We've come to the conclusion of this part of the Survival Series The African community and Diaspora are perhaps the most powerful example of what happens when you deliberately tamper with the Masculine/Feminine Balance of an entire group of people to suit the needs of conquest.
Today, the challenges (control, distrust, emotional immaturity, mercenary arrangements, lack of communication, sexual dishonesty, low self-esteem, over-dependency) that plague male-female relationships in the African/Diaspora community, yes the same ones comedians like Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle and Rachel Price cleverly highlight through humour, are like a concentrated version of the imbalance that permeates everywhere else in all other cultures and creeds.
We've suffered a legacy of shame, exploitation and domination manifested as genital mutilation, forcible breeding, ripping families apart, systematic male disempowerment, systematic female dehumanization, sex-slavery and rape, systematic religious and social indoctrination in deep hatred for bodies, indigenous spirituality and sexuality. We experienced the ripping away of The Mother/Divine Feminine from our lives losing our connection to Yemanja, Oshun, Mwai Lisi and also in even more visceral ways- taking land, resources, crops, personhood right under our feet.
The imposition of Arabic and European standards of human sexuality, female beauty & virtue had disastrous consequences on the African continent. Tribes with accepting attitudes towards non-procreative and/or pre-marital sexual activities, homosexuality, polygamy, matrilineal land ownership, female shamanism reaped a world of dysfunction and disease trying to implement foreign standards.
Our societies are still slow to accept the counter-arguments against patriarchal oppression, particularly in the deeply Christian Caribbean. Black men still try to measure success and self-worth by how well they emulate colonial patriarchal ideals of dominion over the female and black women are trying to gain security and status like colonial women do by acquisition of a Daddy/Master/Provider.
Even when we try to reclaim African heritage, we continue to rate our level of self-fulfillment and gender expression based on a system that never accepted us as human in the first place. For this reason, true love, spiritual enlightenment continues to elude many of us and we continue to cannibalize one another.
The destruction of the Alpha/Divine Feminine is discussed in this lecture given by Eve Ensler, who actually gives it the nickname, “Girl” and elaborates on how we (men and women) have all destroyed the “Girl” and the consequences of doing so. Her accounts of what is happening in Africa are heartwrenching.
Now, in no way shape or form am I saying that the indigenous sexuality and gender relations in various African cultures were idyllic, perfectly enlightened and balanced before colonial occupation and the slave trade.
The ugly, less popular truth that indigenous culture apologists overlook is that imbalance already existed within African, Indian, Native American, Aboriginal and pagan European societies. If there were no weakness, our ancestors would have been far too powerful for the even more imbalanced Judeo-Christian/Abrahamic colonial powers to conquer. That is the how powerful Ishvara (The Divine State of Perfect Balance Between Masculine and Feminine) can be.
When colonialists encountered the “Barbarian ” and “New” worlds, they found that our forefathers were already infected with false pride, greed and racism/tribalism. It was easy to make this sales pitch, “Forget Mother Goddess and you will become a God like we are! Your enemies will not be able to hurt you. Your women will not be able to hold you accountable. Our religion will teach you how. Our system will teach you how.”
The ugly less popular truth is that many tribes were already losing The Mother and distracted with war and conquest and easily pitted against each other by European and Arabic powers, far more experienced in strategies of war and conquest. What made Islam, Christianity and its accompanying economic power structure particularly actually attractive to our ancestral male tribal chiefs was the military might and technology of the colonial powers gained by eliminating the check and balance of having to answer to Mother.
Colonialism was basically seasoned tyrants empowering young and upcoming tyrants to reject their Mother and once they did, they were betrayed and mired in testosterone-fuelled pissing contests. And it just so happened that the European and Arabic tyrants were more brilliant at pissing contests. But not because of innate racial or cultural superiority as often claimed by religious bigots, racists or Manifest Destiny apologists.
The seeming victory of European/Christian and Arab/Muslim colonialists had everything to do their systems of economy and governance strongly focused on over-hunting, over-harvesting and hoarding as well as an unfathomable hunger for power. Coming from the harsh wintery and/or desert plagued parts of the world, European and Middle Eastern cultures had to push harder against nature in order to survive. They suffered lack of food, warmth, sunlight, water for months. This drove the innovation of technology for conquest of nature (both land and human) by sheer necessity.
The best conquerors over Mother Earth (including her people) gained not just survival but eventually, power. Unfortunately, some used this to oppress others and institute a class system, with the upper class, becoming like vampires feeding off powerless serfs and gaining a perverted amount of power. This resulted in the envious serfs developing an unquenchable thirst to be part of the vampire class.
This vampirism also manifested in pockets in the “New World”. Caribs committed genocide against Arawaks. The Aztecs captured other tribes and literally built their empires on their blood and bones. African tribes clashed in bloodly, gut-curdling battles. Different Asian clans had spats, millennia old. The only difference is that it was far more contained, again, not because of Native Indians, Africans and South Pacific peoples being innately more compassionate than Europeans and Arabs but because they were also products of their geography.
Unlike the flatter, less obtrusive Eurasian Continent, Mediterranean, Northern Africa and Middle East which allowed the conquest and hoarding to spread, Equatorial Africa, Southern Asia, South and Central America and all the various islands had daunting geographical barriers to large-scale military invasive action.
Even Alexander The Great could not contend with rainforest, deep green gorges and sudden mountains, mile-wide rivers swollen with monsoon rains, mosquitoes and guerilla-style warfare.
There was also less of a culture of hoarding, not because these so called, “primitive” societies were less ambitious, lazy or less intelligent but because they had no geographical/cultural reason to do such things. They lived in abundant parts of the planet with year-round sunshine, lush, green forest with all its bounty, rivers and seas teaming with fish. Anything that was not consumed would rapidly rot in the hot, humid climate.
This balanced interdependence resulted in a spirituality where and man was not seen as higher than nature and therefore imbued with the right to absolute dominion over it. It developed a different value system about self-fulfillment as illustrated in the story below.
“And then what?”
A Wall Street Executive on vacation alighted from a luxury cruise line that just made port in a sleepy Mexican village, where fishing has been part of the culture since the time of the Mayans. It is mid-afternoon as he walks along the beach and sees a group of fishermen having a siesta under the palm trees.
“Man! That looks like the life!” he cannot help but exclaim.
“Si señor! Life is good!” says one of the fishermen.
“So are you done working for the day?” asks the Wall Street executive incredulously.
“Si señor! We get up at the crack of dawn, take the boats out. Come back mid-morning with fish, prawns, lobster for the village. Then we repair nets and then we siesta. Later we will eat a nice meal from our catch, drink tequila, play music, play cards with our amigos, enjoy family, make love to our women and sleep. Get up do it again,”
“But! You guys! You have no idea what you have here! The potential!” says the Wall Street executive, “This whole operation! It could be so much bigger if you just have some vision! Some ambition!”
The fisherman, laughs and decides to indulge the American.
“Tell me señor, what is your vision?”
“Well,” begins the Wall Street Executive, happy to share his expertise, “Instead of fishing for just four hours a day. Why not fish for eight hours! Catch more fish! Sell more fish! Make more money!”
“And then what?”
“Well, then you can buy some more boats and hire more people to fish and make more money,”
“And then what?”
“Well, you can form a fishing company, exporting fish all over the world and if it gets big enough, you can trade it on Wall Street and make millions! Billions even!” the Executive shares getting increasingly excited.
“And then what?” asks the fisherman
“Then you can retire and just relax and enjoy life and fish because you enjoy it,”
“But señor, that is what I am doing right now…with a lot less stress, less damage to the ocean and more time to spend with my woman and children. Enjoy your vacation.”
The European and Arabic colonialists saw indigenous peoples as primitive, lazy, lacking ambition and therefore undeserving of their beautiful land and ripe for plundering. “If you don’t want it! If you aren’t using it to get POWER to get MORE to get POWER to get MORE! Then by all means let ME take it!”
The rest is history.
Patriarchy’s Omega focus is not inherently evil, just as the male sex drive is not inherently evil. There must be some level of penetration and destruction for creative and innovative enterprise to be. However, the Capitalism/Colonialism Apologists who argue that their systems are superior to Communal/Naturist ones are seriously mistaken.
The survival instinct that drove Patriarchal over-hunting, over-harvesting and hoarding may have been valid at some time when we were at the mercy of wild animals, starvation, thirst and unfamiliar/unpredictable Mother Nature. But when we do not evolve spiritually as we evolve technologically, these seemingly valid feelings of lack and fear become falsehoods and lead to dysfunction.
The problem is not penetrating and impregnating Mother Nature. It is doing so against her will and not giving Her enough respect to allow this process to be done as She chooses so she can also maintain her balance. They don’t call it raping Mother Earth for nothing. Sure at first it feels like victory, just like dominating a woman feels like victory. But the truth is that there is not a predator alive that circumvent Mother’s bitch-slap of “No! I do not want that!” otherwise known as bio-feedback.
In order to regain the balance which creates the power that sustains Life, Mother Nature, will go as far as to do a kamakazi. Mother is life AND death. Mother can be re-born. She’s taken on comets, global melt-downs and ice-ages….and Life always returns because the ingredients for Life are within every spec of star-dust in the Universe. There is no Yang without the Yin. The superiority of Western, Judeo/Christian/Abrahamic cultures is just an illusion and not worth defending at the expense of human rights and the planet’s health. If we are survive another generation on this planet we must learn how to rebalance, starting with ourselves by tackling the False Fears and Lack still driving our actions.
So let’s do that now, shall we?
FALSE FEAR OF “LOSS”/REJECTION
WHY IS IT FALSE?
It ignores/forgets the Universal Law of Attraction, Consequence, Infinity, Eternity, Momentum.
UNBALANCED RESULT:
(Active) Domination, possessiveness, jealousy, envy (Passive) apathy, powerlessness, self-pity, guilt
SURVIVAL KIT SPIRITUAL POWER UPS:
From Christ to Buddha, spiritual teachers have tried to help us unmask the illusion of “Ownership” and get it through our head that we brought nothing into this world neither can we take anything out. Every individual is on their OWN journey and has their OWN relationship with The Divine/Universe which has ultimate dominion. Therefore dominion over another is an illusion. We reap exactly what we sow and when we cannot circumvent this Universal Law, without bringing suffering to ourselves and others.
Re-balancing Your Ambitions/Ego(Men & Women)
Affirmation
“I am a child of the Universe. I accept that the Law of Attraction is active in my life. There is no need for me to steal, force or try to hasten the timing, quantity or quality of what I receive thereby creating imbalance and suffering in the world. I attract to me things and people in perfect balance. I become stronger in my ability to do this and feel strong, content and well esteemed. My success is real because it is based on real benchmarks of- self-mastery, selflessness, self-esteem, self-sufficiency.”
Challenges
• Go without your material possessions, food, status and see if still feel good about who you are and know who you are.
• Rejoice in another’s success without feeling jealous, competitive.
• Invest in the planet in whatever way you can.
Re-balancing Your Sexual Attractions/Love (Men)
Affirmation
“My inner Yin soul thrives on unconditional love. I need my soul-mate/love/spouse/friend to love me for real. I do not need to seek emotional security through dishonest, disrespectful, inhumane, mercenary or domineering means. When someone gives me their love freely from a place of strength it makes me stronger.”
Challenges
• Set the one you love and desire free and see if they will decide to love you without you trying to influence or destroy their freewill.
• Seek love/friendship without using pea-cockery or presenting your status as a sales pitch.
• Lose or limit your involvement with people in your life who do not love you unconditionally.
• Give love/friendship to at least one person without wanting anything back in return.
Re-balancing Your Sexual Attractions/Love (Women)
Affirmation
“My inner Yang soul thrives on freedom. I want my soul-mate/love/spouse/friend to allow me my self-actualization. I do not need to seek emotional security through being subservient, using my sexuality or being dishonest about how smart I am or squashing my strong opinions or dreams. I want someone who appreciates my strength.”
Challenges
• Embrace your intellect, ambition, power and freedom and see if the one you love will continue to love you without you trying to dominate you.
• Seek love/friendship without using any games, hiding your personality, intelligence or power
• Lose or limit your involvement with people in your life who do not love you unconditionally.
• Give love/friendship to at least one person without wanting anything back in return.
Re-balancing Your Spirituality (Men & Women)
Affirmation
“The Divine is both Male and Female. Great Mother, I know now I am not a Motherless child. You are alive! You are active in my life! I will no longer ignore You. I will seek You out. Please reveal yourself to me. I will be open to Your signs. I will honor You with equal fervor as I honor Your Male Counterpart. I will show gratitude for Your blessings.”
Challenges
• Expand your spiritual knowledge and reclaim The Goddess. Find out who, why, how She was forgotten and destroyed and honor Her once more in whatever capacity you can.
• (For men) See the women in your life as having spiritual power in their own right and respect their words of healing, wisdom, power.
• (For women) Take up your rightful spiritual place alongside your brothers. You have spiritual power and wisdom. Use it!
The False Fear of Loss/Rejection is not the only one that causes us to go out of balance. In the next 2012 Survival Kit we will explore Fear in its entirety.
It is my hope that after the Fear Essays we will be ready to take on the challenges the future will present as the old system collapses around us and we are called to fight fearlessly (to the death if necessary) for truth, justice, equality and true freedom.
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