The God's of Men
The Divine Feminine has made what could arguably be the greatest comeback since an illiterate Jewish carpenter was crucified by the Romans and then went on to become the son of God.
We see Her presence leading in almost every form of contemporary Western culture. The numbers of women attending college extend far beyond those of males. In all but a few spheres of occupation women are beginning to out perform, and outshine in what was once seen as a hegemony of patriarchal dominance. Women’s circles, workshops, conferences, podcasts, and social movements lead the way in personal advocacy, empowerment, and shadow development. She is hardly relegated to the discreet insurrection of back-room-rebellions.
Far from a timid morning glory, The Feminine Rising is by now a noon-day sun.
Of course this is a welcome reversal. Women have been actively pushed down for millennia. They have been censured and suppressed. They have been traded like cattle, sold as status symbols, and used to solidify the control of power hungry oppressors. Their ways of being in the world—connected, emotive, present minded, intuitive, and fluid has been apathologized, denigrated and denied. Their goddesses have been shattered as false idols, mocked, vilified, and eventually left to be forgotten in the footnotes of history.
It is beyond surprising that those very goddesses, once denied, are now enjoying the surge of popular affection they once held. Who could have imagined such a stunning comeback story? The goddess Gaia is almost universally recognized as “Mother Earth.” Those who care for the plight of the planet act in her name. Names like Isis, Aphrodite, Shakti, Pele, Freya, Athena, the Black Madonna, Ostara, and Ishtar are frequently referenced in social settings and Women’s Circles. Their images conjure to mind wisdom, love, resisting injustice, and the flow of the natural order. Human development festivals are held in their honor and for the first time in perhaps thousands of years their followers are free to gyrate openly to them. Devotions to each in turn, and their arts such as tarot, crystals, and astrological predictions fill out whole sections in big box bookstores today.
This is to say nothing of the “The Dark Goddesses,” those monstrous deities whose followers celebrated their thirst for blood with stunning obeisance. Haunted names, now casually thrown around by suburban pagans in Middle America, still carry the truly horrifying aspects of human savagery that they enacted. Kali (the Hindu deity best remembered for wearing the skulls of her past lovers), Hel (who lent her name to the Christian underworld), Sandradiaga (whose name literally means “She who stains the sands red with blood”), Enyo & Eris (the greek twin goddesses of strife and discord), the Morrigan (a terror so great she bequeathed her alternate ‘mara’ to our word for nightmare), Tiamat (the nine headed dragon of chaos), or Minhit (She who massacres), to name but a few.
For many women, however, there is little need to name specific deities, or their attributes. “The Divine Feminine” has become a catch all for the archetypal reverence inspired by the return of the goddess.
The Baby and the Bathwater
Of course all this begs the question, what of men? What of their deities, their archetypes, and their inspirational aspects? If there is a Divine Feminine, is there a Sacred Masculine?
Of course, even this question can sound obnoxious to those who may feel (legitimately) that after thousands of years of repression, there is little need to hear of Mannish deities. Haven’t, after all, we been listening to their noisy dominance? Isn’t that exactly what civilization is breaking free from? Do we need to remember the captors just as we set the captives free?
While this is certainly valid, one might argue that deities in general—whether male or female—have done their fair share of damage. Along side of every oppressive Sky God (which we will discuss later) there is an equally (and in many of the cases listed above as ‘dark goddesses’ far more reprehensible) abusive Earth Goddess. It would seem that if we are to consider the deity as solely responsible for the destruction enacted on their behalf then we might as well throw out the whole lot of them—masculine and feminine alike.
However, any student of history can bear witness to the fact that ideals are used for good and for ill. In either case these tools are effective in achieving the outcome of their intentions. A bloodthirsty priest may very well conscript a goddess to his cause and allow heads to roll as a consequence. A power obsessed person of privilege can enforce their position with any number of sentiments, divine or otherwise. Marx reminds us that “religion is the opium of the masses” and in totalle . can become coercive, and destructive.
On the other hand we need deity. The impulse to de-sacralize culture has led to a secular century, the 20th, which witnessed more senseless bloodshed than all others combined. Indeed, to cut away our most reverent impulses is severe a crucial part of our own self—it is to de-humanize.
The Need for Story, Myth, Archetypes
Author and Elder Sam Keen, in his book Practicing God’s Absence , reminds readers that humans are bio-mythic animals, part story and part blood and bone. George Lakoff shares the idea that Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ convey’s only a partial story—with material comforts mattering less than symbols and images we make sense of life through. Without guiding metaphors or central narratives that help us navigate the senseless struggles of every day living we lean towards despair and dread.
In other words the things that the ancients understood as basic elements of their lived experience—myth and metaphor— are needed to inspire and empower us. Just as a car runs on fuel, so too humans run on stories.
There are many kinds of stories. Generally speaking cultures innovate and create numerous kinds of meaningful tales to explain where we come from, where we’re going and why we’re here. However there are repetitive loops that tend to show up across human experience. These are called: archetypes. An archetype is a kind of deeply embedded metaphor that extends beyond individual cultures or locations.
Marion Woodman, the renowned psychologist, says this about archetypes:
"The archetype is more than everyday human energy. It is energy that bursts through from some sacred place—demonic, angelic…it bursts into flame from someplace within us, someplace that manifests imagery shared by human beings from many cultures and many eras. The images change because as cultures change, energies shift and their images automatically change, except when people are stuck…”
The significance then in identifying these archetypes is that the gods and goddesses serve a function beyond simply a here-and-now one. They show us something quintessential about being human—about ourselves. We need these images. They re-connect us to our core and help us find our bearings again and again. But which stories and archetypes do we need? How do we know which ones to pay attention to?
The Gods We Need
Jean Shinoda Bolen, Jungian analyst and author, noted that “Whenever we recognize ourselves in a myth, its empowering.” It’s the same in life, isn’t it? Both the opera star Poveratti and the crooner Frank Sinatra share a common origin story. They both heard another singer on the radio and knew they could sound like them. This discovery of something in themselves that corresponded elsewhere provoked them to greatness. It’s important for women and girls to hear the stories about others they can identify with. Isn’t this part of why the recent film Wonder Woman was so exciting to many families (including my own, in which my daughter—6 at the time—exclaimed “Finally a superhero I can relate to!” as her brothers shook their heads)? As we feel corresponded to, we are able to witness ourselves in new ways.
Of course moving beyond the “noisy literalism” that poet Robert Bly sometimes mentioned, we don’t simply want to see a person or archetype of the same gender with the same genitals. That’s hardly the point. We can see masculine and feminine elements in heroes and myths beyond their genders. However, across the millennia these categories have proven useful and have distilled into essential presentations. Aphrodite is undeniably feminine, beyond being female. She is present moment oriented, she is emotive, she is fluid in her attentions, and she longs for intimate connection. She embodies feminine energy. Just as the comic book superhero (and modern god) Superman, is incontrovertibly masculine. He is goal focussed, linear, global in thinking, reasoning based, and consciousness concerned. They each illustrate how an archetype essentializes these characteristics in a way that individuals like you and I might not.
Because one of the great needs today is for men to reconnect to their sense of the Masculine—those virtues that are best described as assertive, active, aggressive, compassionate, growth oriented, non-attached, focussed, purposeful and given—part of the need then is to reconnect to the element of sacredness around it.
Goddesses will not do—not for men. We must hear our stories, see our own faces, witness our own foibles, and recognize our own shadow. We must begin to rediscover the God’s of Men.