Reclaiming Sacred Masculinity

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Reclaiming Sacred Masculinity

Since I was a young man, I have been a fierce and tender advocate for women, Gaia, the Goddess, the sacred feminine, and the Anima Mundi—the Soul of the World.

I have worked enthusiastically to treat the women in my life with respect, kindness, curiosity, and love.

As I’ve helped to raise a daughter, my intention has always been to pay close attention to who she wants to be and support her unique path in every way I can.

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I have also born witness to toxic masculinity and the poisonous patriarchal system. In my writing and music, I have described in detail their appallingly destructive force in our world. I have fought them with all my passion and ingenuity.

The traumatic expressions of masculine energy have perpetrated so many horrors that I cringe to name them all in one place, but I will:

• ecological devastation

• dismissal of intuitive wisdom

• contempt for Indigenous cultures

• suppression of emotional expression

• a pervasive intolerance toward "the other”

• homophobia and transphobia

• normalization of violence and aggression

• damage to relationships and social cohesion through Intolerance, control, dominance, and emotional unavailability, all of which erode trust and intimacy and mangle family, romantic, and community relationships

• normalization of contempt, bullying, and mockery of non-conformity

• fueling racial and ethnc oppression

• poor mental and physical health outcomes for boys and men, including social isolation, reluctance to seek help, increased risk behaviors, and diminished well-being

• Tragically and grievously, toxic masculinity and patriarchy have been dangerous and demeaning to virtually all women everywhere. Distorted forms of manliness have fostered sexism, misogyny, and rape culture. Malignant male-dominated culture has tried to deny women the power to control their own bodies.

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Yet my critiques of toxic masculinity and patriarchy are sometimes misconstrued as a hatred toward men or an overvaluation of women. I have even lost friendships with men who accused me of this supposed bias.

But this interpretation entirely misses my message and meaning. The truth is that I deeply love and celebrate the beautiful, positive expressions of masculinity. I aspire to cultivate and embody them in myself. And I invite others to honor them.

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The Sacred Masculine: Eight Pillars of Divine Expression

Real masculinity, in its evolved forms, manifests through qualities that uplift rather than dominate, that serve rather than control. These expressions of the sacred masculine include:

• Protectiveness and Responsibility: The authentic masculine impulse to protect emerges not from a desire to command and regulate, but from genuine care for the vulnerable and a commitment to justice. This is strength wielded with tenderness, power exercised in service of others' well-being. It’s pledged to standing courageously for what’s right while taking responsibility for one's actions and their ripple effects.

• Integrity and Honesty: True, sacred masculinity embodies an unwavering commitment to truth, fairness, and ethical conduct. That means honoring one's word, acting with honor even when no one is watching, and setting an example that inspires others to rise to their highest potential. Such integrity becomes the foundation for organic trust and authentic respect.

• Courage and Resilience: Beautiful male energy celebrates life, honoring its paradoxical complexity, while bravely facing challenges and enduring adversity.

• Discipline and Dedication: Healthy masculine expression values self-mastery and perseverance. The commitment to personal growth, skillful effort, and dedicated work toward meaningful goals creates a magnetic inspiration that motivates others to cultivate heir own excellence.

• Purposeful Leadership: True masculine leadership guides with humility, vision, and service rather than with egotistical manipulation, bullying, and cruelty. It uplifts communities, fosters deeply felt cooperation, and creates spaces where mutual respect can flourish.

• Compassion and Service: Balanced masculinity refuses the cold emotional distance that toxic masculinity demands. Instead, it expresses empathetic compassion, listens with curiosity, and gives generously.

• Accountability and Humility: Sacred masculinity includes the strength to take responsibility for mistakes, the wisdom to learn from feedback, and the flexibility to change course when necessary. This is an antidote for the arrogance and rigidity that characterize toxic masculine expression.

• Supportive Brotherhood: The formation of deep, healthy connections with other men is characterized by honesty, vulnerability, and mutual encouragement. It models positive relational dynamics for all of society.

The Cosmic Wound of Separation

The tragedy lies not in masculinity itself, but in how its most distorted expressions dominate our world. As Buddhist teacher Lama Tsultrim Allione observes, we have lived "without the full feminine for so many centuries, we don't know what it would be like to live within a society where the feminine voice is not repressed." We exist as a species with "one side of its body atrophied."

This cosmic dismemberment has created what I call "the unsacred wound"—a collective forgetting of our true nature as sacred vessels of a sentient cosmos. The masculine principle, divorced from its balancing feminine counterpart, has become the "Master's consciousness" that declares: "I am Self, I am Master, and all the rest is Other."

This operating system of domination drives the exploitation of forests, mountains, rivers, and women's bodies with equal violence.

The same psychic virus that reduces a forest to mere lumber has convinced us that women are primarily resources to be controlled and consumed.

The language of conquest—whether applied to land or bodies—speaks with a single intent: to assert dominance, to sever relationship, and to transform the living into the dead, the sacred into the profane.

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The Terror of the Other

When masculine energy becomes disconnected from feminine wisdom, it develops a profound terror of and alienation from all forms of Otherness. This fear extends beyond women to encompass other ethnicities, religions, cultures, and ways of knowing.

The colonial mindset that believes it can own land and women holds identical contempt for Indigenous peoples whose wisdom honors both.

That’s why colonizers consistently labeled Indigenous peoples as "feminine" and "childlike" in their "superstitious" reverence for the land. The same voice that dismisses women as "too emotional" dismisses Indigenous wisdom as "primitive." It's the same wound expressing itself through different targets.

The Master's consciousness must always create hierarchies: white above black, civilized above natural, rational above intuitive, male above female, human above animal. These artificial hierarchies mask the deep truth that we are interdependent kin in the great family of being.

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The Revolutionary Reclaiming

The healing of our world requires not the replacement of one form of domination with another, but the revolutionary reclamation of wholeness. We must resurrect and honor all that has been cast as Other: feminine wisdom alongside masculine strength, Indigenous knowledge alongside scientific inquiry, dream consciousness alongside waking awareness, the intelligence of the more-than-human world alongside human understanding.

This is the ecstatic revolution. It’s not grim or dour but a joyous reclamation of sacred pleasure, bodily wisdom, and reverent relationship with all life.

When we honor dreams as being important adjuncts to waking experience, when we see all peoples as kindred rather than other, when we recognize consciousness flowing through all beings, we begin the majestic healing our world desperately needs.

The beauty of authentic masculine expression lies in its ability to pair strength with kindness, courage with vulnerability, leadership with service.

When men embody these sacred qualities—and when we all cultivate both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves—we create spaces where all people can feel safe, valued, and empowered to become their fullest selves.

Toward Sacred Marriage

Our task is both wrathful and tender: to compost the dying systems of separation while nurturing the emergent possibilities of reverent interconnection. We must learn to be simultaneously disciplined and wild, structured and flowing, masculine and feminine in their most life-giving expressions.

This is not about diminishing masculine energy, but about liberating it from the toxic constraints that have made it a force of destruction.

When we free masculinity to express its sacred nature—protective rather than controlling, strong rather than dominating, purposeful rather than exploitative—we open the possibility for the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine energies.

The accusations of "man-hating" miss this crucial point: I am not opposed to masculinity itself, but to its distortion into systems of domination. I LOVE my own aspirations to embody and express beautiful modes of masculinity.

So of course I am not advocating for the feminine at the expense of the masculine, but for the resurrection of both in their most sacred expressions. Only through this integration, this sacred marriage within ourselves and our societies, can we heal the cosmic wound that threatens all life on Earth.

When we embody the totality of who we are, when we refuse to exile any aspect of our divine inheritance, we reconstitute the fullness of our gift.

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PHOTOS:

Green Man mask by Lauren Raine

First Batch of Beautiful Men: Bob Ross, Mr. Fred Rogers, Steve Irwin, David Attenborough, Weird Al, LeVar Burton

Second Batch of Beautiful Men: Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley

Third Batch of Beautiful Men: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cesar Chavez, Mario Molina

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Links to all my other stuff: linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of August 14

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In medieval Europe, pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Saint James in Spain often wore scallop shells. These were badges to signify they were on a sacred path in quest of divinely inspired transformation. The shell also had practical uses. It was a scoop for food and water, underscoring the humility and simplicity embraced by wayfarers on the road. I invite you to acquire and wear your own equivalent of this talisman, Leo. You have begun a new chapter in your self-perception, and life is asking you to proceed without pretense. You don’t need definite answers. You don’t have to rush to the end of the journey. The becoming is the point. I hope you seek out inspirational symbolism and generous companions to help nurture your brave transformations. (PS: Your best conversations may be with people who will lovingly witness your evolution.)

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In ancient Greek drama, the peripeteia was a term for the moment when everything turns. The pivot doesn’t happen through force, but through the revelation of what was always true. I see the coming weeks as your peripeteia, Virgo. There may be no fireworks or grand announcements. Just a soft spiraling crackle that signifies a realignment of the system, a cathartic shift of emphases. Confusion resolves. Mysteries solve themselves. You might say, “Oh, yes, now I see: That’s what it all meant.” Then you can glide into the future with a refined and more well-informed set of intentions.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In coastal Portugal, there’s a lighthouse called Farol do Cabo da Roca. Built on a cliff where land ends and the Atlantic Ocean begins, it marks the westernmost edge of continental Europe. We might say it’s a threshold between the known and unknown. I believe you will soon be poised at a metaphorically similar place, Libra. An ending is at hand. It’s not catastrophic, but it is conclusive. And just beyond it are shimmers, questions, and a horizon that’s not fully visible. Your job is to finish your good work, even as you periodically gaze into the distance to see what’s looming.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I Invite you to channel the spirit of Kali—not in her form as the destroyer, but as the fierce liberator. She has the power to burn away stagnation, neutralize the poison of old lies, and slice through illusion with a sword of compassion—and so do you. I believe you are ready to sever a bond that has secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly) limited you. Don’t be afraid of the emptiness that results. It may appear to be a void, but it will quickly evolve into a fresh sanctuary. Into this newly cleared room, you can pour your strongest longings and most rebellious love. What are the wildest versions of your truths?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In some early maps of the cosmos, Sagittarius wasn’t just an archer. Your sign was symbolized by a centaur with wings: part horse, part bird, part god. I bring this to your attention because I suspect your own hybrid nature is extra wild and strong these days. A part of you wants to roam, and a part wants to ruminate. A part wants to teach, and a part needs to learn. How should you respond to the glorious paradox? I say, don’t force harmony. Let contradiction become choreography. Maybe liberating joy can arise through a dance between apparent opposites.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In Sardinia, there are tombs carved into rock called Domus de Janas—“houses of the fairies.” People once left offerings there to court the help of beings they couldn’t see. They truly believed that fairies are real and can exert effects in this world. In modern times, fewer Capricorns actively consort with invisible presences than any other zodiac sign. But I hope you will take a short break from your usual stance. Mysterious and mythic influences are gathering in your vicinity. You’re being nudged by forces that defy explanation. What do you have to lose? Why not have fun making room to be delighted and surprised by miracles and wonders?

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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Thou shalt embrace the confounding contradictions, Aquarius. That's the first commandment. Here’s the second commandment: Thou shalt caress the tricky incongruities. Third: Thou shalt whisper endearments to the mysterious ambiguities and invite the mysterious ambiguities to whisper endearments to you. Fourth: Thou shalt rumble and cavort with the slippery paradoxes. Commandment number five: Thou shalt chant spicy prayers of gratitude to the incongruities, paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities that are making you deeper and wiser and cuter.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In early medieval gardens, there was sometimes a space called the hortus conclusus. It was a walled sanctuary that protected plants and herbs from harsh weather and predation by animals. It comprised a microclimate and provided a private, peaceful space for contemplation, prayer, and study. Sometime soon, Pisces, I would love for you to create your personal equivalent of a hortus conclusus—even if it’s metaphorical. You will harvest maximum benefits from surrounding yourself with extra nurturing. The insights that would come your way as you tend to your inner garden would be gently and sweetly spectacular.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Rama is the star of the ancient Hindu epic story, the Ramayana. I love him! He’s one of my favorite legends! His heroic journey isn’t fueled by a greed for power or personal glory. Unlike 90 percent of modern action heroes, he’s not pumped up with anger or a lust for vengeance. Instead, he is animated by a sense of sacred duty. Against all odds, and in the face of bad behavior by weird adversaries, he acts with exemplary integrity and calm clarity. During your upcoming exploits, Aries, I invite you to be inspired by his exalted and unwavering determination. As you proceed, ask yourself, “Is this in rigorous service to my beautiful ideals? Are my decisions and words in alignment with my deepest truths?” Be motivated by devotion as much as by hunger. Aim not just for novelty and excitement, but for generosity of spirit.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the Mexican festival of La Noche de Rábanos—Night of the Radishes—giant radishes are carved into elaborate altars and scenes. Humble roots become fancy art. I think you’re engaged in a metaphorically similar process, Taurus: sculpting with uncommon materials. Something you’ve regarded as modest—a small breakthrough or overlooked strength—is revealing unexpected value. Or perhaps a previously latent or indiscernible asset is showing you its neglected magic. Celebrate your subtle but very tangible luck. Take full advantage of half-disguised treasures.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Zen archery, the aim is not simply to hit the target. Instead, it’s to align one’s body, breath, mind, and bow so fully that the arrow releases itself naturally and effortlessly. It shoots itself! I would love for you to adopt this breezy attitude in the weeks ahead, Gemini. See if you can allow an evolving project, relationship, or vision to reach a new maturity, but not through pushy effort. Rather, trust life to bring you the precise guidance exactly when you need it.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In ancient Rome, the priestesses known as the Vestal Virgins tended an eternal flame. They never let it be extinguished, not even for a moment. Their devoted focus on nurturing the fire was both a religious practice and a symbol regarded as essential for the well-being, prosperity, and survival of the Roman state. I propose, Cancerian, that you engage in your own version of Vestal Virgin-like watchfulness. Assign yourself the role of being the keeper of a sacred promise or resource. What is it, exactly? Identify this repository of spiritual wealth and dedicate yourself to its sustenance.

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