Reflecting on my relationship to this forum...

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, zurew said:

If you picture a typical russian woman in your head, then I doubt that you would picture a very submissive woman

Not submissive per se, but living in a female role and expecting her man to play the classic male role.

More "traditional". 

A lot of this is about the roles we play, which are highly socially influenced.

For example I have heard my pickup friends talk about how Asian girls are more about taking care of her man. As that is part of the culture. Whereas American girls will be more into having a career.

Edited 19 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Natasha Tori Maru]

25 minutes ago, integral said:

I agree men and woman will hold onto there emotions and try to validate a point with it, but emotions seem to linger much longer in woman.

Yep, agree.

I think this could be because women bare children and must caretake as part of base survival process - so they are physiologically wired to pay more attention to their inner state (feeling, emotions, body sensations) and the wellbeing of children (interpreting expression, cries, feeling states). There is some evidence that shows men are socialized out of emotional/feeling attention, but many men experience alexithymia which indicates there is a survival mechanism at play. But overall I think women and men both feel the same range and power of emotions. Men may not have a good a grasp of understanding/sensing and deciphering, and women pay so much attention to feelings/emotions they indeed 'lingering much longer' to quote you. Just within the realm of my experience - men do feel just as much emotion/feeling as women, they simply aren't always as aware of this. But this last part might be up for debate, as I may not have a proper experiential dataset. I am pretty open in admitting while I can see other perspectives and frames - experience is king.

Quote

Did you have mature parents?

Mother - not at all. Father - yes. Unfortunately, my parents split when I was 15 or so. My grandfather had a huge hand in raising me. My mother, after the split, dated a man with BPD. Lots of parallels with your experience! I think I had a really good representation of love and secure attachment in my most formative years. This helped me a lot. But I did attract men who had BPD and attachment issues for a good time. This tells me I did end up with a slightly misinformed understanding of love, as I was driven to be attracted to men with similar unhealed wounds. Since my most catalytic relationships I have healed a lot. In addition - some real securely attached relationships after these facilitated healing and I now consider myself pretty mature and capable. Overall no regrets engaging with BPD men, but it really taught me a lot.

The experience of being with them and a BPD stepdad (he ended up in maximum security jail for 8 years). Really gave me some great skills with people. Being able to read them and understand them/their needs very very quickly. A lot of hypervigilance. And I am familiar with you reporting how you had to 'pretzel yourself' into something to manage your Dads feelings. The danger is we think we are responsible for others feelings of others - this is not so. And you can destroy your own boundaries in this way. Took a lot of healing and understanding to get past this (for myself at least ).

Quote

This is a good insight, Do you recover from emotions super fast? like a few minutes? and do you have healthy strategies to manage them?

I had to learn to fully allow them. It feels like surrender. Then I always have a deep feeling of love from my chest upwelling as the feeling dissolves. Sometimes I have to fully sit, close my eyes, and imagine the feeling playing out IE me punching a wall, or yelling at the person. And the imagination method is so powerful it purges the emotion. 

I used to suppress - which resulted in anger. And when I didn't express anger I ended up depressed. Not good.

Quote

The thing that would kill my sexual interest in a partner is them not seeing any value in me. If they don't see the work and value, I put into their lives then I am so repulsed that I don't want to touch them. I guess this could be framed as being looked down upon? And the opposite is also true the more you value everything I do for you, the more I want to do for you. The more that a woman expresses how they value their man's actions, choice or behaviour the more the man falls in love with them.

I get you completely. 100% 

I always show deep gratitude and appreciation when I am in love with someone. It is core to the feeling for me. Part of my drive is to express how much value, support and enrichment a man shows to me through physical affection and acts of service. Just my particular love language. When a women fails to appreciate her man there is no faster way to emasculate him. And I can understand why this would destroy your sex drive. Men typically engage in their own emotions and expression when a woman shows they truly value his place and role in her life - and this emotional connection feeds into female sexual desire. Very symbiotic. This could just be my own dynamic - but it is always the most healthy I have engaged in.

You sound like you have seen a lot - and not in a bad way - in a way that has made you grow in consciousness and strength,

[zurew]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

but living in a female role and expecting her man to play the classic male role.

I agree with that.

I would even say that they dont just expect it, but they are probably inclined to put pressure on the husband (if it is necessary) to play the masculine role.

Edited 19 hours ago by zurew

[Leo Gura]

But in my expereince American girls are plenty feminine. I never had a lack of feminity there. Maybe the opposite.

Edited 19 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Xonas Pitfall]

I think the issue here is that people often don't realize how "fluid" and "vaguely defined" these categories of femininity and masculinity really are. We all want to think "we KNOW intuitively" when someone is feminine or masculine and point out a "TRULY masculine" or "TRULY feminine" person, but that's just a fantasy or an archetype in our minds. Actual reality will always force you to embody both to truly get things done.

For example, often these "red pill" people will define a feminine woman as submissive, extremely passive, and almost "child-like" with innocence and naivety. They won't value her intelligence or ability to strategize, organize, plan, or lead, since those are seen as more "masculine" traits. But then, at the same time, you'd expect her to be a wonderfully caring and intelligent mother, taking care of your children, organizing the house, being an intelligent homemaker, and in a way, a "leader" of the house (at least in terms of homemaking and child-raising). So which is it?

Or, for example, they might define men as stoic, non-movable, and the penetrative force of masculinity and strength. But in an actual relationship, you need emotional intelligence, the ability to gently guide your woman and children, knowing when to soften up and be vulnerable if you want your relationship to have depth and connection. Or perhaps they'd say you need to "emotionally move" women when you're courting them, by playing with them and giving them a fun experience. These traits are much more akin to a social, extroverted, playful woman who "doesn't think" than to a stone-hearted warrior. To be able to do silly, meaningless, funny things with your family, to play, have fun, joke around, and be expressive, those are highly emotional and social traits, which you'd classify as feminine. Yet, they're often now considered "masculine" if a guy does the same thing and has "rizz/charisma of a player Chad." So again, which is it?

This is kind of what I mean: we all have these "ancient archetypes" of what femininity and masculinity are, but in reality, both of these traits will be played out, because that's what reality requires from you.

It's kind of a meme that when a man is intelligent, he's seen as a 'logical/pragmatic/strategic thinker,' but when a woman does the same, it's considered 'intuitive.'

Edited 19 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Inliytened1]

On 11/16/2025 at 8:04 PM, Leo Gura said:

Sometimes a forum is just a forum.

You guys take this place a bit too seriously.

Remind yourselves that nothing you post ultimately matters.

With that said, don't post crap 

True words.  But also it is more for many of us.  It's an escape or an addiction in some fashion..  but what isn't these days social media.  

Edited 19 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Inliytened1]

11 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

I think the issue here is that people often don't realize how "fluid" and "vaguely defined" these categories of femininity and masculinity really are. We all want to think "we KNOW intuitively" when someone is feminine or masculine and point out a "TRULY masculine" or "TRULY feminine" person, but that's just a fantasy or an archetype in our minds. Actual reality will always force you to embody both to truly get things done.

For example, often these "red pill" people will define a feminine woman as submissive, extremely passive, and almost "child-like" with innocence and naivety. They won't value her intelligence or ability to strategize, organize, plan, or lead, since those are seen as more "masculine" traits. But then, at the same time, you'd expect her to be a wonderfully caring and intelligent mother, taking care of your children, organizing the house, being an intelligent homemaker, and in a way, a "leader" of the house (at least in terms of homemaking and child-raising). So which is it?

Or, for example, they might define men as stoic, non-movable, and the penetrative force of masculinity and strength. But in an actual relationship, you need emotional intelligence, the ability to gently guide your woman and children, knowing when to soften up and be vulnerable if you want your relationship to have depth and connection. Or perhaps they'd say you need to "emotionally move" women when you're courting them, by playing with them and giving them a fun experience. These traits are much more akin to a social, extroverted, playful woman who "doesn't think" than to a stone-hearted warrior. To be able to do silly, meaningless, funny things with your family, to play, have fun, joke around, and be expressive, those are highly emotional and social traits, which you'd classify as feminine. Yet, they're often now considered "masculine" if a guy does the same thing and has "rizz/charisma of a player Chad." So again, which is it?

This is kind of what I mean: we all have these "ancient archetypes" of what femininity and masculinity are, but in reality, both of these traits will be played out, because that's what reality requires from you.

That's right.  Honestly to be a man..to really be a man, is to integrate feminine traits.  It takes sensitivity and communication to be a man - and this is something men are not built with out of the box..(generally).  We have to work on it. That's what it takes to be a man.  And the same goes in reverse.   A woman should incorporate masculine qualities- such as strength and vigor - and dominance.   The problem is how do the integrated men and women coexist? That takes some fine tuning.

Many women just look for the strong insensitive type- while many men want the less dominant female.  Personally I like to be challenged.  It keeps the boredom level down 😀

 

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Emerald]

5 hours ago, questionreality said:

With all due respect, it seems like you are using a very personal definition of “feminine” that isn’t grounded in anthropology, psychology, or culture. It looks like your own symbolic framework, or system, which is fine, but it’s not a universal definition of femininity.

Also, framing men’s understanding of femininity as primarily sexual is actually a stereotype. Men learn femininity first from their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, teachers, colleagues, etc. These are relationships where sexuality plays zero role. Those relationships shape a man’s concept of femininity far more deeply than attraction does imo.

And many women themselves would agree that women in certain cultures (like Eastern Europe) express femininity more visibly.

My original point was an empirical one. There are observable patterns of behavior, aesthetics, speech, social norms, etc.

But you reframed it entirely into a model of “deep feminine vs springtime feminine,” and then dismissed those concrete cultural differences as “patriarchy shaped fake femininity.”

I base my perspective on the deep Feminine from first-hand experiences of the Feminine energy in my medicine journeys... and based on what I've learned in depth psychology around the Feminine principle.

So, it's not as based in culture, as cultural conceptions of man-like-ness and woman-like-ness often deviate from the deeper understandings of these two polar subtle energies. 

So, when I'm speaking about Masculinity and Femininity... I'm not speaking about how a particular culture understands man-like-ness and woman-like-ness. I'm speaking about archetypes and subtle energies... that supersede yet inform human gender.

But a woman can appear very visibly Feminine by adorning cultural signifiers of Femininity... but she can still be very disconnected from the deep Feminine. She can even look very Feminine and be very Masculine in her coping strategies. 

So, appearance cannot tell you how connected or disconnected a woman is to the Feminine.

Though, men may use that as a litmus test for who they're interested in sleeping with... it just doesn't have a lot of bearing on how connected a woman is to the deep Feminine.

You cannot get there by wearing the costumes of cultural Femininity.... or following the rules of cultural Femininity. You can only get there by descending into the depths and being dismembered, like the Goddess Inanna. 

But the entire point of patriarchy is to polarize into the Masculine and to control, shame, and excise the Feminine away from society in every way that's possible... and to bury it as deeply as possible.

Patriarchy is an adaptation specifically for the purpose of defeating the Feminine... as the Feminine is nature itself. So, Mother Nature comes in with her disease, her pestilence, her droughts, her floods, her hurricanes, her barrenness, etc.

Then, humanity polarizes into the Masculine to invent more and more Masculine technology and Masculine survival strategies to try to balance the powerful Feminine forces of nature with the (prior to the industrial revolution) less powerful Masculine force of human innovation.

So, the Feminine has been maligned because of this millennia's-long battle with Mother Nature. And the microcosmic expression of that in society is for there to be tons of shame associated with the Feminine and being a woman... and to control women to  tame and strip women of the Feminine sovereign power by controlling them and their bodies.

And it's to make sure that the woman only expresses soft and gentile Springtime Femininity... but never winter, floods, hurricanes, droughts, or becomes ugly like the Death Mother (Fall and Winter Femininity)  is want to do.

The Feminine is very powerful... and there's much to fear in it.

But since the Industrial Revolution, the Masculine polarization in our society has developed great technology and we have grown in power such that it is stronger than the Feminine power of nature... with our pollution, deforestation, exploitation, etc. And it is why we have things like climate change and mass extinctions.

Before, when patriarchy first arose we were like a little boy having to fight a very cruel adult woman. But then, the Industrial Revolution precipitated a puberty in the Masculine-polarized humanity.

So, now our society is like a very strong adult man beating up and exploiting a woman. That is our current relationship with the Feminine.

So naturally, what happens as soon as the industrial revolution takes holds is that patriarchy starts to go through a catabolic phase... and Stage Green movements like Feminism and ecological movements arise to facilitate that catabolic phase. 

And through Feminism, it awakens the Masculine in women first, because you need the Masculine for having effectiveness to achieve things. And now, we have women starting to re-explore their relationship to the Divine Feminine with ideas like soft-life... which is a re-exploring the Feminine, the dark and light Feminine.

And while it's not yet as deep as it can go (like in my Ayahuasca journeys), it's a good start to hooking up the Feminine core to the Masculine effectiveness in women. And that's how things can rebalance themselves between human society and Mother Nature.

Before, the most effective thing was the patriarchal ethos, which is "Man against nature."

But with the re-integration of the Feminine in women that comes after the integration of the Masculine in women, it opens up new avenues for there to be an integration of the Feminine within society and within our social institutions.

So, women in traditional cultures have to repress their Masculine almost completely and the Feminine in every way but appearance and motherhood. And that's because patriarchal culture is about trying to control the powerful Feminine forces of nature... including the Feminine forces of nature in human women.

In Stage Orange "girl boss" cultures, women get to reintegrate their Masculine power... after having almost all of their power stripped from them for thousands and thousands of years, since the beginning of agriculture.

Then, that sets women up to have the freedom and Masculine power to "dig the deep Feminine out from where it's been buried."

Most women (including myself) look to old symbols of traditional Femininity first to try to reconnect with the repressed Feminine. But then, that is recognized as just an image... and there are deeper things. 

In my first few years of being on a Feminine integration journey, I tried to fit myself into the box of cultural and traditional Femininity. And it was very confining and disempowering and it brought me into connection with tons of individual and collective wounds around having potentials squelched and being disempowered.

So, after the first few years, I was able to find deeper paradigms for integrating what I experienced in my first awakening to the deep Feminine when I was 20. And I found it in Jungian perspectives.

That has been the journey I've been on since I was initiated into it 16 years ago. And now, my conception of the Feminine has expanded to where I see the Feminine as my source of power... instead of as a source of constraint as it is within traditional conceptions of the Feminine which seeks to male-wash it and make it bright and sunny and maidenly.

And Springtime Femininity is deeply worshipped in our society. We truly are doing unconscious Goddess worship all the time... and we try to connect to the Feminine only through the Springtime Feminine image. So, we become obsessed with it.

But it's the starvation for the Goddess in all its many cycles and facets... but then stripping those other facets for an archetypal image of the innocuous Feminine that doesn't get any more serious than a sunny day on a stroll through the park.

Edited 15 hours ago by Emerald

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Half the malformed expressions of toxic femininity that manifest in the patriarchal structure of society are a direct result of it.

And men are beginning to feel the negative effects of that patriarchy also.

It all stems from imbalance.

I do not state the above with any blame or judgement toward the men of today - many of our current generation of men and below are suffering as a result of this old structure.

As the general awareness of society is raised we all (masculine & feminine polarity both) feel the negativity of previous structure.

It was necessary to progress to this point. And that is all.

[Emerald]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It makes sense that women in underdeveloped nations are more stereotypically feminine since that's the only role afforded to them by collective survival conditions. The less developed the more women are playing the role of baby machine.

Gender has a large performative aspect. You are feminine just by virtue of having 5 babies and not working a 9-5 office job.

Lower development has stronger gender roles as survival is harder and requires more specialization.

Having 10 babies is a full time career, not a weekend hobby like in the West.

The local cultures also reflect these norms, further deepening them.

Yes, in traditional cultures women don't get a choice to connect to their Masculine side.

Then logically, as soon as women do get the freedom to choose, they go, "Fuck that prison!" And they fight tooth and nail to develop their Masculine sides against the nay-saying culture.

And then, once the Masculine side is integrated and the romanticization and superior-ization of the Masculine principle goes away, the Feminine can be re-explored. 

So, it's like (and this is based on my own process... but I see other women at various phases in this as well)

Step 1 - Women have all Masculine and Feminine power stripped from them in traditional culture... whilst also being saddled with the Feminine burden and vulnerability. Life is hard as nails.

Step 2 - Women's lib. Women are given access to the Masculine side in a society that still only values the Masculine side. And women develop their Masculine potentials and strengths. Women associate Masculinity with freedom and power... and associate the Feminine with enslavement and powerlessness. This further informs polarizations into the Masculine and repressions of the Feminine... and all associations with the Feminine are "thrown in the fire". But important work is done with education and developing efficacy... and having purpose beyond just child-birthing.

Step 3 - The supremacy of Masculinity itself is questioned... and the inferiority of Femininity is also questioned. There comes to be a realization that this is also a patriarchal viewpoint despite it existing within 2nd Wave Feminism.

Step 4 - Women explore their Femininity through the surface-level lens of the aesthetics and modern conceptualization of the old patriarchal version of the traditional woman (though this vision is a hyper-idealized fantasy and never existed in real life)... but do not find what they are looking for. They may even find the negative of traditional Femininity that women so vehemently ran away from during women's lib. And if they go deep enough to hit some triggers, they encounter all the collective wounds and heaviness around that narrow archetype of Femininity... like a graveyard of unrealized potentials and ripped away sovereignty plus the pain of rape, domestic violence, and disempowerment.

Step 5 - There is either a regression into the comforts and Masculine shielding of Step 2 where it feels safer to be like (men and women are the exact same and these are social constructs... close the book)... or with bravery the journey into the Feminine wounding begins. And there is a deep individual exploration of collective Feminine wounds... but this can also be helpful to connect with other women about. As you work through the wounding, your sense of self-worth on the level of being rises as you come to recognize the strengths of the Feminine. You learn along the way what the Feminine is really like, outside of patriarchal conceptions of it. 

Step 6 - Eventually, there are breakthroughs to the deeper Feminine power as deep-seated psychological and emotional dynamics are explored and resolved. You come out the other end of the Leviathan that originally swallowed you up.. more whole than before. You find that you've always been irrevocably and unconditionally sovereign and completely home in the universe... like Dorothy does simply by clicking her heels at the end of the Wizard of Oz.

---

My personal journey began on Step 2. And when I was 19, I had a dream that I was seduced by a beautiful woman... representing the only thing that I valued about Femininity. And the beautiful woman asked me, "Are you ready?"

In a stupor, I choked out the word "Yes."

She looked down at me from above, quickly exhaled, and paused.

Then, she violently inhaled air into her lungs an instantaneously transformed into an ancient skeletal hag with a gaping black hole for a mouth with lips like thin torn paper, no eyes in her eye sockets, her skin was paper thin on there bones to where I could see her skeleton through her gray skin.... and she was bald in some places, her skull was showing in others, and her wiry gray hair was poking out of her hair sporadically. 

And I knew in the dream that she was angry at me for rejecting the Feminine in all ways except physical appearance, which is why she first presented herself as a very sexy woman. I was so enamored with her appearance, so she used it as bait to lure me.

And her mouth gaped bigger and bigger and bigger until it become the context all around me. And I was tumbling end over end in a black empty void for a time.. until I was teleported to my childhood kitten where I started rummaging through in the cupboards.

After that dream, everything started happening. And I experienced my first glimpse of the deep Feminine at age 20 in a recreational medicine journey... and saw it for what it really is. And I knew that I must integrate what it really is.

Then, it's just been a lot of digging into old wounds. I was really in touch with the pain part of that in my 20s... partially for fear of leaving the visual of the narrow Feminine archetype but partially for being on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted attention from a desire to exploit. And I was still burning through a lot of my internalized misogyny.

Then, at age 30, I had my first Ayahuasca journey since I was 20. And I experienced ego death in response to the intention of asking, "Should I seek enlightenment or should I seek to anchor more deeply into the perspective of Emerald?"

And it brought me all the way into the perspective of the Masculine to reconnect with God to which Emerald whole and part of... and I got a really clear answer that I was choosing the Feminine path for this life which is about anchoring deeply into the embodiment of my humanity in the Earthly matrix.

(Note: In many journeys, I experience a kind of Shiva and Shakti-like dynamic between the Feminine finite Emerald and the Masculine infinite God... and it operates like a supportive partner to me.)

Then, as Emerald and the entire reality that she existed within was reborn in the journey... there was a woman who was probably in her 40s assisting people and help those who ask.

And I was struggling hardcore. Prior to my ego death, I rolled over onto the floor and my body fragmented into about 10 pieces. It was my toughest medicine journey experience by a long-shot.

Then, this woman came to me and held my hand. And her face kept oscillating back and forth between being a 20 year old woman and a 60 year old women. And she held my hand and said, "You made it through."

And I knew in the journey that the hag that swallowed me in my dream at age 19 was speaking to me again at age 30 using this more banal human conversation as a conduit where it could send the same exact message.

Only this hag from my dream was far more integrated. She was no longer a perfect-looking femme fatale beauty and a terrifying underworldly hag. She was just a regular 20 year old woman and a regular 60 year old woman, making herself known in the face of a 40 year old woman. 

And holding my hand, she was my midwife helping me give birth to myself... and to birth a new world into existence, as my reality totally disintegrated in the ego death... and was remade from scratch an eternity later when I re-discovered the reason why Emerald and her reality was invented in the first place. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Emerald

[Inliytened1]

44 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Yes, in traditional cultures women don't get a choice to connect to their Masculine side.

Then logically, as soon as women do get the freedom to choose, they go, "Fuck that prison!" And they fight tooth and nail to develop their Masculine sides against the nay-saying culture.

And then, once the Masculine side is integrated and the romanticization and superior-ization of the Masculine principle goes away, the Feminine can be re-explored. 

So, it's like (and this is based on my own process... but I see other women at various phases in this as well)

Step 1 - Women have all Masculine and Feminine power stripped from them in traditional culture... whilst also being saddled with the Feminine burden and vulnerability. Life is hard as nails.

Step 2 - Women's lib. Women are given access to the Masculine side in a society that still only values the Masculine side. And women develop their Masculine potentials and strengths. Women associate Masculinity with freedom and power... and associate the Feminine with enslavement and powerlessness. This further informs polarizations into the Masculine and repressions of the Feminine... and all associations with the Feminine are "thrown in the fire". But important work is done with education and developing efficacy... and having purpose beyond just child-birthing.

Step 3 - The supremacy of Masculinity itself is questioned... and the inferiority of Femininity is also questioned. There comes to be a realization that this is also a patriarchal viewpoint despite it existing within 2nd Wave Feminism.

Step 4 - Women explore their Femininity through the surface-level lens of the aesthetics and modern conceptualization of the old patriarchal version of the traditional woman (though this vision is a hyper-idealized fantasy and never existed in real life)... but do not find what they are looking for. They may even find the negative of traditional Femininity that women so vehemently ran away from during women's lib. And if they go deep enough to hit some triggers, they encounter all the collective wounds and heaviness around that narrow archetype of Femininity... like a graveyard of unrealized potentials and ripped away sovereignty plus the pain of rape, domestic violence, and disempowerment.

Step 5 - There is either a regression into the comforts and Masculine shielding of Step 2 where it feels safer to be like (men and women are the exact same and these are social constructs... close the book)... or with bravery the journey into the Feminine wounding begins. And there is a deep individual exploration of collective Feminine wounds... but this can also be helpful to connect with other women about. As you work through the wounding, your sense of self-worth on the level of being rises as you come to recognize the strengths of the Feminine. You learn along the way what the Feminine is really like, outside of patriarchal conceptions of it. 

Step 6 - Eventually, there are breakthroughs to the deeper Feminine power as deep-seated psychological and emotional dynamics are explored and resolved. You come out the other end of the Leviathan that originally swallowed you up.. more whole than before. You find that you've always been irrevocably and unconditionally sovereign and completely home in the universe... like Dorothy does simply by clicking her heels at the end of the Wizard of Oz.

---

My personal journey began on Step 2. And when I was 19, I had a dream that I was seduced by a beautiful woman... representing the only thing that I valued about Femininity. And the beautiful woman asked me, "Are you ready?"

In a stupor, I choked out the word "Yes."

She looked down at me from above, quickly exhaled, and paused.

Then, she violently inhaled air into her lungs an instantaneously transformed into an ancient skeletal hag with a gaping black hole for a mouth with lips like thin torn paper, no eyes in her eye sockets, her skin was paper thin on there bones to where I could see her skeleton through her gray skin.... and she was bald in some places, her skull was showing in others, and her wiry gray hair was poking out of her hair sporadically. 

And I knew in the dream that she was angry at me for rejecting the Feminine in all ways except physical appearance, which is why she first presented herself as a very sexy woman. I was so enamored with her appearance, so she used it as bait to lure me.

And her mouth gaped bigger and bigger and bigger until it become the context all around me. And I was tumbling end over end in a black empty void for a time.. until I was teleported to my childhood kitten where I started rummaging through in the cupboards.

After that dream, everything started happening. And I experienced my first glimpse of the deep Feminine at age 20 in a recreational medicine journey... and saw it for what it really is. And I knew that I must integrate what it really is.

Then, it's just been a lot of digging into old wounds. I was really in touch with the pain part of that in my 20s... partially for fear of leaving the visual of the narrow Feminine archetype but partially for being on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted attention from a desire to exploit. And I was still burning through a lot of my internalized misogyny.

Then, at age 30, I had my first Ayahuasca journey since I was 20. And I experienced ego death in response to the intention of asking, "Should I seek enlightenment or should I seek to anchor more deeply into the perspective of Emerald?"

And it brought me all the way into the perspective of the Masculine to reconnect with God to which Emerald whole and part of... and I got a really clear answer that I was choosing the Feminine path for this life which is about anchoring deeply into the embodiment of my humanity in the Earthly matrix.

(Note: In many journeys, I experience a kind of Shiva and Shakti-like dynamic between the Feminine finite Emerald and the Masculine infinite God... and it operates like a supportive partner to me.)

Then, as Emerald and the entire reality that she existed within was reborn in the journey... there was a woman who was probably in her 40s assisting people and help those who ask.

And I was struggling hardcore. Prior to my ego death, I rolled over onto the floor and my body fragmented into about 10 pieces. It was my toughest medicine journey experience by a long-shot.

Then, this woman came to me and held my hand. And her face kept oscillating back and forth between being a 20 year old woman and a 60 year old women. And she held my hand and said, "You made it through."

And I knew in the journey that the hag that swallowed me in my dream at age 19 was speaking to me again at age 30 using this more banal human conversation as a conduit where it could send the same exact message.

Only this hag from my dream was far more integrated. She was no longer a perfect-looking femme fatale beauty and a terrifying underworldly hag. She was just a regular 20 year old woman and a regular 60 year old woman, making herself known in the face of a 40 year old woman. 

And holding my hand, she was my midwife helping me give birth to myself... and to birth a new world into existence, as my reality totally disintegrated in the ego death... and was remade from scratch an eternity later when I re-discovered the reason why Emerald and her reality was invented in the first place. 

Why do you say step 1 strips a woman from their femininity?  

I would also say - do you honestly believe the average woman would go through these phases?  Or would most of them just prefer to not even explore the masculine side?

I also noticed you said God was masculine.  But God is just pure Infinity there isn't any masculine or feminine qualities because it is nothing.   But I do intuit that one must have some integration with both the masculine and feminine for any chance of enlightenment. 

Edited 13 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Emerald]

36 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Why do you say step 1 strips a woman from their femininity?  

I would also say - do you honestly believe the average woman would go through these phases?  Or would most of them just prefer to not even explore the masculine side?

I also noticed you said God was masculine.  But God is just pure Infinity there isn't any masculine or feminine qualities because it is nothing.   But I do intuit that one must have some integration with both the masculine and feminine for any chance of enlightenment. 

- Step 1 strips women of their Femininity because the traditional patriarchal culture is about polarization into the Masculine to the exclusion of the Feminine. This is how people fought against and sought balance with the powerful forces of Mother Nature.

There is no space for the Feminine in a patriarchal society because of its un-insulated relationship with nature, so it's pared down purely to motherhood and anchored only to the domestic realm. Women are usually kept out of public life (like walking around in public) in these kinds of societies.

- The average woman is probably in the phase where there's a resistance to the Feminine and polarization into the Masculine. But many 3rd Wave Feminists are actively exploring this polarization into the Masculine and away from Femininity from a Feminist perspective. And there are many schools of thought within 3rd Wave Feminism that are a lot more accepting of Femininity than what was in 2nd Wave Feminism. There are also plenty of women trying to navigate their relationship with the Feminine through the soft life subculture and more idealized aesthetics around the idea of traditional Femininity. So, there's work being done on this. But most women in places like America are probably still in the polarization into Masculinity. (aka Stage Orange)

- I am not aiming for enlightenment, as my spiritual path is about embodiment within duality. I talked about it a little bit in my reply to Leo. And from that more expansive but still dualistic perspective, I have experienced in medicine journeys as myself as both God and Emerald at once... and this dynamic operates very similarly to Hinduism's Shiva and Shakti.

And there has been a very clear Masculine and Feminine dynamic between my "small Emerald self" and God (which is also self and the other side of my face (and yours)). 

[Inliytened1]

27 minutes ago, Emerald said:

- Step 1 strips women of their Femininity because the traditional patriarchal culture is about polarization into the Masculine to the exclusion of the Feminine. This is how people fought against and sought balance with the powerful forces of Mother Nature.

There is no space for the Feminine in a patriarchal society because of its un-insulated relationship with nature, so it's pared down purely to motherhood and anchored only to the domestic realm. Women are usually kept out of public life (like walking around in public) in these kinds of societies.

-

 

 

But a male dominant society doesn't strip a woman from being a woman.  It actually emphasizes it which is the problem. 

[Carl-Richard]

15 hours ago, questionreality said:

With all due respect, it seems like you are using a very personal definition of “feminine” that isn’t grounded in anthropology, psychology, or culture. It looks like your own symbolic framework, or system, which is fine, but it’s not a universal definition of femininity.

Nightwalks as opposed to daywalks are more feminine, treehugging is feminine, feeling the grass at your feet is feminine. And those are things that many men are usually like "ugh, that's girly". It's a part of feminity they are usually somewhat repulsed by and less able to integrate.

My father is actually someone who embodies true femininity to a great extent. He actually connects with you emotionally when speaking to you, he has a grounded and mindful energy, he is explicitly interested in techniques that promote mindfulness, but he doesn't call himself "spiritual", he doesn't really care for specific religious traditions or practices, he doesn't seem to have grand ambitions in that domain.

Edited 5 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[questionreality]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It makes sense that women in underdeveloped nations are more stereotypically feminine since that's the only role afforded to them by collective survival conditions. The less developed the more women are playing the role of baby machine.

Gender has a large performative aspect. You are feminine just by virtue of having 5 babies and not working a 9-5 office job.

Lower development has stronger gender roles as survival is harder and requires more specialization.

Having 10 babies is a full time career, not a weekend hobby like in the West.

The local cultures also reflect these norms, further deepening them.

That's a good point, except that now a days in Eastern European countries they are no longer having many babies. Birthrates have been declining, but the women there on average are still way more feminine than in western countries.

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But in my expereince American girls are plenty feminine. I never had a lack of feminity there. Maybe the opposite.

You would be surprised at the difference once you travel to such places and directly experience it for yourself. That of course requires living there for sometime, which would be eye opening to say the least. 

[questionreality]

10 hours ago, Emerald said:

I base my perspective on the deep Feminine from first-hand experiences of the Feminine energy in my medicine journeys... and based on what I've learned in depth psychology around the Feminine principle.

So, it's not as based in culture, as cultural conceptions of man-like-ness and woman-like-ness often deviate from the deeper understandings of these two polar subtle energies. 

So, when I'm speaking about Masculinity and Femininity... I'm not speaking about how a particular culture understands man-like-ness and woman-like-ness. I'm speaking about archetypes and subtle energies... that supersede yet inform human gender.

But a woman can appear very visibly Feminine by adorning cultural signifiers of Femininity... but she can still be very disconnected from the deep Feminine. She can even look very Feminine and be very Masculine in her coping strategies. 

So, appearance cannot tell you how connected or disconnected a woman is to the Feminine.

Though, men may use that as a litmus test for who they're interested in sleeping with... it just doesn't have a lot of bearing on how connected a woman is to the deep Feminine.

You cannot get there by wearing the costumes of cultural Femininity.... or following the rules of cultural Femininity. You can only get there by descending into the depths and being dismembered, like the Goddess Inanna. 

But the entire point of patriarchy is to polarize into the Masculine and to control, shame, and excise the Feminine away from society in every way that's possible... and to bury it as deeply as possible.

Patriarchy is an adaptation specifically for the purpose of defeating the Feminine... as the Feminine is nature itself. So, Mother Nature comes in with her disease, her pestilence, her droughts, her floods, her hurricanes, her barrenness, etc.

Then, humanity polarizes into the Masculine to invent more and more Masculine technology and Masculine survival strategies to try to balance the powerful Feminine forces of nature with the (prior to the industrial revolution) less powerful Masculine force of human innovation.

So, the Feminine has been maligned because of this millennia's-long battle with Mother Nature. And the microcosmic expression of that in society is for there to be tons of shame associated with the Feminine and being a woman... and to control women to  tame and strip women of the Feminine sovereign power by controlling them and their bodies.

And it's to make sure that the woman only expresses soft and gentile Springtime Femininity... but never winter, floods, hurricanes, droughts, or becomes ugly like the Death Mother (Fall and Winter Femininity)  is want to do.

The Feminine is very powerful... and there's much to fear in it.

But since the Industrial Revolution, the Masculine polarization in our society has developed great technology and we have grown in power such that it is stronger than the Feminine power of nature... with our pollution, deforestation, exploitation, etc. And it is why we have things like climate change and mass extinctions.

Before, when patriarchy first arose we were like a little boy having to fight a very cruel adult woman. But then, the Industrial Revolution precipitated a puberty in the Masculine-polarized humanity.

So, now our society is like a very strong adult man beating up and exploiting a woman. That is our current relationship with the Feminine.

So naturally, what happens as soon as the industrial revolution takes holds is that patriarchy starts to go through a catabolic phase... and Stage Green movements like Feminism and ecological movements arise to facilitate that catabolic phase. 

And through Feminism, it awakens the Masculine in women first, because you need the Masculine for having effectiveness to achieve things. And now, we have women starting to re-explore their relationship to the Divine Feminine with ideas like soft-life... which is a re-exploring the Feminine, the dark and light Feminine.

And while it's not yet as deep as it can go (like in my Ayahuasca journeys), it's a good start to hooking up the Feminine core to the Masculine effectiveness in women. And that's how things can rebalance themselves between human society and Mother Nature.

Before, the most effective thing was the patriarchal ethos, which is "Man against nature."

But with the re-integration of the Feminine in women that comes after the integration of the Masculine in women, it opens up new avenues for there to be an integration of the Feminine within society and within our social institutions.

So, women in traditional cultures have to repress their Masculine almost completely and the Feminine in every way but appearance and motherhood. And that's because patriarchal culture is about trying to control the powerful Feminine forces of nature... including the Feminine forces of nature in human women.

In Stage Orange "girl boss" cultures, women get to reintegrate their Masculine power... after having almost all of their power stripped from them for thousands and thousands of years, since the beginning of agriculture.

Then, that sets women up to have the freedom and Masculine power to "dig the deep Feminine out from where it's been buried."

Most women (including myself) look to old symbols of traditional Femininity first to try to reconnect with the repressed Feminine. But then, that is recognized as just an image... and there are deeper things. 

In my first few years of being on a Feminine integration journey, I tried to fit myself into the box of cultural and traditional Femininity. And it was very confining and disempowering and it brought me into connection with tons of individual and collective wounds around having potentials squelched and being disempowered.

So, after the first few years, I was able to find deeper paradigms for integrating what I experienced in my first awakening to the deep Feminine when I was 20. And I found it in Jungian perspectives.

That has been the journey I've been on since I was initiated into it 16 years ago. And now, my conception of the Feminine has expanded to where I see the Feminine as my source of power... instead of as a source of constraint as it is within traditional conceptions of the Feminine which seeks to male-wash it and make it bright and sunny and maidenly.

And Springtime Femininity is deeply worshipped in our society. We truly are doing unconscious Goddess worship all the time... and we try to connect to the Feminine only through the Springtime Feminine image. So, we become obsessed with it.

But it's the starvation for the Goddess in all its many cycles and facets... but then stripping those other facets for an archetypal image of the innocuous Feminine that doesn't get any more serious than a sunny day on a stroll through the park.

That's not addressing my point at all though. You’ve shifted completely into your own mythological system where “femininity” is a cosmic force you experienced on psychedelics. That’s fine as a personal new age belief, but it has nothing to do with real world cultural or psychological femininity.

Everything you've described such as mother nature battles, patriarchy as a war against hurricanes, ayahuasca revelations, stage green catabolic cycles, etc - is your symbolic world. These are subjective experiences, not objective data. Thus they can not be universal explanation for gender expression.

You are basically treating your personal spiritual experiences as if they’re objective truths that override observable cultural patterns.

You can’t just redefine femininity as a mystical force, then dismiss real world differences between women in various societies as “patriarchy costumes” because it doesn’t fit your cosmology

Edited 5 hours ago by questionreality

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, questionreality said:

That's not addressing my point at all though. You’ve shifted completely into your own mythological system where “femininity” is a cosmic force you experienced on psychedelics. That’s fine as a personal new age belief, but it has nothing to do with real world cultural or psychological femininity.

What is femininity then?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

9 minutes ago, questionreality said:

That's not addressing my point at all though. You’ve shifted completely into your own mythological system where “femininity” is a cosmic force you experienced on psychedelics. That’s fine as a personal new age belief, but it has nothing to do with real world cultural or psychological femininity.

Yup, welcome to the world of magical thinking, in which you can make up all sorts of ridicilous BS and claim it as true. And when someone dares to opose you, you can just accuse them of being close minded and not having experienced the exact same thing you have experienced. I could elaborate on that train of thought further.... but I'd be at a serious risk of being insta banned and we all know why😂

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

Yup, welcome to the world of magical thinking, in which you can make up all sorts of ridicilous BS and claim it as true. And when someone dares to opose you, you can just accuse them of being close minded and not having experienced the exact same thing you have experienced. I could elaborate on that train of thought further.... but I'd be at a serious risk of being insta banned and we all know why😂

Idk about you but when I first heard Emerald's descriptions of femininity vs masculinity it all made sense to me. It's metaphysical. It really boils down to content vs structure (there is a great paper called "Revisiting Marr's Three Levels" which you should read the introduction of). Semantics vs syntax, energy vs form, Shakti vs Shiva, the Holy Spirit vs the Logos. Some "magical thinking" is required there, yes. You can't just go by conformity all the time

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[questionreality]

58 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What is femininity then?

According to psychology femininity is defined as a set of gender typed traits, behaviors and preferences that tend to be statistically more common in women, but which both sexes can possess. 

Models such as BSRI, big five personality traits, and evolutionary psychology are used for this.

And according to anthropology, it's what culture teaches a woman to be. Socially and culturally defined behaviors, norms, roles, and aesthetics associated with women.

Not one empirical discipline defines femininity the way that she did, that's what I am saying.