Another seven whirlwind days have passed, so it’s time stop and look around a bit and reflect on what’s been lighting me up this week.
In the interest of full disclosure, a lot of what was drying this exercise at the start of the year was a renewed energy in terms of spiritual and theological reading. While I’ve got a couple really wonderful books on the go in that realm, I have to admit that I’ve lost that momentum from earlier in the year. One thing that has stood out this week is the sudden and alarming complete separation of ideas of masculinity and femininity in ‘conservative’ circles. I put conservative in quotes there because this really is a recent development that is not in any way conserving anything from the Western tradition. All major wisdom traditions that have contributed to Western culture acknowledge that we all have both the energies we call ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ within us and the goal of life is to unify these archetypes as much as possible, to grow in their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. I was reminded of this this week was this wonderful passage from the late, great, Eastern Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément (d.2005). Using the meanings traditionally ascribed in the West to the gendered archetypes, he wrote:
In a reciprocal relationship there has to be on the one side acceptance and yielding, symbolizing the feminine, and on the other energy and force, the masculine. I say symbolizing, first because every person, man or woman, actually possesses both at once, one or the other being dominant. Also because sexuality is not merely the legitimate expression of our whole Eros – which can be much more fully expressed in service and friendship, artistic creativity or spiritual contemplation – but is itself symbolic. (On Human Being, 13)
Here we have once again, from someone writing from within the depths of the West, this insistence that we don’t have a sharp division between the masculine and feminine in the world, but two energies within us that we are all called to cultivate in reciprocal relationship internally.
In other areas of life, my renewed eating and exercising habits are still going really well and I’m continuing to see benefits in health, energy, and reduction in food waste, which is really exciting!
The highlights of my reading week included two collections of stories: One collecting traditional fairy tales from around the world about what we’d call queer / LGBTQ2S+ experiences, Tales fromTales From Beyond the Rainbow, by Pete Jordi Wood; and one by one of my favourite Indigenous authors, Amanda Peters (Waiting for the Long Night Moon). In terms of novels, I really enjoyed John Kenney’s recent release, I See You’ve Called in Dead, and Andy Weir’s modern sci-fi classic The Martian.
May has continued to underwhelm me with its new musical releases, but yesterday Italian pop star Damiano David released his new album, FUNNY little FEARS and I’m really enjoying that.
These are a few of the things that have been keeping me going and brightening up my way this week. So what’s lighting you up?
Matthew Root 