly wanted to take power, they're smart enough to overcome the physical strength differences. The truth is, we agreed to a philosophical view that men were smarter, stronger, and closer to god then we are. We chose to subscribe to that just like they did.

Perhaps the deity in charge is better than us and is a perfect blend of all energies, masculine and feminine. Perhaps it doesn't require an immature split of energies and a need to blame the other for the state of things. Perhaps 'god' is more grown up than that and understands that we all have free will to screw things up or fix them however we choose. Perhaps the 'goddess' is waiting for us all to figure out how to play nice together.

If we are completely honest, we have no proof whatsoever that there is a male god or a female goddess. We have no proof that there is a husband and wife team either. And atheists have no proof that there is no higher power in charge either. None of us can prove anything other than the history of our belief systems and even that we screw up and argue over them. All we have are millions of miracles that have happened in the name of every deity ever known to mankind and we have a lot of stories passed down through the generations. Other than that, we don't know squat about who or what god is. It's beyond us and probably ought to stay that way. I suspect the answers to god and the heavens is hidden in the answers to who we are and why we are here. Until we know for sure that we are absolutely positively right, we have no business fighting. I believe that when we do find out for sure what is going on, that we won't need to fight over all of the 'what if?'s anymore.

I for one, refuse to blame the men for where we are at this point in history. For every story of a rape, there is a story of a woman taking a man's children from him. For every story of a man treating a woman like she is stupid, there's a gold digger proving that women are just as vicious and deceitful. For every Dali Lama, there is a Mother Theresa. For every Gandhi, there is a Joan of Arc. Gender does not make you more or less spiritual. You make yourself spiritual.

There is nothing holy about a holy war and there is nothing spiritual about blaming one gender over another for the problems we face. It takes both genders to create life and it takes both genders to make it holy and sacred. The solution is in taking a 'we' and 'us' type of an approach. We screwed our planet up. We created this dynamic and we have to fix it. All of us need to work together, regardless of gender and regardless of whichever form of godlike energy we have chosen to favor. The root of every religion is that god is love. So, love one another.

Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge