I have been asked to contemplate the concept of “The Sacred Masculine” and the question “How does the title ‘Calling the Sacred Masculine’ relate to your work with the Teachings now?” – and to share what I have seen in the Beacon Fires.

I feel honored to have been asked. To me, the concept of the Sacred Feminine / Sacred Masculine has quite a high priority in my awareness, and it has been one of the main topics on my list of questions to Life for a number of years now. So this challenge being offered to me is in perfect timing to articulate some of the questions, thoughts, and images, that I have been playing with over time.

Who am I?
I am a 69-year-old man from Denmark, born into a family of Mom, Dad and two elder sisters. Mom was the one “wearing the pants” as we say in Danish, Dad was a gentle, loving man, busy and absent… and the one providing the funds for a stable though not abundant family economy. Everything needed was there, and not so much more than that. Mom was at home holding the container for the family and being the one in charge of daily life. So I grew up in a mainly “feminine” environment, with mom and sisters as the main role models.

Thus – from early on I was taught about life mainly from female teachers. And a part of me knew at a very early state, that a lot of what I was taught was not in alignment with my own perception, and a lot of what I felt I needed to learn about was not taught, because it was seen as immoral or inappropriate or heretic. This told me early on, that I needed to figure out many things by myself – especially the “things” related to being a human-like energy, sexuality, spirituality, philosophy, purpose and more.

So I “chose” to set out on a path of my own to explore life in its many aspects, and found myself many times in alien territory, not understanding the other, not being understood, and not knowing which direction was the right one for me to take.

After many years and many challenges and detours, I finally met the teachings of the Delicate Lodge and realized that I had found what I had been searching for all the time. This amazing bundle of wisdom teachings gifted me with exactly what I needed at the time – a “Roadmap to Life” – a “map” which so far has shown me everything I needed to see in order to find my way out of the maze and onto the path, that eventually will take me “home”.

When asked to write about “Calling the Sacred Masculine” – the first thought that emerged was: “How do you define masculine and feminine?”. What do the words actually mean?

We live in a culture that puts a lot of value into words. Words carry strong energy and strong value. And many words carry different energy and meaning depending on the values and beliefs of those who speak them. As we grow up we learn to discern what words mean. As children however, we take in all of what we perceive and make it our truth, and carry that with us in life without questioning. Later we might experience that we actually are not in agreement with our own truth, and realize that it actually doesn’t belong to us after all. That will be the time when we need to re-define our truth by looking deeply into who we really are as humans.

In relation to the words masculine and feminine, I learned early in my life that they carry some quite specific qualities defined by our culture. First of all I perceived, that “masculine” was something related to men/boys, and “feminine” was related to women/girls. You could almost put an equal sign between the words and the gender – like masculine = man and feminine = woman. So on one level it was almost unthinkable that a man could be feminine and a woman could be masculine – even partly. Next – very clear values were applied to the words. Masculine meant strong, brave, courageous, big muscles, dominant etc. while feminine meant delicate, quiet, timid, subservant, pretty etc.

As a boy, I grew up in an environment where the expectations were – from almost everybody – to be “a man” = masculine. At least that was what it felt like. To me that was a pretty tough job to take on, because I did not at all feel “equipped” to be able to live up to all those expectations. I was not strong, not brave, not courageous, I could not fight or play soccer and all that… Thus I was not seen as “masculine”, which made me a target for bully’s. Likewise I do remember seeing girls I knew being in the same situation among the girls circles, not able to live up to the so called feminine standards. They too became targets to bully’s, both female and male.

Becoming older I learned to dance with the challenge and found my own way of being me in life. I found myself not able (and not wanting) to live up to the social standards. But I still participated in community life while doing my best to be true to myself. This “life dynamic” created a yearning in me to find a higher meaning that again sent me off on a quest for figuring out who I really am and what life is about.

So I became a seeker. And life became an exploration of identity, purpose, opportunities and potentials that slowly led me to the Earth Wisdom Teachings.

Studying the old wisdom teachings of the Delicate Lodge seems to be an ongoing process of unveiling what is already there, right in front of and around me, inside and outside of me as well as in all other life forms I meet. And what is revealed shows up beautifully organized and visualized in the structure of the circle. It has been and still is an amazing experience to unfold the ancient understanding of the Universe and how it works, and to begin to see that we all are co-creating the reality we live in.

What has all this to do with ‘Calling the sacred Masculine’?
I have used quite a big part of my life so far on questioning myself as a man – based on the understanding I was taught early in my life as well as lack of inspiring guidance from male role models. In the later years, I have learned through the Medicine Teachings the importance of finding my inner balance. A big part of that journey has been to find clarity about who and what I am and why I am here in this life. Along the way, I have seen that who and what I am is much influenced by how my inner masculine and feminine energies collaborate in shaping my identity and influencing how I walk as a human through my life.

Growing up in a mainly “feminine” environment – that actually was unbalanced feminine – had a huge influence on how I built my identity as a boy. Later when stepping into manhood, I met many challenges, because I basically didn’t know how to do and to be as a man. In my experience, society did not offer a sustainable model for how to build a male identity, so I had to figure it out myself. Fortunately I found many tools and concepts in the Medicine Teachings, which have given me what I need to restructure my identity, to appreciate myself on all levels, and to realize that my experiences as a child have forced me to build a strong feminine side that nowadays is a huge asset in guiding the way I express my masculine energy.

Summing up I dare say, that for me ‘Calling the Sacred Masculine’ is all about listening to what I yearn for and to give that yearning space to grow strong and become an intention. In actualizing the intention it is important to allow my inner feminine to guide my inner masculine by informing me what is life growing and what is not. Based on that I can create my reality in alignment with the Laws of Creation that are building this Universe, we live in.

Thank you for reading. It has been a good challenge to have been asked to look into this topic. And I am grateful for the insights and learnings it has opened up for me.