The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Masculinity as Standing
Tall, God as Ground of Being 09/29/2023 |
William Anderson, coauthor of The Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth, tells us that the 12th century Cathedral movement portrayed the Green Man “as a benign and beaming image expressing a new attitude to Nature, one in which she is no longer the
terrifying enemy of human existence of so much Romanesque sculpture, but the kindly ally of man.” |
Here, “the moods of nature become humanized” amidst “the principle of awakening consciousness underlying all creation.” Gaia becomes a “kindly ally” and friendship with nature, not just usefulness or fear, mark the new consciousness. |
Chapel as forest: a Green Man among the leafy buttresses of Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland. Photo by Landhere on Flickr. |
We
too seek out a relationship with Nature that is one of friendship, mutuality, reciprocity. The modern industrial consciousness, so hell-bent on taking from, exploiting and using Mother Earth, turned its back on the suffering we were inflicting on her and her creatures for the sake of our own gains and profit. Now the bill is coming due and Climate Change is wreaking havoc everywhere. Now the Green Man must stand up and assert itself. |
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| One of the dimensions to plant life is that it emerged from the waters and learned to stand up tall–to
defy gravity therefore. Trees stand tall and extend their roots deep into the earth. They ground themselves deeply and reach for the sky, bringing earth and sky together. We should do the same. There is a deep relationship between the Green Man and the ground. Thich Nhat Hanh’s favorite name for God is “ground of being” |
which comes from Meister Eckhart (though TNH got it from Paul Tillich). A return to the ground, to depth, to darkness, to roots, to mystery, to quiet, to source of all life and nourishment may reveal to us something of a renewed
sense of God. Maybe the Green Man can assist us to rediscover the sacred, that Mystery greater than ourselves. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 19-32. Banner Image: The flying buttresses and stained-glass windows in the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, built 1241–1248 in the Gothic Rayonnante period. Photo by Oldmanisold on Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 |
Queries for Contemplation Are we learning to be kindly allies with Gaia once again? And to stand tall to defend Mother Earth? Is that a deeper meaning of manhood and does deepening our roots into the ground offer us a deeper connection to the Ground of Being? |
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The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of
our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of
God |
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______________________________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE Join Matthew Fox online as he lectures and responds to questions on his book, A Spirituality Named Compassion. The event is hosted by the Weber Retreat and Conference Center. Thursday, October 12, 2023 , 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Learn more HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses “A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity” in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Thursday, October 19, 4:00-6:00 pm PT. To register, click HERE. Join Matthew Fox for two days of learning and practice as he speaks at the online Stanford Medicine Contemplation by Design Summit, Wednesday and Thursday, November 1-2, 2023. Wed 4:00pm-5:30pm PT – Lecture, Q&A – Grounding & Expanding, Psyche & Cosmos, Friendship with Self, Others, the Universe: Toward a “Cosmic Religion” (Einstein) and Human/Planetary Survival Thu 7:30am-8:15am – Guided Practice – Finding the Divine (the “I am”, the Christ, the Buddha Nature, the Tselem or
Image of God) Within Thu 12:00pm-1:30pm – Workshop – Recovering the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine Register HERE. |
Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Aaron Perry hosts Matthew Fox on the Y On Earth podcast, on “Hildegard von Bingen & Her “Viriditas,” sharing profound wisdom and deep insights about the essential importance of our
relationship with Mother Earth, our celebration of the Divine Feminine, and our connection with Creation Spirituality, drawing upon centuries of knowledge and wisdom from indigenous and mystical traditions world-wide… particularly from the Rhineland Mystic Movement of the medieval European Renaissance, and a most extraordinary woman at its helm: Hildegard von Bingen. |
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