The Feminine and Relational Consciousness
The Feminine Principle
and Our Evolution of Consciousness
If we understand the universe as an increasing embodiment of
consciousness or spirit, we can appreciate how consciousness has been incarnating
into matter, rooting into substance, or as depicted in the Bible, by being
breathed into the dust of the ground. Matter, a word that in its ancient origin
signifies mother, source, and substance, represents what is often called the Feminine Principle.
The Feminine Principle, worshiped for thousands of years as
the goddess, the feminine side of God, and the sacred feminine, is the
protective womb of the spirit, the container that brings the uncreated into
existence, the cup that holds the meaning of life, as well as the web that
keeps the whole of life together. This principle holds the knowing of union,
wholeness, and interconnectedness, the understanding that everything is linked
to everything else. The feminine expresses itself throughout the cosmos in myriad
forms and ways—as a type of consciousness or knowing, as Earth, as nature, as a
woman, and even as an aspect of both men and women.
As an aspect of consciousness, the feminine is natural
wisdom, an understanding that often manifests as knowing without thinking. It is not the result of an intellectual
process. This primordial wisdom senses and understands from within. The
feminine knows its unity with “all” in the same way a pregnant mother knows her
union with her unborn child—through experience. Feminine consciousness is the
original and innate way of experiencing and understanding life as an organic
whole where everything is in relationship to everything else. This unity just is.
When we live from feminine consciousness, life is
experienced as wondrous and alive. There is a natural sense of togetherness and
belonging. Like the first years of life, when we inhabit a magical, luminous
world, there is no separation or individualized awareness. The child does not
experience herself separate from her mother; the human being does not
experience herself separate from nature. They are one.
With the higher development of intellectual capacities,
human attention shifted from the whole to the part. We left the arms of the
mother, and like a child who can walk on her own, we moved further and further
away to see, touch, and understand each thing individually. At first we could
still see the mother, but when we ventured around the corner she disappeared
from sight. When we began to experience our distance, we saw ourselves as
separate, as individuals. We developed a sense of “I,” “me,” and “mine”—and the
natural feminine understanding of unity was largely abandoned.
While
the
feminine awareness holds an understanding that is intrinsic and all- encompassing,
this next step in the development of consciousness has a masculine quality that
is both detached and specific. Unlike the undifferentiated receptivity of the
feminine consciousness, the masculine consciousness is analytical. It perceives
life as if through a magnifying glass, seeing primarily the part that is in
focus. Through this lens the universe is investigated, categorized and
dissected to reveal more and more detail. Great scientific and technological
advances have been gained as a result of this stage of our evolution.
This view through a magnifying glass emphasizes the
importance of the parts, their qualities, contributions, and what makes each
one special and unique. However, this limited view can make us lose sight of
the whole. By focusing on our individual selves, our sense of “I” becomes
enlarged, leading us to lose the perspective and the feeling of being one among
billions. From this focalized field of perception the part can seem unrelated
to the whole.
Just as a child interested in understanding the functioning
of a toy might take it apart and be incapable of putting it back together, we
have lost as a society our capacity to get back to the whole. By living
primarily through a consciousness of separation, we have slowly dismantled our
world into a myriad of disconnected pieces, leaving our lives devoid of meaning
and value. This dismemberment has negatively impacted the Earth and the
feminine aspect in each of us.
As a culture we have forgotten the way of the sacred
feminine principle; we have abandoned it, dismissed it, and wounded it. The
sustained emphasis on the part over the whole, on “I” over “we,” and “mine”
over “ours,” as well as the value we place on intellectual understanding over
natural knowing, have created an imbalance. Dismembering the world has caused
its meaning to be lost and the purpose of life to be forgotten. Life has lost
its sacredness and now we experience it as arid and hollow. The void that many
feel has reached such a degree that something within us has begun to cry out
loudly; it is the Spirit within calling us back to unity.
In some Western societies, many feel this call as a sign to
return to the old days of the goddess. This sense is particularly strong in
some women. But the reality is that while there is a clear call back to an
experience of oneness, we are no longer the holders of an undifferentiated
perception. We have evolved. Masculine consciousness has given us a wider perspective,
a different kind of knowing.
We are confronted with a dilemma: we
cannot continue living in this state of separation and disconnection, and at
the same time we cannot go back to that sense of unconscious unity. We are
being asked for a different experience of oneness, one that reconnects us with
the knowing of togetherness and interconnection with all in a new way. At this
point in history, we are being called to rise to a new evolution of
consciousness. We are presented with the unique opportunity to weave the
disconnected parts of life together from a state of full awareness.
This new dimension of consciousness, the
way of the conscious weaver, is relational and feminine in nature because
it weaves together the separated parts of life by perceiving what they have in
common. It connects the feminine with masculine awareness, which notices the
unique attribute that each part contributes to enrich and make possible the
whole. The knowing of the conscious
weaver contains the whole and the
part. This awareness of our interconnectivity can bring healing to the wounds
of desolation, water our arid hearts, and welcome meaning back into life.
We can bring this awareness into our daily lives in simple ways. While cooking a meal, typing a letter, or changing a diaper, we can notice how our activity relates to something or someone else. We can see how when we feed others, we are giving and receiving love. We can remember where the food we eat comes from. We can feel grateful to those who spend their lives working, building, and inventing new things that make our lives easier. We can remember that someone right now, somewhere, may be doing the same thing we are doing and may have the same needs we have. Through this remembrance, we can see how nature nurtures us and how we can nurture life. By witnessing and consciously experiencing how the thread of life weaves everything together and unites all, the miracle, grandeur, and magic of existence become visible once again.
Just as the first photo of the Earth
taken from space showed us that we are one, this new awareness recognizes from
afar what we always felt to be true inside—our oneness, our essential unity.
This new relational consciousness
is
the bridge that unites feminine knowing with masculine understanding, the next step
in our evolutionary process.
By Alex Warden
Light of Consciousness
Journal 2013
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