Happy Equinox, friends.
As I write this from our front porch, I am in a symphony of morning birdsong – gold finch, house finch, sparrow, chickadee. The smell of a stick of Tibetan incense, morning sun coming up over the Wasatch mountains, such a moment of beauty. This beauty is also woven with grief, as for many of us in the Western US, it feels much more like mid-summer than the first day of Spring.
This morning, we had the honor to welcome our dear friend, the unofficial poet laureate of grief and praise,
Rosemerry Wahthola Trommer, to join as a guest teacher for our
Refugia program. Erin and I have been so touched, so inspired, and so absolutely lit up by the quality of community in Refugia. We really can help each other flourish, even during times like these.
A few weeks ago, I was in a class with wise, eloquent Dine elder,
Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining. She shared a story I had heard before, but it landed in a fresh way. Pat shared how several years ago, she was in ceremony, asking for guidance in healing the wounds between masculine and feminine, and what she heard was, “
You think you know what masculine is, but you don’t, and you think you know what feminine is, but you don’t. All you know is how they behave in a power-over paradigm. But if you were to take those same energetics and plug them into an entirely different paradigm, they would behave in an entirely different way.”
Then Pat leaned in closer to the screen and said emphatically, “Men, I want to know who you are, feel who you are outside of the power-over paradigm!” And my internal response was, “Fuck yes, I want to know and feel that too!” That inquiry about stepping outside the domination paradigm in countless ways is at the heart of all the work Erin and I carry. How do these energies of being human shine differently outside of a power-over paradigm? How are we with our movement, our voice, our thoughts, our inner life, our children, our creative expression, the living green world… What different intelligences emerge beyond the pervasive power-over models that so many of us have learned and internalized.
I find it particularly important for men to gather in these inquiries. I am so grateful to hold sacred containers for men with my soul-brother,
Alexandre Jodun, where we can look deeply into what shines through us as men beyond that power-over paradigm. Gathering in this way is such potent, healing medicine! I have been engaged in men’s work for the last 30 years, and I often wish I could broadcast to the world how beautifully men can be together. We see in the daily news all of the harm and abuse that unwell, uninitiated men cause in this world. What we don’t see in the news are the underground currents of healing work of men coming together in ceremony, in music, in grief, in power, in prayer, in re-visioning, in kinship, in bringing forth the soul-medicine that is uniquely ours to carry.
Wishing you a beautiful equinox,
Carl
