Photo: Michael Julian Berz
When my mother died under the wheels of truck in 2001, I was 39 and living a scripted life of wife and mother, a life where I never stopped to ask myself—am I happy?
I was expected to be content because I’d married my soulmate, birthed two beautiful children, lived a life of material ease in a waterfront home and my health was excellent. What more could I ask for?
Within a year of my mother’s death, I was on a fast track to demolish a 15 year marriage by instigating a long-distance affair with a man I’d met (how cliche) online. Even as I knew that this man would not be my next-in-line, I dove heart-first into falling in love with a projection of my own yearning for wholeness.
The hole my mother left in her dramatic leaving was a bottomless need inside my fractured psyche for a Big Love. I wanted something or someone to sweep me off my feet and into a place of vulnerability and mutual acceptance. I wanted to feel safe sharing all of me, all of my sadness, anger and despair, with a beloved. And not just any beloved–but a powerful male who would lead me fearlessly from the chaos of my grief.
Ten years and several relationships later, I came to the shattering realization that love was never out there, waiting to be found. This search for the rescue of Big Love that drove me to a divorce and propelled me through seven love affairs, ended all at once on October 25, 2011 when overnight it became irrefutably evident that I am the very thing I sought. That every lover was me, loving myself and not loving myself.
I write this now because a recent article of mine on love at elephant journal went viral. A Call to the Sacred Masculine: Ten Daring Invitations from the Divine Feminine soared to 44,000 views and 12,000 Facebook likes in ten days. The piece also drew praise and condemnation from men, everything from “BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRING, and MOVING!” to a thanks for “spiritual bullshit that you spew all over everyone.” In other words, the response itself was as polarized as North and South.
Yet A Call to the Sacred Masculine has clearly struck a collective nerve, reaching into the imaginations of men and women who yearn for a Bigger Love. But what most people have failed to see is that this article’s real appeal is not romantic and stereotypical but archetypal and alchemical.
The call for a Sacred Masculine to meet a Divine Feminine is not about new rules for relating or a better marriage formula. Rather, it is about the union of opposites, the marriage of King Sol and Queen Luna, of heaven and earth, of the transcendant and the immanent.
The masculine current is not about manhood anymore than the feminine current is about womanhood. Yet fact is, we are embodied extensions of the formless in form. I have a vagina that receives. A man has a penis that penetrates. In a heterosexual union both partners have the capacity to access their penetrative and receptive natures, for the man at times to be soft and the woman to be hard.
But unless a woman is truly masculine at her core, most women truly desire a partner who will play the polarity game with her—yes, a man who will ravish (not rape) her every now and then, a man not afraid to lovingly take charge
By allowing the natural flow of masculine and feminine to tango, free of ideas and judgements of politically correct loving (or what author David Deida would call neutralized polarity) there arises a third element. A polarized union in which each partner allows the other to be fully man, fully woman, generates a current that comes from the dance of opposites.
This current is a fast flowing river that ultimately will wash both partners into the ocean of the Vast Self—a self free from masculine or feminine. A Self that underlies all form, from gender to species. Recognition of that One Self is the gift I receieved in the dance of polarity with a man who rode the river to the sea, with me.
So, on that note, don’t be afraid to play the polarity game—ultimately all games end up at home base.
Awareness is here,
Lori Ann
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The Awakened Dreamer 
1EarthUnited
Duality has been such a gift from the divine. How can it be otherwise, when seeking sex to experience perfect union is an illusion, a form of unconscious masterbation with identity. Once you become whole, there’s no need to seek it, you already are. Now I understand why Yogi’s are celibate, how can you top nirvana, perfect cosmic bliss. Samsara is nirvana, duality is the path to oneness, the mundane is the sacred. Don’t you love it when duality drops on it’s own accord… and we all get to witness it! Thanks for sharing your awakened being.
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Kathy Kirk
Well Done. Well traveled. Well written. And the exploration continues to unfold as there’s always more. Thank you for sharing this with the rest of us.
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karen
If you want to read a novel about this a woman who lives all out, there is one, It’s called How Far to Heaven and it’s by Kathleen Leonard
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Joseph Polaschek
Lori Ann, we truly appreciate learning of your liberating path. For Jeanne and I the path is different, but ending at the same awareness. We were married right out of high school. I believe few people thought the marriage would last. This year we celebrate 48 years together, have 5 wonderful children and ten equally wonderful and intelligent grandchildren. While being a life of rich, poor, sickness, health, etc., we had a common bond of humor and searching for the Truth. We didn’t realize that “searching” meant we weren’t aware that we already had the Truth with ourselves. Information came to us from so many sources and we had to choose what mattered to us. At different points we participated in the Charismatic Renewal, Marriage Encounters and even facilitated together the catholic church’s Genesis 2 program for our parish. This program was soon ended by the church, perhaps because it was leading to the Truth? We also studied the Mystics, some of whom, as I previously noted, were eventually excommunicated from the church.
We eventually came to the understanding of our Oneness with the One, the I Am. Thoughts and “reality” still try to pull us back, but they are not successful . The dance is very important to us. (One of our favorite songs way back in neverland was “Lord of the Dance”.)
Thank you,
Joseph
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David Baxter
Brilliantly composed insights into who it is that lives without conditions- final realization.
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Davidya
Thanks for sharing this. My former wife went through a somewhat similar thing years ago. For myself, it was only in an exemplifying person that relationship had a role in awakening. But relationship did have a key role in the awakening of what I’d call the divine heart that follows, apparently what you call the Big Love. That can be much more than you mention here.
I’ve also noted how women can exemplify the receptivity or surrender of the old necessary for all to awaken, and for what follows. In a way we could say that the process requires both the penetration of the illusion and the surrender to the reality. Knowing and being requires both the transcendent observer and immanence.
In India, there is of course the devotion to guru or God as a practised means. But there is another way, less commonly known in the west. It’s called the upaguru, where ones mate is the mutual object of devotion and surrender. It’s a profoundly deeper form of relationship, as you lightly touch on here.
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lydiajaneyoga
thank you for your beautiful comments. it is helping me understand what lori wrote. i have my own journey with sacred masculine/feminine, as i was formally initiated into womanhood by a wonderful community of people that takes guidance from a living indigenous community. i believe bringing back indigenous understanding of sacred relationship, including the masculine and feminine, is absolutely essential in healing our world. the men must protect, respect and witness women and our wisdom, rhythm, and mystery. we must, in turn, trust, appreciate and believe in our men. i believe that is the beginning.
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awarenessishere
Lydia, I agree!
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Brad Henneman
Your two articles should be required reading for women who have become dissatisfied with that neutral polarity…often times this dynamic is a result of their own imbalanced masculine/feminine approaches to their relationship with their man…in a misguided effort to “have it all” many women have usurped their man’s natural role of penetrator, and ravisher…like a friend of mine used to say…”Women, they castrate you, and then hate you for it”
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singingflute1
Ah, yes! This touches the heart of it, but we’re all on a journey and at different places on that journey, so this article will resonate for some while the last one may resonate more for others. By being afraid of the polarities, we live a neutered middle-ground that is missing the vital essence of life. How empowering, and liberating, it is when we have the opportunity to dance at one end of the spectrum while someone dances with us at the other end. Thanks, Lori.
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Dave Kirk
Superb piece that touches on the archetype or driver within. Crazy actions born from a crazy rationale of your state in 2001, so honestly owned. Thank you
Dave Kirk
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