"The Dance of the Masculine and the Feminine" by Leela Francis

My earlier years of hiking and backpacking consisted of me and my avid outdoorsman boyfriend who loved to get out in the backcountry and rough it for a few days. Nature called and we both loved to gear up and get out into the wild where there were no sounds but the birds, the creaking of the tall trees and the waterfalls we passed along the way.

As much as these outings remain blessed memories and formative experiences in my evolving love and appreciation for nature, I began to realize that my partner always had a persistent striving to get us somewhere as fast as possible. I on the other hand preferred to wander and day dream my way, communing with the scents and textures at every turn. Sometimes this would result in an undercurrent of conflict between us. He was more about where we needed to get to, and I was more about where we already were. His practical, goal driven approach inevitably won out, and I seemed always to be torn from my reverie.

Years later, when I happened to start going on outings with a small circle of women friends, I noticed how profoundly different it was. We planned shorter distances whether hiking, biking or kayaking, and always had time and space to “stop and smell the flowers”. It wasn’t long before I was choosing the sister accompanied outings over those with my lover.

In hindsight, I get why we had to get where we were going. Darkness would eventually come and we needed to have covered the distance we intended in order to reach our desired location, which was what brought us there in the first place. I know this approach is not better or worse, just different. The masculine is different than the feminine. And the reality is that they are always dancing with each other within and around us

The reality is also that in the very patriarchal world in which we live, driven predominantly by masculine values and mindsets, the masculine overshadows the values and sensibilities of the feminine. While both are absolutely necessary for life on this planet, a clear lack of balance is evident. But is it balance that we need to achieve and which would bring peace, ease and fulfillment? Or, is it more an understanding and appreciating of the attributes of each, and that engaging each to enhance the other that would most serve us?

So many women who come to Vividly Woman circle start by sharing that they’ve lived almost exclusively in a masculine world in their work life for years. They feel so cut off from their feminine aliveness and starving for their true feminine nature. Once in circle and in the sacred and safe space of other sisters also craving more of their divine feminine juiciness, they start to melt away the hardened shell that formed to protect their softer essence.

It’s natural to create that shell like boundary when we are surrounded by it in the environments where we spend most of our time. Although I personally have very little experience in corporate settings, as the mom of 3 teenage stepsons I can relate wholeheartedly. It’s natural for the feminine to shy inward in the overwhelming testosterone prominent energetic because that’s the nature of the feminine; soft, inward, compliant, flowing, malleable. Without this quality in our world there would be no meandering rivers, there would be no melting snow, no merging of the seasons.

The masculine like wise brings with it essential qualities that are necessary for the beauty in our world. The masculine offers the banks of the flowing river so that it flows instead of floods, the outer casing of the tree we call the trunk bark that allows the sap direction and encasement to grow branches skyward so we are provided oxygen, and the masculine penetrating quality of the sun is what encourages our food to grow to sustain us.

Just like the way the masculine and feminine exist in nature, they exist within us and finding the ways that the masculine best serves our inner feminine is the wisest and most effective way to dance with it within us and around us.

Recently in a Vividly Woman monthly community tele-circle we gathered to reflect and share about the dance of the masculine and feminine in our lives.  It’s clear that there is a strong desire now for women to nourish more of our feminine nature to make up for the over abundance of masculine energy we’ve been inundated with. But is this all that’s needed? Don’t we also need to identify the ways that the masculine supports and nourishes the feminine, and enroll those aspects of ourselves to expand our inner feminine aliveness?

Here are some qualities of each:

Masculine qualities

Boundaries

Direction

Force

Commitment

Feminine qualities

Fluidity

Spontaneity

Ease

Devotion

Let’s look at how can we pair up these qualities to optimize, enhance and grow ourselves, our vision, and our planet?

The freedom loving aspect of our fluid feminine nature, that loves to day dream and absorb ourselves in the moment through our senses, could be harnessed and boundried by the masculine to amplify our rich sensuality and make it even more potent.

The spontaneity of our creative feminine wildness could benefit from some sense of masculine direction to harness the power of that wildness, apply it to a desired goal and achieve it.

The masculine force of a motor facilitates a feminine ease of travel.

And the masculine quality of commitment becomes necessary when all the feminine essence devotion in the world just isn’t enough to sit through the football season with your husband in exchange for him attending the flower show with you last spring.

The fact that we have been so immersed in the masculine energetic for so long qualifies us as experts, unfortunately often to the exclusion of our feminine blessings. Perhaps the answer is not to throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak, but to creatively and wisely interweave the gifts of the masculine to support and expand the blessings of the feminine.

Look around at your life and see where you are using mostly masculine or mostly feminine qualities. Then determine if a dash of the opposite could be useful there. Instead of thinking “how can I balance one with the other?” think, “how can I enhance, grow, optimize one with the other?”.

The dance of the masculine and the feminine is indeed a dance where one leads, one follows, and one channels and is informed by the other in a constant feedback dynamic. It’s how this planet continues to exist and flourish, and how we can too!

"Your Not the Boss of Me!"

Know any people who appear outwardly successful, but that’s all they seem to do is work? They don't know how to relax, or have fun?

Know any people who are whimsical free spirits yet they never seem to follow through, they don’t finish what they start?

Let’s talk about the balance of freedom and form.

This is one of my favorite Nia principles.

 Freedom and form are like yin and yang, like inhale and exhale, like sound and silence. Each gives birth to the other.  Each depends on the other to reveal its true nature.  

Most of us have a lot of one or the other. We can thrive when we access and blend the two!

Freedom is the feminine free and flowing, expansive and creative.

Form is the masculine, the rules, strong and set, exact and concrete.

"When I grow up I am not even going to have beds in my house, they won't be allowed!"I remember declaring to my mother, along with, "I am going to have candy for breakfast and chips for dinner everyday!"

Thankfully my parents held Form, and I took care of the Freedom as most children do. 

Who parents us when we're grown? Who protects my health and well being with firm structures now? Who creates and upholds boundaries?

I do. And you must do the same for yourself.

Debbie Rosas says “we balance the feminine with the masculine, the precise with liquid fluidity and the powerful with the yielding.”

 It’s only in the last 5 years have I begun to really intuit, play with and exercise the balance.

Let me explain: To me Form is a structure that supports me, it parents me. For instance my schedule or daily routines, I love to sleep in, my Form gets me up early, keeps my yoga practice alive, keeps me taking my vitamins, and drinking more water. Keeps me checking emails, returning phone calls, and working diligently at my computer, when I’d otherwise be procrastinating like nobody’s business!

My form gives me a steady rhythm to my days, weeks, and months. It’s like a good strong bass line in a song.

My Freedom keeps me dancing, journaling, collaging, going for hikes, watching Office reruns with my teenage son. My freedom lets me peruse the Goodwill, and let my house get a little messy! Let’s me create new workshops and dance moves.

When balanced my freedom has boundaries, but it can thrive within Form. My form stays strong but pliable , not rigid.

Some of us go to the other extreme and strangle our creativity, snuff out our playfulness with too much Form. These people are convinced Freedom is dangerous, it can not be trusted, it's a waste of time. In general I find these folks not too much fun to be around. (Although they generally have very nice cars I wouldn't mind owning.)

 Form is like a loom, and freedom is colorful threads. One is useless without the other. If you are creating the rich tapestry of an intentional life you must incorporate both! For any intention to not only survive, but to thrive, both are essential!

Ask yourself how your balance of Freedom and Form is supporting you.  Check in, what do you find, a lot of tangled threads, or too much bare empty loom?  What kind of tapestry are you weaving?

Body like a machine, or Body like a temple?

There are two ways of being with your body;
● Use your body like a machine
● Inhabit your body like a temple

Use Your Body Like a

Machine
When you look after your body with the intention to make it look good, toned and slim, and beat it into submission through arduous exercise instead of creative and sensual exploration, you are using it like a machine. There is little listening, little consideration of the body’s wisdom and most if not all of your focus is on the aesthetic of the body.
In this way of being with your body, you may find yourself judging, berating, blaming and abusing this human organism, if it does not conform to your ideals (and the images of feminine perfection that are promoted tirelessly in the media). You determine what is true for you based on what the outside world tells you and ignore your own thoughts, opinions, preferences and the crucial element, your intuitive wisdom.
Though you may enjoy sexual intimacy with your partner, you find you are hyper focused on the physical release, instead of the building and sustaining of arousal. You may notice yourself with a wandering mind, feeling obligated instead of inspired to accommodate your partner’s needs, thinking “oh well,” when your own needs aren’t met, and disregarding the sacredness of your own sensuality.

When you honor your body like the temple that it is, and seek to notice and respond to its subtle communications to you about its physical, emotional and psychological state, you are inhabiting your body, living from inside, intuitively, rather than from outside, gazing in from the periphery of the sensory experience.
Still choosing to engage in the activities that keep it healthy like exercise and eating wisely is important, however when you are honoring your physical temple you are more motivated by what you feel and sense, versus what you see in the mirror, and how it measures up to others and to the airbrushed images in the media. In honoring your female temple you also value the emotional and psychological benefits of the level of integrity you experience in being true to yourself, versus internalizing the opinions and standards of others around you.
To inhabit your body is to covet sensual and sexual pleasure and know the value of sustaining versus discharging arousal. You experience your body’s sensual expression as the divine dancing through you and your union with someone you care for or love deeply.
The two ways of being with your body I’ve described above are extremes. It’s unlikely that anyone will be just one or the other. The reality is that most of us dance somewhere between the two, body as machine, body as temple. Unfortunately it would be fair to say that most women tend to lean toward the first extreme, using your body like a machine. I believe that this tendency is a factor in the proliferation of depression, discontent and supreme isolation that many women experience in our world today. Despite the great strides that we as women have made through the decades, it is this disassociation that is hindering further and swifter evolution of the consciousness paradigm shift where peace and prosperity are experienced globally. Rather than just looking at our own blessed lives to measure the evolution of consciousness, we need to also remember the vast number of women who still suffer worldwide. This reality reminds us that we still have far to go before our work as a fully embraced, accepting and inhabiting female community is done. And if you believe in the transpersonal power that we each wield, you will certainly understand that your awakening to this embodiment is an awakening for all women.

Psychology studies show that young girls by the age of 11 have almost entirely stopped referring inward for their own truths, opinions, preferences and values,and almost exclusively refer to the outside world be it family, society or media influences to determine for themselves how they interpret who they are. Educating these young goddesses to move towards extreme number two serves to guide them and all women to look inside ourselves for the answers of our nature and our well being.

The practice of referencing inward, is a body centered way of being that I call Embodied Power.
When we practice looking inside for our personal power, our truth, our innate wisdom, we are practicing embodiment. When we take it a step further and dance that wisdom, we are using our embodied awareness as our creative source and inspiration. I use dance here to refer to any authentic expression be it movement of the body, writing, coaching, mothering or the managing of a company. Once embodied and danced, you are living that very wisdom and power, and can claim the role of embodied leader because of the high level of truth and integrity that you radiate and inspire.

As the founder of Vividly Woman, I actualized for my community the Vividly Woman Embodied Leader training; this program guides women back home to this quality of leadership I’ve shared. We begin with the initiation weekend retreat, Dance Your Power, where participants are intimately reintroduced to their three vital centers of embodied power; sensual, emotional and intuitive. The women who continue to further their learning through the three remaining modules that make up the leadership training program, will 1. radically excavate the authentic and unique truth living in these three centers within, 2. profoundly nourish these three long ignored places and 3. lovingly heal the personal wounds that have debilitated and frozen them most of their lives. Through this work I have had the honor and privilege of facilitating and witnessing tremendous courage and devotion of so many women who’s lives have been forever changed.

The journey of embodied awakening is a lush and winding path, a fertile adventure of birthing and re-birthing yourself, and one I am blessed to travel with brave and beautiful women I call sisters. It is a dance of remembering YOUR vital woman aliveness; spiraling, diving and reaching from deep inside the blessed temple that is your body.

Written by Leela Francis Leelafrancis.com