This is a duality you are likely already instinctively familiar with. Consider the following: 

As you can probably intuit, both of these forms of consciousness exist in each of us, regardless of our biological gender, and we find ourselves oscillating between them at different moments in our lives. 

Masculine consciousness is the form of consciousness we’re socialized into in contemporary western culture. It’s the form of consciousness that dominates our day to day, but the experiences of falling in love, creating art, communing with nature, giving birth, holding our newborn child, comforting a dying loved one, or any direct spiritual encounter are all moments where we might find ourselves plunging into the realm of the feminine. Our capacity for language often falls away (language is a function of the masculine aspect of our consciousness) and rational concepts seem to have no bearing on the reality at hand. In many ways, we might feel like a child again: deeply present, connected, outside of time, and perhaps even a little frightened or awe-struck by the power and mystery of Life. 

This child-like feeling is no coincidence. We feel like children when under the sway of feminine consciousness because during our earliest years, we lived from this place at all times. Feminine consciousness is the form of consciousness each of us is born into. If you take a look at the chart, the qualities under the feminine consciousness column are much more prevalent in young children than in adults.

Young children are not rational beings, as any parent of a toddler can tell you. They don’t live according to an external logic, but by internal feeling. They don’t filter their experiences through the conceptual mind, but experience their experiences directly. Truth fluctuates according to the context, and they remain radically open to the possibility of all things. Comfortable with mystery, young children don’t strive for control or certainty, and often prod at any fact, belief, or truth an adult might express with conviction (“But why?”). Their heightened capacities for presence and wonder are the natural products of this open, curious, and non-conceptual disposition toward Life.

Most importantly, infants and young children don’t experience themselves as separate individuals but rather as parts of a greater whole. The concept of “I” or “me” has yet to solidify within them, thus they remain in relationship to “the greater whole” that created and encompasses them, a relationship that is experienced through the body as opposed to through the rational mind. In other words, this relationship isn’t a concept (like one might have with “God” or “a creator”) but rather, an inner feeling of completeness, security, and peace—barring any physical needs. 

And because we can experience ourselves as whole only insofar as we experience ourselves as part of a greater whole, young children don’t possess an internal sense of lack or unworthiness. In touch with their wholeness, they’re generally free of self-consciousness and shame. They never repress or hide their feelings and are not shy about expressing their needs. They live from deep within themselves, instead of from external concepts and conditioned beliefs. 

The Loss of the Feminine

Over time, however, the feminine aspects of our consciousness and being begin to fade as we enter the world and are made to assimilate ourselves into the larger culture, in which masculine consciousness is overwhelmingly dominant.

This shift typically begins to unfold at the start of our formal education. We develop our capacities to think rationally and critically, and become versed in scientific thought, abstract concepts, and cultural norms. We become proficient in the ways of the world, enabling us to become productive members of the society in which we live. 

In short, we enter the world and begin to remake ourselves according to its rules and values, as opposed to those that exist within us. Most critically, we begin to operate not from “the Self” (the inherent part of us that remains connected to the whole) but from our rapidly developing egos, which allow us to see ourselves as isolated individuals with distinct personalities. 

Another way to look at this is to understand feminine consciousness as the form of consciousness inherent to all beings, while masculine consciousness is a product of the culture in which we live. In other words, masculine consciousness doesn’t necessarily arise in us organically but as a consequence of schooling, conditioning, and acculturation. So if early childhood is a period in which we lived from the inside out, this is the moment we begin to live from the outside in. 

The Great Imbalance

Ideally, these two forms of consciousness are meant to exist in balance with one another, but because masculine consciousness values opposition and dualism (“either/or” thinking) over integration and monism (“both/and” thinking), we are conditioned to devalue and distrust the feminine aspects of our consciousness in tandem with our development of the masculine. 

This has led to a profound imbalance in the lives of every human individual and our society as a whole. We are a culture that has repressed and devalued one half of our being and wholeness, actively circumscribing the possibilities of our lives and precluding any holistic vision or understanding of Life and the world.

Just consider the connotation evoked by the term “irrational,” which is undeniably negative in our culture. In fact, the thesaurus offers the following synonyms: “unreasonable, illogical, groundless, baseless, unfounded, unjustifiable, unsound; absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, silly, foolish, senseless, nonsensical, laughable, idiotic, stupid, wild; untenable, implausible, unscientific.”

In other words, we live in a culture that doesn’t recognize the legitimacy and utility of forms of intelligence that lie outside the bounds of the rational, such as experiential, spiritual, somatic, emotional, and instinctual intelligence, all of which are forms of knowing inherent to us, as opposed to learned. And while rational intelligence has undoubtedly given us many advantages, unhinged from these original intelligences, we become like blind men who think they can see, and begin to live unsustainably, both as individuals and communities. 

The privileging of rational intelligence over all other forms knowledge and knowing is also why we’ve historically viewed humans as superior to non-human creatures, men as superior to women, adults as superior to children, imperialist cultures as superior to indigenous ones, European cultures as superior to non-European ones, the mind as superior to the body, and scientific thinking as superior to all other forms of thought and inquiry, which has lead to nearly every social and environmental issue we find ourselves facing today. 

What This Means for Us as Individuals 

Such a world view, in which we experience ourselves as separate beings, detached from the whole and thus from our own origins, also leads to immense suffering in the human individual. Separated from our source, we begin to regard the immensity of Life through the lens of fear, leading us to distrust it and seek refuge in the delusion of control. Instead of flowing with Life, or allowing Life to flow through us, we begin to spend all our energy working to resist, deny, or manipulate it, actualizing more suffering in our lives and locking ourselves into an endless struggle we’re bound to lose.

Lastly, our estrangement from source or “the greater whole,” means that we can no longer experience ourselves as whole, and thus enter into a life of striving, achieving, and consuming, all of which are attempts to fill the void that now resides in us as a consequence of this disconnection. Unable to experience ourselves as whole (or as loved), we begin to believe we must become whole (or earn Love), and thus begin to ignore our deepest feelings, desires, and needs in favor of aligning ourselves with the beliefs or values that will lead to our acceptance by others.

Restoring the Balance (And How Feminine Consciousness Can Heal Us )

Fortunately, we have the power to change this reality for ourselves. Working to cultivate the feminine aspect of our consciousness and bring it back into balance with the masculine can allow us to reconnect with the greater whole, enriching every corner and aspect of our lives and providing pathways for profound healing. Instead of waiting for certain life experiences to plunge us back into the depths of ourselves, we can actively work to live from this place of grace and ease on a daily basis, allowing us to return to the truths and values that reside within us, and restoring a sense of gratitude, love, and wonder toward ourselves and the world. 

Take the following examples, which are currently the focus of my work:

Maternity…

One of the greatest tragedies wrought by “the great imbalance” is how it estranges women from their feminine intelligence and capacities, leaving them under-resourced and unprepared to navigate the reality of Motherhood, which is meant to be a reinitiation into feminine ways of being and seeing.

In other words, without a healthy relationship to the feminine aspects of our being and consciousness, we’re left to mother with one half of ourselves and rely on tools that are entirely inadequate for the occasion. As any mother can tell you, rational concepts, abstract thinking, and linear time, etc.  have little to no utility here. And in fact, if we try to mother by relying on these parts of our being, we’re likely to encounter a high degree of suffering. 

Healing our relationship with the feminine aspects of our consciousness can allow us to reacquaint ourselves with the tools and inner resources mothering requires, so that we can mother from within ourselves and our wholeness, instead of from a sense of lack, insufficiency, or unworthiness. 

Click here to hear me speak more about this topic in a recent dialogue with the Sophia Institute.

Spirituality…

Detached from the feminine, spirituality is reduced to a set of sterile concepts and practices empty of any felt experience of spirit. Cultivating more feminine consciousness in our lives can allow us to experience the divine directly, in our bodies and in the material world around us, beyond the distant relationship typically afforded to us by organized religion. Feminine consciousness heals the wounds of separation and abstraction, allowing us to encounter a divinity that precedes from the material upward, not the immaterial downward.

Ecological Stewardship…

The delusion of separation cultivated by our imbalanced consciousness is the source of our disconnection from the natural world, and it’s this disconnection that enables us to abuse it.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric of mainstream environmentalism perpetuates this sense of separation by casting us in the role of destroyer or savior, instead of  helping us understand how our existences are intricately interwoven with the existences of all other living things and vice versa.

Furthermore, the mainstream environmental movement, and the media that champions its cause, too often rely on fear as their primary motivator, which leads to despair, nihilism, hopelessness, and further politicization, instead of conscious action and coming together. 

Healing our relationship with the feminine half of our consciousness can allow us to reconnect with the natural world around us, directly experience its sacredness, and in turn, feel called to protect and respect it, not out of extrinsic fear, but out of our intrinsic love for it, which is a far more powerful call to action.

Creativity… 

Creativity is a fundamentally feminine act. It’s an act of surrender to forces beyond our control, not an act of deliberate, conscious invention. Cultivating more feminine consciousness in our lives can allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the creative process, so that we can create the conditions needed for it to unfold. This understanding can also provide us with the courage we need to surrender more fully, censor ourselves less, and relinquish perfectionist tendencies, which actively impede our capacity to create.

*All photos courtesy of my sister, Lucie Kulze. Check out her beautiful work here.