Gendered energy in ritual?

Nov 19 21:15 UTC 1993

     Let me begin this by saying I have attended exactly one ritual thus
far, and we didn't delve into high mysteries or anything of the sort since
of the six participants, three were novices.  So what follows is based on
limited experience and your mileage will vary.  End of disclaimer.
     Several times in discussion with members of the group to which I
currently belong, the idea of a differentiated male and female energy has
come up.  This could be anything from the moon/sun symbolism that seems very
important in Wiccan practice and astrology to the idea of actual separate
energies that "feel" different.  We were discussing the appropriateness or
lack thereof in rituals with only men or only women in them.  And now, we
are trying to figure out what makes sense as an observance for the upcoming
lunar eclipse.
     This poses something of a problem for me.  I have some basic
ideological problems with such sharp gender distinctions.  My bisexual
fiancee has even more problems with it.  While I am deeply pro the idea of
choosing one's own sexual or gendered identity, I am just as deeply opposed
to having this role imposed on myself or on anyone.  So I get a little
uncomfortable when the discussion takes this particular turn.
     Which brings me to the point.  What do you folk think about the
masculine-feminine energy concept?  How does male energy "feel" different
than female energy?  How would one go about embodying both energies?  Is the
distinction a false one?  Are the terms masculine and feminine misleading
here?  That aught to be enough questions to start a discussion.
     Cheers, and I'm back in ten days to see what you've come up with.
     Chris

response 2 of 43:

Dec 1 01:37 UTC 1993

     I think that you and I actually agree about this Dan, but I apparently
wasn't clear.  My question was fueled by a discussion before ritual when we
were just getting comfortable with some basic concepts and terms, and the
subject of men's and women's rituals came up.  But let's remove gender
politics from the discussion?  
     How does energy from the "male" pole of the continuum differ from the
energy from the "female" end of the spectrum?  What uses do they have?  How
do they feel?
     Chris

response 4 of 43:

Apr 17 21:02 UTC 1994

To put it *very* simply 

Female energy = quiet, passive, nurturing, soothing.  Think of a warm
                scented bubble bath or a swim in a tropical place.

Male energy = brash, active, challenging, results oriented.  Think of
                a hot or cold shower or a tsunami.

There's alot more to say, but I'll leave that to someone who's more
eloquent than I am.

response 6 of 43:

Apr 17 23:37 UTC 1994

Mic; Gwens Husband responds:
Their are social and surival differances that translate as differances
in life energy. These are in how we use the energy that is in each of
us and how we react to the energy without. Because of these gender based
views (I DO NOT mean this politicallyg y n
-line noise again-  we limit ourselves and also give ourselves gifts through
this precept. There are many good books for looking up rituals of northern
European early religions. That is if you are following any of them. I myself 
find it strange at the lack of men who are willing to tap into both the 
mentor and wild man sides of the inner aspects of the male undermind (read as
group memory). Hope this was helpful and may your lessons be not to hard."."
"."

response 8 of 43:

Apr 19 04:24 UTC 1994

Misti, your view of "male" and "female " energy doesn't quite match my
experience.  I've found that some people run higher energy than others, and
some seem "smoother", more as a factor of personality and training than of
gender.  It may indeed be that more guys seem to run high and harsh than
women, but I don't see the gentler feeling guys as "feminine"- just easier
to work with...  Moreover, I've known enough male healers and female
"warrior" types that I can't even make that generalization about how people
work.  so I'm not entirely sure what differentiates gendered energy for
most purposes.  There's sex magic, but even there I'm not sure what makes
the genders feel different in practice- just that there needs to be a 
strong sense of polarity.

response 10 of 43:

Apr 21 03:53 UTC 1994

Hmmmm...I see energy "gender" as unrelated to people "gender".

Kinda like the spanish word for House is female -- but houses aren't
intrinsically feminine..

response 12 of 43:

Jul 5 19:36 UTC 1999

To respond to an item that is more than five years old...

I'm not sure one can define the feel or flavor of "male" or "female" energies.
Actually, I'm pretty sure one can't, however, that's not really the point.
Female/Male is just one set of opposites, one set of poles. It's a way of
describing the natural duality of our universe. There are many others such
as Good/Evil, Passive/Active, Order/Chaos, North/South, and
Regular/Extra-Crispy, and they are all as appropriate for use in rituals as
the Male/Female set. 

Naming and defining these pairs is a way of making ineffable cosmic forces
understandable for us humans and mortals. Traditional systems of magic
including both "High Magick" and "Earth Magick" often use Female/Male as their
duality of choice and this as well as Earth politics have led people to assign
other opposite traits as either Male or Female. 

While this is good fun, I would like to suggest that there is a dynamic
balance that is maintained: when the god sits on the "North" side of the
see-saw, the goddess must sit on the southern side. This is not permanent,
and if the goddess begins to walk north, the god will in turn move south. They
may pass each other and switch places without tipping the seesaw one way or
the other. The footsteps of the deities cause the disturbances seen when a
thing is in a state of flux.

An infinite number of these seesaws are in motion at any given moment. They
are not all aligned with a specific plane, so an up-down movement of one would
affect the up-down balance of another and that one would tip another, and so
on. The footstep disturbances mentioned above are the rebalance of other
scales. If a candle is carried from one room to another, the scales affected
include heat, light, air currents, air content, number of moths, etc. 

_My point_ is that male and female used as examples of opposite energies are
not static in nature. There is a traditional man image (bigger, logical) and
a woman image (smaller, intuitive) that stay fairly constant over time, but
that is just one magnet whose poles are wandering, and may or may not someday
shift. Trying to tack halves of opposites to the ideas "female" and "male"
is an exercise in futility, but as I said, good fun. 

**The above is based on the teachings of the Rectified Church of Eris***

response 16 of 43:

Jul 6 17:46 UTC 1999

I think it in very poor taste to describe someone else's belief system as a
"joke religion", though that probably is not what you were doing. I believe
you are speaking of the "original" Eris cult formed in a bowling alley by G.
Hill and K. Thornley. This group appeared on the surface to be only joking,
but as one delves deeper into their mysteries one discovers more and more of
the underlying seriousness until finally it is realized that it really IS a
joke after all. The *Rectified Church of Eris* took the ideas and symbols of
the original joke, and formed it into a viable religion. The Most Holy Hodge
and Podge are indeed symbols that the original group was "into" and are even
now used by the Rectified Church. The Hodge and Podge are a set of opposites
which may be described as "organic" and "inorganic" (for those of you who
haven't heard of these obscure Jokes before), and make up a large part of the
Erisian myth system. 

All Hail Discordia indeed, Mr. Void...

response 18 of 43:

Jul 6 18:01 UTC 1999

/e still thinks someone should sit down and write the book of Bokonon

response 20 of 43:

Jul 7 15:21 UTC 1999

        "Carries the baggage?"  In order to carry 'baggage' a phrase has to
be repeatedly used in a certain context - or be composed of elements that are
in themselves, or as recognizable parts of other phrases, repeatedly used in
a certain context.  That isn't the case here.  The DEEP structures for "joke
noun" and "noun which is a joke" are identical.

        So if there's any baggage here, it's the sort you've brought along for
yourself.  Please place it in the designated racks above or under your seat.
 :)

response 22 of 43:

Jul 7 20:04 UTC 1999

the deep structures for "joke noun" and "noun which is a joke" are hardly the
same.
Why can't you just say you misspoke and didn't mean any offence, and leave
it at that?
;}

response 24 of 43:

Jul 8 16:01 UTC 1999

which accusation? That you misspoke, or that you didn't mean offense?
A joke noun would be something which is both a joke and a noun... the two
concepts would be equal. A noun which is a joke is a noun that has many
characteristics, one of which is that it's a joke. Cf:
She's a woman doctor.
She's a doctor who's a woman.
He's a black actor.
He's an actor who's black.

People frequently take offence at the first of each pair, but not the second,
because the first tends to place the two concepts on equal footing (she's not
a doctor, she's a *woman* doctor), while the second tends to place the first
concept as more important, and the second as being ancillary.

Notice that the construction here is N N, not Adj N. We don't have the same
discord with an Adj N structure:
He has a blue book.
He has a book which is blue.

BTW, this also illustrates that you're wrong that a phrase can't carry baggage
unless it or its components carry baggage. A phrase can also carry baggage
if its structure -- independent of its component parts -- carries baggage.